We want to thank you for listening to this week's sermon from Harvest Bible Chapel, Kansas City. We pray that you will be encouraged and challenged by God's Word today. If you would like more information about Harvest, please visit our website at www.harvestkansascity.org. And now, here's Pastor Jeff Terrell. grab our Bibles and turn to 1 Peter 3. And if you don't have a Bible, just let our ushers know as they're coming down the aisle that you'd like one. You can find 1 Peter 3 and those Bibles on page 1015. And if you don't own one, this is our gift to you that you can take with you and hopefully be able to read on a daily basis and apply practically in your lives. Well, let me go ahead and read our text before us this morning. I wanna encourage you as I'm reading aloud and you're listening quietly at your seats, ask questions of the text. Maybe there's some words or some concepts that as you're reading them, you think, oh, I'd like to know more about that, or I wonder what this means, or maybe this isn't the way that I understood this as I've grown up understanding it. Ask questions of the text, and then as we unpack this sermon, prayerfully, your questions will be answered. Verse eight of 1 Peter 3, it says, finally, all of you. Now, the word finally, I'm not gonna do this throughout the whole reading, trust me. But I just want to draw our attention to the fact that finally means that Peter is drawing something to a close. And that something is a section that began back in chapter two, verses 11 and 12, that we are to put our good conduct on display before the unbelieving world. We're to do that so that when they revile us and they see our response that reflects Christ, that they will actually glorify Him when their day comes of visitation. That's what's being unpacked in this section, and Peter's drawing it to a close. Verse eight, 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, so 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 be God's will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that he might bring us to God, having put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of the dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience. through the resurrection of Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers, having been subjected to him. Pretty easy passage, right? We will do our best to unpack this, and I pray in such a way that informs our thinking so that we can live differently facing whatever life context God has ordained before you. You know, as we dive into this passage, I wanna set it up in this way. Do you understand that the Christian life is not designed to be a hometown journey? Here's what I mean by hometown. When you go back to your hometown after you've been away for a while, isn't it easy to just be comfortable and to be reminded of the comfort of your surroundings? I mean, when I go back to my hometown and my neighborhood where I grew up, I don't need street signs. I don't need somebody telling me, okay, this street is this, and if you wanna get home, you get here. It's almost like my car is on autopilot, and as I'm driving, I'm remembering, okay, this is where I learned to drive. Not very well. This is where I rode my bike and skinned my knee. This is where my best friend lived, and we had that argument. And it's those comfortable reminders of the past that I don't even need a GPS. And yet, isn't it a challenge when we drive into cities that we're not familiar with, especially downtown areas where the twists and turns can sometimes get us headed down the wrong direction of a one-way street? And it's in those times that we kinda feel hopeless and helpless, isn't it? But usually, if we get street signs or we get our GPS out, we get our bearings and we're able to get to our destination. But then, aren't there situations in life where you find yourself out in the middle of nowhere? Maybe in like a wilderness on the top of a mountain in the Rockies where there's no cell coverage, no street signs, very little oxygen. Now in a situation like that, I know some of you are adventurous, but this guy is not, that would be a place of hopelessness. And I want you to understand that metaphorically speaking, each of those analogies is what the Christian life is designed to be. Sometimes we go into the village of I never knew that before. Sometimes we go into the city of, ooh, I should never have done that, I will never do it again. And sometimes we find ourselves in the wilderness of, I don't know where I am, I don't even know if my God that I thought existed does exist, and my life will forever be impacted by what I'm experiencing. Now wouldn't it be great if you were left on top of that mountain, but all of a sudden a parachute came down. And at the end of that parachute was a guide. that gave you every detail of instruction that you needed to get from that place of hopelessness to a place of civilization. Wouldn't it be great if that parachute actually was followed up by another parachute that had a backpack that had all the food and all of the tools that you needed to get from that place of hopelessness to a place of civilization? Wouldn't that be great? That's what this passage is. is it's the parachutes that we need. It's the guide, it's the backpack, and it's also the paved trail that gets us back to a place of civilization where we don't have hopelessness, we have ultimate hope. And in fact, that's why I've entitled this message a guide, if you will, not just to survival, but to thrival, and I think I made that word up. But I don't want us just to survive in our suffering. I don't want us to just survive in our place of uncomfortability. I want us to thrive. And so this is a guide for thriving in times of suffering. And I want you to see the big idea. Would you look at your notes? I want you to see the big idea, is that God has designed suffering in our lives. Suffering is intended to brilliantly magnify Christ. Just stop right there and consider that. Do you recognize that the suffering of your life is actually intended by God to magnify Christ? You may not believe that, and if you're in the middle of suffering right now, that's not easy to own, but I'm telling you it's true. I'm telling you it's true because of the passage that we're about to unpack. Suffering is a design to intentionally magnify Christ, but then look at the last part of the big idea, and to uniquely, uniquely satisfy the sufferer. Sounds like John Piper, doesn't it? Let's dive in and see how this could be the case. Three principles that I want us to see as we embark on our journey through the wilderness of suffering in our lives. Number one is remember your tendencies. Remember your tendencies. And when you consider what a tendency is, a tendency is something that is natural. And I want you to see what your tendency is and what my tendency is at the end of verse 12. Look what it says. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil. And you may be thinking to yourself, Pastor, you don't know me. My tendency is not to do evil. I mean, I do it from time to time, but that's not my natural bent, but it is. It's your natural bent, and it's my natural bent, because that is who we are apart from Christ. This is our tendency, and we must remember that. So when you are experiencing that time of uncomfortability, when you're experiencing suffering in your life, understand that this will be your natural tendency, and that is to do evil, to think evil. You may say, well, how do you argue that? Well, look at verse eight. It says, finally, all of you. Everyone who hears this, everyone falls into this category. And what's gonna unfold is that Peter's going to instruct us. Now listen, eyes up here for a minute. This is a logical course that I'm gonna give you, a logical quiz. If I instruct you, does it not imply that you don't naturally do something? So on Sunday morning, actually Saturday night, I instructed my girls to set their alarms for Sunday morning. This has been our off week. We've been on vacation. And so we've been staying up way, way, way, way, way too late and getting up way, way, way, way too late. But it's fun. And so the body gets used to that. And so Sunday morning, I will just confess, is probably the greatest day of the week to sleep in, isn't it? Don't you just naturally wanna sleep in on a Sunday morning? And so that's our tendency, so the instruction to my girls was set your alarm, why? Because the natural tendency is to wanna sleep in. It's that natural tendency because it's mine too. And so the instruction that we're about to read in these verses reminds us in the instruction what our natural tendencies are. Look at verse eight. Finally, all of you have unity of mind. See, our natural tendency is to not have unity of mind, to want to think our own things, to want to be led by our own emotions, our own feelings. But Peter says it starts with the mind. Beloved eyes up here, remember this. When you go through trials or suffering in your life, when you're struggling through something, the natural tendency is to change behavior, isn't it? I mean, when you're convicted by something, when somebody brings something to your attention, when you're exposed, what do we typically do? I'm gonna change. I'm gonna put filters on my internet. I'm gonna go to church. I'm gonna read the Bible every day of my life. Don't we do that? That's not possible, unless you don't work. It's natural for us to immediately go to behavior. But Peter is reminding us that, listen, the changing and the combating of our tendencies begins in the mind. Have unity of the mind. But then second of all, it says, have sympathy. The word sympathy means to enter into the experience of someone else. And that's not our natural tendency, is it? I mean, if I come to you on a Sunday morning and I say, hey, how are you doing? And you're like, no, not great. My tendency is, have fun with that. I mean, that's our natural tendency, isn't it? As I am self-preservation, don't bring me down. But God wants us to enter in to the experience of others. That's why we experience trials sometimes. So that we can actually, when somebody says, I'm not having a good day, we can say, you know what? I didn't have a good day. I can enter in. So we have sympathy toward one another. Look at the next description. It's brotherly love. You maybe have heard this before, but it's the Greek word Philadelphia, where we get the city in Pennsylvania from. And Philadelphia means to have a care for somebody because of relationship. But that's not our tendency, is it? My tendency is to have care for you for the benefit you're gonna give me. That's my tendency. My tendency is I'm gonna have care for you because of your personality is like mine. But this is reminding us that no, our tendency is to love one another for the benefit that we're gonna get out of it. No, have care for one another because of the relationship that we have with Christ. Brotherly love, a tender heart. You can write down Ephesians 4.32. This is in the same vein as being kind to one another, forgiving one another. This is not our natural tendency. Our natural tendency is, you offended me, that's like slap back in the face. That's our natural tendency. But this is a tender heart. And it leads to the last description in verse eight, and that's a humble mind. A humble mind is not thinking that I'm so bad, it's actually thinking better of others. It's intentionally placing others before yourself. It's looking behind you when you open the door. It's letting, making sure that everybody has had enough pizza. I'm going right to my heart on that one. Making sure that everybody has enough pizza before you take the last piece. Listen, those are simple exercises, but it's reflecting our hearts. See, our tendency is to put ourselves first, isn't it? Me first, self-preservation. See, in this, we see that we need to remember what our tendencies are, and then follow our guide. That's the second part of this outline, is remember our tendencies, remember the natural bents of our lives, that when we're going through suffering, when we're going through times of uncomfortability, remember the natural bent of the human heart, and we must follow the guide. Follow these instructions, but then look at verse nine. Do not repay. The word repay means to replace something. So in the place of, do not put in the place of evil, evil. Do not put in the place of reviling, reviling. But isn't that our natural tendency? Is that if you slap me in the face with your hand, I'm gonna slap you in the face with a glove filled with a rock because I want you to know you can't do that. I remember my baseball days. One of my teammates gets hit by a baseball by the pitcher. What does your pitcher do? Pop. God's Word says that is not supposed to be the character of a follower of Christ. Now the ancient ethical codes actually said the very same thing. And see, what this is saying is not that evil cannot be judged. That's not what this is saying. See, so oftentimes we think, oh, turn your face, let them slap the other side. That means the evil can never be punished. That's not what this is saying. What this is saying is not apples for apples. So if somebody offends you, then you don't have the right then to offend them and return. I am not exacting revenge for your revenge. And this is where this is different than the ancient ethical codes. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, what does it say? Bless. Now listen, this is absurd, humanly speaking. The word bless is not just one of these. It's not what this is. This is intentionally seeking God's favor on the other's behalf. Right? Mind blown. Seeking the favor of the person who offended you, that's the gospel. Now, let me just paint a little practical picture here. This isn't necessarily saying, okay, God, I just pray that you just give them, let them win the lottery. That's not what this is saying. Isn't the ultimate favor God could shine upon the person offending you that he would reveal to them their sin? We're blessing them. Now, what's great about this is it says, on the contrary, bless, for to this is one of your options. I don't know what version you're reading, but that's not what my version says. It says, for to this you were called. Listen, beloved, I think it's easy for us to sometimes sign up for Christianity because we want to put our own benefits on it. We want to say, OK, I'll pick and choose what the Bible says. Some sections that are hard for me to be able to understand and apply, I won't necessarily deal with that. I won't necessarily live that out. But this is reminding us that this most difficult response to evil and reviling in our lives is expected. This is what we were called to do as followers of Christ. Our tendency is to do the opposite. Verse 10, let him keep his tongue from evil. Our tendency, listen, we may not slap people back physically, or I hope you don't, but we slap people with our tongues, don't we? And we may not do it to their face, we might do it to somebody else about them, or we might do it on social media. 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. Beloved, this instruction is implying this is not our tendency, but this is our guide. So remember your tendencies, follow your guide. This is especially important when we are experiencing suffering. You know, remembering tendencies is important before you take a journey, isn't it? Last summer, we were in Estes Park, Colorado, and some of you who know me know that I'm not an outdoorsy person. Give me an air condition and Wi-Fi inside, and I'm good. And so this is God's creation, and so my wife loves to hike, and my family wanted to hike, and so everybody had been telling us throughout the week, you need to go to Emerald Lake. I'm like, okay, Emerald Lake, I've seen the Emerald City, what's the big look? But Emerald Lake it was, and so the night before, we had to remember our tendencies. The tendency is that Jeff does not enjoy the outside. So I had to get into a mindset. The tendency is that my youngest daughter likes to ride on head. You know what ride on head means? It means she climbs up on my neck. And two years before that, she had actually done that for four hours on a hike. So I had to remember that tendency and prepare for that. The tendency of the ladies in my family is that they get low blood sugar. The tendency of the weather in Colorado is that it can change in a moment. And so we had to remember all of these tendencies before we even got on the trail. But then when we got on the trail, we had to make sure that we actually had our backpacks, that my daughter knew that you can't climb on head the whole four hours, that we understood what the weather was, that we understood that we wouldn't have cell reception when we got to the top. And we had to have all of those things in mind. And then we had to follow our guide. And guess what happened? We got to see this. That's pretty, isn't it? That's not a postcard, I actually took that, and what's fascinating is that that doesn't even do it justice. That water is literally emerald green. It is beautiful, and then this is, the next picture shows you that the Terrells actually made it. There we are. So we made it! There was benefit to remembering our tendencies, to following our guide. We got to see this with our own eyes, and I will never forget that. Listen, beloved, when you remember your tendencies and you follow your guide, there are benefits. Look at the text, verse 10. Whosoever desires to love life and see good days. When you remember your tendencies and you follow your guide, guess what? You will be able to love your life and see good days. Who doesn't want that? I mean, even the most cynical among us would say, yes, sign me up for good days. But listen, if you're doing these things, and you're fighting your tendencies, and you're following the guide of God's word, you'll get to a place where you understand what good days means. He actually helps us in verse 12. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to his prayer. That is the good life. And all God's people said, Uh huh, that's what I thought. Now what do we think the good life is? Massive house. Not even a massive house, just a house that meets our needs. What do we say the good life is? That is that the expenses don't outweigh the revenue or the income, right? That I have a job, that I have a healthy life, that I have relationships that are healthy and thriving. We would say that's the good life, but the good life is the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are open to their prayers. Beloved, there are days when I'm not there. I'll be just perfectly honest with you. I don't naturally get to this place. I'm just like you. I'm in this community and I'm built to compare and to see, wow, that person has this and I only have this. I'm built to be dissatisfied. Oh, I have this, I need this. That is life. That's human nature. And we need to remember these tendencies and follow our guide. That's the first principle. The second principle is to remember your triage. Remember your triage, and you're like, what's a triage? A triage is you've got to find an order of something really quick. So like, for instance, if this had happened, I showed you a picture that gave evidence that it didn't. But if Jeff would have tumbled down the mountain and found himself in a heap with cuts and bruises and broken bones, we would have had to triage, wouldn't we? We would have had to figure out with all of those problems that he has, what's the most important one to address first? And then once we get this one addressed, where do we go from him? So from there, it's important that when we're experiencing suffering and all of those things are crowding on us and they're flooding in, we've got all of those injuries around us that we triage and we understand where to start. And it starts with a mindset. Look at verse 13. This is what Peter's unpacking. He says, now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? This is a rhetorical question. He's wanting to recalibrate his readers to understand. See, it's so easy for us that when we're experiencing something that we wouldn't choose, we'd immediately throw up the suffering flag, don't we? Oh, Satan's persecuting me. Oh, I'm just suffering for Jesus. No, sometimes the experiences that we have in life that are not what we would draft up is because we live in a sin-cursed world. Sometimes the things we're experiencing in our lives are the result of our own sin or our own foolishness. Sometimes the things in our life that we're experiencing are actually lessons that God has designed for us so that we can grow to be more like him. It isn't always that it's suffering and what he's trying to do is remind them rhetorically that if you live this way in those first few verses, you're probably not gonna be persecuted as a norm. Isn't that true? I mean, if you live in a way that when somebody slaps you in your face, you're like, hey, God, would you just bless them? They're probably not gonna be like, well, let me hit you harder. That's not the norm. Now, it does happen, and he says that in verse 14, but even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, but the norm is is that if you live like Christ in this life, is that you're probably gonna get along with people. It's gonna take a lot of pain on your own heart because you're gonna be laying aside your tendencies and you're gonna be fighting your flesh constantly, but if you live peacefully, like these verses unpack, the norm is not gonna be that you're persecuted, but it does happen. And he reminded his readers that he understood that some of them were experiencing this. But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, it says you will be blessed and you can get to a place where you have no fear of them nor be troubled, the new American standard says, by their intimidation. That's a great translation. So it says you will be blessed. You can get to a place where even if you're being persecuted for righteousness, you can still with confidence stand before these individuals and not revile them in return. And the question is, how can a human being get there? By triaging. And the triage, you can write this down, begins by thinking of others instead of ourselves. That's where the triage begins. But that isn't where we begin, is it? If I'm experiencing a trial or suffering in my life, guess what? I love to get on the downward slide of despair. I love to be Eeyore. Woe is me. Actually, that was pretty good, wasn't it? We do that. Pain in our lives, and I immediately look at myself. I immediately want to run to God, get me out of this. I want to run to, this is not fair, but listen, the downward spiral of despair is slicked by the grease of me. That's true. And so one of the most difficult things for me to do when I'm on that slide of, it's real suffering, I'm not denying that. Peter's saying that, that it can happen and it does happen. But when I'm experiencing suffering, I'm often so focused on myself that it just keeps going down and down and down. And Peter's giving us the instruction that we need to triage. It starts by taking the focus off of me and putting the focus on, look at verse 14, in your hearts, honor Christ. That's where it begins. It doesn't even go to thinking better about your persecutor. It doesn't even go to, okay, well, maybe God has a plan for this. It goes to honoring Christ first and setting him aside or setting him apart, as one of the translations says, as holy. What does that even mean? I love what Wayne Grudem said. As he said, this is a settled mindset that Christ, not one's human opponent, is truly in control of events. Let me say that again. A settled disposition of the heart that Christ, and not one's human opponents, is in control of the events. Listen, eyes up here, beloved. This is where theology instructs our living. is that if you right now are being persecuted, be reminded in your hearts, and that's a settled disposition, this isn't a feeling, this isn't our emotions, although in suffering, don't we usually get driven by our feelings and emotions? This is, I'm gonna lay my feelings and emotions aside, and I'm gonna think and dwell on what is true. And what is true is that even in my suffering, this is being controlled by Christ and not others. This is what we talked about in Jonah. And listen, beloved, this is tough. It's tough to own, especially when you're suffering, is that Christ is ordaining the evil of your life. I know, that's a tough one. but nothing happens in your life but doesn't first pass through the hand of God and yet it's awesome, it doesn't diminish him at all. He is using the evil of this world for his purposes and for his glory and yet not affected at all by evil. And so whatever you're experiencing in your life, you get to a place where you say, the suffering I'm experiencing, this horrific circumstance that I wish I wasn't experiencing, that it is being controlled by Christ. If you can get there, it produces hope. It produces hope. Because if you are in that wilderness place in your life, and you've experienced suffering, and all you're doing is focusing on yourself, and how could this person be doing this to me? And how could this happen to my loved one? If you're dwelling on that, that's a place of hopelessness. It's a place of despair, but if you can get to a place where you recognize that God has ordained this, therefore, I defer to him, there's hope. But this is not normal. This is not, humanly speaking, what any of us do. And so there will be points, if you can respond to suffering in this way, where people will ask you, what in the world? That's what it says in verse 15. But in your hearts, honor Christ, the Lord is holy, always being prepared, what? To make a defense. It's the word apologia, or a defense, or an answer to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. They're gonna ask. They're gonna look you in the eyes, and they're gonna say, how do you have hope in this situation, and you need to be ready. The word apologia is where we get our English word apologetics, and that's a defense of the faith. It's the questions where people say, hey, but can God create a rock too big that he can carry? Well, listen, the answer to that is no, because he would cease from being God. It doesn't diminish God at all. But you don't have to be in a place where you can be an expert on every question somebody can ask. What Peter is saying here is that you need to be able to give the answers for the essentials. Write that down. You need to be able to unpack the essentials of the gospel. And what is that? It's that you admit that you're a sinner and cannot save yourself. Can you get there? Can you believe that Christ's life, his death, his resurrection, and his place at the right hand of God? Verse 22, we'll get there in a minute. Believe that all of that for Christ, who he is, and what he accomplished is enough to save you. And then can you see, can you confess your sins and commit your life to him? A, B, C. Y'all can do that, right? And you can share, hey, this is what that's actually done in my life. Look at how I've changed from the inside out. If that is your testimony, you should be able to share that when somebody asks the question. It says, give them an answer, a reason for the hope that is in you. But, verse 16, not everybody's gonna ask questions. Some of them are gonna slander you. And they're gonna revile your good behavior. But someday they may be put to shame. They will be put to shame, either in this life. Have you ever had somebody criticize you wrongly and everybody's like, uh, no, that doesn't make sense? You ever had somebody post a review on your Facebook page That's paragraph after paragraph saying people should never attend this church. Nobody would ever do that, right? And as you're reading it, you're like, okay, ooh, that sounds bad, but then you're like, eh, this person kind of has an ax to grind, and not all the information is in that review. That would never happen. But hopefully people can look at that, and they can say, mm, that's probably not all accurate. They can be put to shame. Others can be put to shame by recognizing on the judgment day that they were wrong, God was right, and by God's grace, we were living for Christ. That will shame them. But our desire with all of this, back to chapter two and verse 12, is that their shaming would be on the day that they realize, oh man, God, you are right, they give their life to Christ. That's the ultimate shame we hope that they have. So we need to remember your triage. But then we need to make our progress. Make your progress. What is the progress? Look at verse 17. It is better to suffer for doing good. Man, that's a hard place to get. And even look at the theology of the next phrase. It says if that should be God's will. Sometimes it is God's will that you, beloved, suffer for doing good. than for doing evil. Can you get to that place? If you can get to a place where when you're experiencing suffering, you say, no, I can take joy in this, you're making progress. Look at verse 16, here's another evidence of progress. You have good conscience. I mean, isn't that awesome? That in the middle of your suffering, you can lay your head on the pillow and not say, oh man, I shouldn't have said that to them. I don't like that. I mean, there's days where in the moment my emotions get to me, and I'm like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then I lay my head on the pillow at night, and I'm like, oh, I wish I wouldn't have said that. But isn't the sleep of the one with good conscience sweet? That's progress. And then, look at the good progress at the end of verse 15, that you answer them with gentleness and respect. That you're not holier than thou, that you're not giving them Christianese or big words that you know they won't understand, and you're like, hmm, surprised you didn't know that. See, when you are thinking this way of others and God and Christ more highly than yourself, even in the midst of your suffering, there will be progress. But again, it begins in the mind. Listen to what C.S. Lewis says. I'm taking this from Desiring God, John Piper's book that just has transformed my life. I've been listening to him a lot lately because I've been so focused on comparison. I've been so focused on dissatisfaction. I've been so distracted from things and not seeing things with a God-centered lens. Listen to what C.S. Lewis says about us. We are half-hearted creatures. We are. He says we're fooling about with food and sex and ambition. This is what the world around us pursues. This is what we are tempted to pursue is that somehow these offerings of the world will satisfy. It won't. It won't. I mean, just take food, for instance. I've shared this before, but it's a great analogy, and it's the one that comes to mind, is that I can eat the best food known to man, which is obviously Lou Malmati's deep dish pizza. I can eat that, and in the moment, I'm enjoying it, and it's satisfying. There's textures, and I'm like ratatouille, and it's just popping everywhere. But what happens the next day after my tummy ache? I'm still hungry. Beloved, that is the analogy, that's the illustration of everything this world has to offer. You think a certain number in your bank account will satisfy, it won't. Read Ecclesiastes, the richest man who ever lived. If you just read the Old Testament, just take what the descriptions are there and turn them into our contemporary, look at the conversion rates. Nobody will ever have the wealth that Solomon said. And what was his conclusion in Ecclesiastes? It's all vanity. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. Now that's us. Relationships, mud pies. Careers, mud pies. Bank accounts, mud pies. Houses, anything. Relationships, anything this world has to offer. If we are looking to that to satisfy, it's mud pies. Jesus Christ is saying, no, relationship with me is like a holiday at the sea. The crashing of the waves, the crystal blue water, the white sand under your toes, that's Christ. But beloved, when we focus on ourselves and on our circumstances and we're not sanctifying him and putting him apart in our heart as he's holy and then investing in others, we will just continue to downward spiral to despair. Beloved, let's triage and let's make progress. Number three, remember your trailblazer. Remember your trailblazer? You know, when we were climbing in Estes, there were actually steps on the trail. That was awesome, and I know God didn't put them there. So that meant that somebody went before us and said, okay, listen, hikers, you probably don't want to step here, you want to step here. That was helpful. And so what verse 18 says is that the trailblazer is Christ. Look at this. For Christ also suffered and he suffered for righteousness. Once for sins, look at this, the righteous for the unrighteous. Right out to the side, that's substitutionary atonement. And you're like, whoa, that's a big word. The reason why I highlight that is because that is under attack, and it's under attack in our community. There's a pastor in our community who says that the death of Christ on the cross was not substitutionary. It was simply to unlock this view of how you can live at peace with fellow man. That's not it. This is what Christ's death was for. The righteous Christ for the unrighteous me. It's a substitution. What a gift. And what was he doing? He was blazing a trail that he might bring us to God. Boom! That's it! That's the treasure of life. We were singing about that. More than all the treasures I could hold, there's nothing that I can hold that is greater than this treasure, the righteous for the unrighteous. Glory to God, amen? And then there's the rest of the passage. Here's what Martin Luther said about the rest of the passage. It's a wonderful text, this is. In a more obscure passage, perhaps, than any other in the New Testament. So that I do not know with certainty just what Peter means, I cannot understand and I cannot explain it, and there has been no one who has explained it. It's what led one commentator that I met this week to say to his congregation, we turn in our Bibles to 1 Peter 3, verses 18 through 22. Let's begin in verse one of chapter four. So listen, what I'm saying by highlighting that is I recognize this is a difficult passage that we're gonna unpack in five minutes. And I'm feeling the weight of that, but I'm also hopefully in humility expressing to you that I believe there's a place to land, but I recognize that there are others who have gone before me and that are preaching today who would have other positions, and that's okay. But I'm gonna explain to you where my position is, and I pray that you'll see it clearly from the text, and if you can, let's hold it together. that Peter was unpacking for those suffering in these provinces. The victory that can be shared with Christ. That's the second part of the outline. Own your victory. Own your victory. And the victory that Peter's unpacking here is a three-fold victory, and I would encourage you to write this down, and hopefully I'll prove it from the text. But Jesus' death accomplished victory over death, over the spiritual realm, and over sin. Write that down. Peter is saying that in the middle of your battles, in the middle of your wrestling match, that Jesus accomplished victory in three areas that give you access to that victory. Victory over death, victory over the spiritual realm, and victory over sin. The first one I think is the easiest. It says in verse 18, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. Now, there's a lot of heresies in church history that I won't take the time to unpack, but people say, well, that means that Jesus died in the flesh, but he didn't arise in the flesh. That's not what this is saying. What this is saying is that the ultimate end for every human being, the ultimate demise for every human being is that their physical body died and Jesus experienced that too. But Jesus experienced something that no other human being did, and that was he was made alive, both body and spirit, by the Spirit. I mean, yes, Lazarus in John chapter 11 was brought back from the dead, but by all historical accounts, guess what? Lazarus died after that. There is no one who is made alive in the Spirit quite like Christ, and in doing so, he gained victory over death. Glory to God, amen? Oh, it gets a little complicated. So he was made alive in the spirit, but before we unpack how he gained victory over the spiritual realm, I need to take us back to Genesis. The spiritual realm and God have always had a conflict between good and evil, haven't they? The first evidence of that was back in Genesis chapter three, and Satan tried it subtly. He thought, I will take God's perfect creation, and I am going to destroy it by making them equal with God. Now Satan did not have all of the information at his disposal because he's not omniscient. And so he knew there was one fruit that God had prohibited his perfect creation to take, so there must be something valuable to it, right? And so he said to Eve that if you partake in the fruit, you will be like whom? Like God. So Satan's hope is that somehow he could take creation, make it equal to God, and if something is equal to God, then God is defeated. That was the attempt in Genesis 3. How did that work out for Satan? It didn't. Creation was plunged into corruption. The promise of a seed in Genesis 3.15 was given. So now let's fast forward to Genesis chapter 6. Another opportunity for the spiritual realm. And so they just tried to do another tactic. And the other tactic, as we unpacked months ago in Genesis chapter six, is that the sons of God cohabitated with the daughters of man. And I explained to you and argued to you that I believe what that meant is that the angels took on human form and had relations with women for the purpose of developing a race that would be equal with God. Now God didn't take kindly to that, did he? In fact, in verse four it says, my patience is used up with man. His days will be 120 years. What he meant by that is that between that point and 120 years, he would destroy the earth. That's what Peter's referring to here. Now God in his grace and in his patience saved eight souls. That's what Peter says in 1 Peter in our passage. Saved them from the judgment of the water. But back then, he placed those spirits in prison. We'll study that when we get to 2 Peter 2. There was another effort that the spiritual realm had. They were like, hey, we understand that in baseball there's three strikes. We're going to try a third time. And the third time was Genesis chapter 11. Remember that. The man had gathered in the east and they tried to design a city that somehow would have a tower that would get to be equal with God. And somehow if the spiritual realm could get behind that and man could accomplish that, then somehow God could be defeated. How did that work out? Remember the Tower of Babel? God said, nope, I'm gonna give you different languages, separate you out into the nations, and that didn't work out. There was one last attempt. that the spiritual realm had against God wasn't there. And that was in the first century, in Jerusalem, and that's the event that Peter's referring to here. And so those angels were in prison. Those, not angels, I believe they were spiritual beings. If you want to study more about this, you can check out Michael Heiser's book, Unseen Realm, fascinating. that these spiritual beings must have thought at that point, this is our hope, this is our hope, this is the victory. I mean, this is God himself and he's hanging on a cross, but yet he was made alive in the spirit, victory to Jesus. Look what it says in verse 19. In which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison because they formerly did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah. Referring back to Genesis chapter six. Look at verse 22. He, Christ, has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels' authorities and powers, having been subjected to him, victory number two over the spiritual realm. Now whether or not Jesus went to hell and preached, because that's what the Greek word means, to preach, whether or not he did that, one of the creeds say that he did, I don't know. It doesn't explicitly say in the text. And we need to be careful that we don't allow creeds and denominations to influence our understanding of the text. Our understanding of the text is the historical reference first, historical context, and then we understand it for us today. But he gained victory over the spiritual realm, and at that point, when he is seated at the right hand of God, the spiritual realm knows the clock is ticking, the victory is his. But then there's one last victory that Peter unpacks here, and that's the victory over sin. Verse 21, baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you. And there have been positions throughout all of history since this was written that have concluded from this text that this means that the ceremony of baptism is what saves you. But I would argue in four respects that that's not what Peter's saying here. What Peter is saying is that this is victory over sin, and let me explain to you what that is. Look what it says, baptism, which corresponds to this. What is the this? The this is back in the previous verse. where Peter had just said that physically, the eight souls were saved from the physical waters of judgment, which was the flood, through a physical boat, which was the ark. Physical, physical, physical. But now, in verse 21, when he says, corresponds to this, he's highlighting to the readers that, okay, he's making an analogy. The analogy corresponds to the physical salvation of the eight souls in Noah's family through the physical flood, but this isn't physical. The second point I wanna draw to your attention is look what it says, not as a removal of dirt. He's expressing here that look, I'm not saying that the waters of baptism physically save you, that's not the point. And the way that I can conclude this dogmatically is the next two words that I want to highlight. Look what it says, but as an appeal to God. The word appeal in the original language means a pledge. And that's what baptism is, isn't it? It's a public pledge, which leads us to the next word, which is the fourth point that I'm drawing out, and that is for a good conscience. Now the word conscience is a word that we typically think of to describe our ability to discern between right and wrong. That's not what this word means. It means it's an attitude or decision that reflects one's loyalty. Isn't that awesome? So here's what Peter is saying, is that baptism does not produce salvation. What it does is it provides a public oath of loyalty to a risen Savior. When we are baptized, we are already saved. We have already committed our lives to Christ. That's Romans 10.9. Isn't it interesting that Romans 10.9 says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. No mention of baptism there, isn't it? So baptism is simply an outward expression of loyalty, it's our pledge, it's our declaration publicly of we are loyal to one master and that's Christ alone. But listen to this, this is awesome, hang with me, is it is a reminder to the spiritual realm every time a believer is baptized that the victory is Christ's. Isn't that awesome? So let's have some more baptisms. If you've never been baptized, when we get back to Frontier Trail, if that's where we end up, they have a pool there and we can get baptized. And listen, every time there's a baptism, the spiritual realm groans because it recognizes that Christ has won the victory over sin. And it is a victory that we all can share. Would you bow your head and close your eyes? We are gonna celebrate this victory as we partake in the Lord's table. This is the victory over the power of sin. It's a victory that we can own, we can share in, beloved, and especially in our trials and our sufferings, this is our hope. And so let me give you three practical applications as you prepare your heart for the Lord's table. Number one, you need to be daily consulting the guide. Daily consulting the guide is not enough to have the parachute land and to have the guidebook put right out before you if you just close it up and you put it in your back pocket. daily consulting the guide. And listen, there are times in our lives when we need help. That's why I'm listening to John Piper recently. That's why sometimes I'll just pop on Matt Chandler or John MacArthur. Sometimes I need help and I think you do too. And that's okay. We need to be daily consulting the guide, but then we also need to be making progress. And I love that concept because progress doesn't mean perfection. Love what John Calvin wrote in his book, The Golden Book of True Christianity. He says, though we fall short, our labor is not lost if this day surpasses the preceding one. That's awesome. We all epically fail, don't we? And yet the beauty of the gospel is that when we recognize our failure, we turn it over to Christ and we say, okay, tomorrow I am resolved that that day will honor him better than today. make progress, and then third, own your victory, the victory that is His. And just like we've sung earlier in our worship set, we lay down us and we pick up Him. Beloved, this is our opportunity to go to the Lord and prepare our hearts and invite the ushers forward. And in a moment, they're gonna pass out the elements. And I wanna explain to you that these elements, as 1 Corinthians 11 says, are more than just a ceremony. It's an act of worship. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11 that if you follow these elements and you partake of the elements and your heart is not in the right place, bad things can happen. And so I'm warning you, I'm reminding you that this is only for believers. If you have surrendered your life to Christ, and you have committed your life to Christ, and you know that beyond a shadow of a doubt, then this is offered to you. But there's a second caveat that Paul gives, and that is you need to be in right relationship with Him. So there might be some of you that are harboring sin that you're aware of, or maybe this sermon has exposed sin, and you need to do business with God, so will you confess it? Will you recalibrate? Change your mind that will lead to changed behaviors. But if you're in that place of health before your God, then this is for you. And so after I get done praying, they are gonna pass out the elements. There'll be two cups, one on top of each other. Would you just hold on to them and would you listen to the words of this song as you pray and as you reflect, just preparing your hearts to celebrate the worship of the Lord's table? Father, I thank you for the precious gift of Jesus Christ. I thank you for a passage like this that puts his death on display, his suffering for righteousness, the righteous one on behalf of the unrighteous. I pray now that if there's anyone here that has not entered into relationship with you, that through the blood of Christ and through them humbling themselves and turning from their sin and committing their lives to you, that they would enter in. For those who have been saved, I pray that they would take this moment and evaluate through your word and your Holy Spirit the crevices of their hearts to have you expose any sin that needs to be dealt with. And then, Lord, after this time of purification, would you receive our worship as only you deserve? It's in Jesus' name I pray, amen.