1 Peter 3:13-17

• 1 Peter 3:13-17 – Suffering and Hope in Christ

  Key Themes:

  • Suffering for Righteousness: Believers are called to suffer well, with their hope anchored in Christ. Suffering for doing good is a blessing because it glorifies God.

  • Living as Imitators of Christ: Following Jesus means walking in His footsteps, enduring trials with peace and joy, knowing our ultimate reward is in heaven.

  • Defending the Faith with Gentleness: Christians must always be ready to explain the hope they have in Christ, doing so with meekness and respect.

  • The Value of a Good Conscience: A clear conscience, rooted in Christ’s righteousness, strengthens believers as they endure trials.

  Structure of the Sermon:

  1. Our Hearts and Suffering (vv. 13-14):

     • Suffering for righteousness' sake is a cause for blessing.

     • Fear of threats is unnecessary; no one can harm our eternal joy in Christ.

     • Historical examples (e.g., Blandina and Polycarp) illustrate enduring suffering with steadfast faith.

  2. Sanctify the Lord in Your Hearts (v. 15):

     • To sanctify God means to revere Him as holy and central in our lives.

     • Being ready to defend the hope in Christ stems from a heart devoted to Him.

  3. The Role of Good Conscience and Conduct (vv. 16-17):

     • A good conscience comes from living righteously through faith in Christ.

     • Good conduct testifies to our hope in Christ, shaming those who defame believers.

  Illustrations and Examples:

  • Blandina and Early Martyrs: Enduring persecution with unshakable hope in Christ.

  • William Tyndale: Faithful in translating the Bible, even unto death.

  • Modern Witnesses: Stories of Christians suffering for righteousness in workplaces and families.

Living and Suffering Well in Christ

Main Text: 1 Peter 3:13-17
Goal: To explore how Christians can endure suffering for righteousness while maintaining hope and joy in Christ.

1. Understanding Suffering in Christ

• Key Passage: 1 Peter 3:13-14

• Discussion Questions:

  • How does suffering for righteousness bring blessing?

  • Why can’t the world take away a believer’s peace or joy?

• Application: Reflect on ways you can trust God when facing trials, knowing your reward is secure in heaven.

2. Sanctify the Lord in Your Heart

• Key Passage: 1 Peter 3:15

• Discussion Questions:

  • What does it mean to sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart?

  • How can you prepare to give a defense for your hope in Christ?

• Application: Practice articulating your testimony and explaining your hope in Jesus, focusing on gentleness and respect.

3. Living with a Good Conscience

• Key Passage: 1 Peter 3:16-17

• Discussion Questions:

  • What role does good conduct play in witnessing to others?

  • How can Christians avoid self-righteousness while maintaining a good conscience?

• Application: Identify areas where your conduct could better reflect your faith in Christ, and commit to change.

4. Westminster Confession and Catechisms

• Confession Reference: Westminster Confession of Faith 5.7: God’s providence governs even our suffering, teaching us dependence and trust.

• Larger Catechism Q&A:

  • Q. 135: Duties required include love, meekness, and peace-making, even amidst persecution.

  • Q. 136: Sins forbidden include despair or reviling when suffering unjustly.

• Shorter Catechism Q&A:

  • Q. 1: Our ultimate purpose, even in suffering, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

5. Practical Steps to Suffer Well

• Rejoice in Trials: Remember Matthew 5:10-12; find joy in suffering for Christ’s sake.

• Imitate Christ’s Example: Recall His humility and forgiveness, even under persecution.

• Defend the Faith: Prepare to answer questions about your hope with clarity and kindness.

• Anchor Your Peace in Christ: Meditate on Romans 8:38-39 to strengthen your assurance in God’s love.

Memory Verse:
"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear." – 1 Peter 3:15

Will you please turn in your Bibles with me to 1 Peter chapter 3. 1st Peter chapter 3. It's really hard for me to really emphasize enough how intricately woven and interconnected 1st Peter is from chapter 1 to chapter 5. I mean, there's so many different connections that Peter's really unfolding here. And so for that reason, we're going to read verses 8 through 17, but the sermons are going to be from 13 to 17. So if you're using the New King James Pew Bibles, you'll find that on page 1077. Hear now God's word. Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another. Love as brothers. Be tenderhearted and be curious. not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing. For he who would love life and see good days, let him refrain 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 prayers. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. and do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear, having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better If it is the will of God to suffer for doing good, then for doing evil. Thus ends this portion of the reading of God's word. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. Every jot, every tittle, every vowel, every consonant, It's all true. And Father, we thank you. We thank you for your word. And we pray, Father, that now as we come to the portion of your worship where we have the preaching, Father, I pray that you would please even work in me, often unfaithful and sinful servant. Lord, please, we need your spirit to be the one teaching us this morning. Give us your truth. And Father, we pray that we would receive it with joy. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In 177 AD, there was a young Christian slave girl, slave woman. Her name was, it's a French name, so I'm not too good with this. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing it. Blandina, Blandina. And Blandina, this young Christian slave woman, was under the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and there was a beginning of a rise of persecution against Christians at this time, and she was imprisoned. She was imprisoned and tortured, and they tried to get her to bow to the emperor, to make sacrifices to the emperor. They tried to get her to denounce Christ, and again and again and again, as she was being tortured, she would say, and we do nothing evil. Even as she was being fed to the lions in the amphitheater, I am a Christian and we do nothing evil. There's this thing going on in Christianity today that's almost like a false Christianity, a pseudo-Christianity. It will blanket itself in the language of scripture and in Christianese-type lingo. But what it's really selling to us is that if you become a Christian, your life is going to be happy. If you become a Christian, things in this life are going to go well for you. Your health is going to go well. You're going to be able to speak blessings into your life that will become reality, and you'll be wealthy. And everything in your life, if you become a Christian, it's going to be like there's never any freezing rain. There's no power outages. It's just all puppy dogs and rainbows. Brothers and sisters, that's not what we find in God's Word. It's not what we find from Peter's mouth. from the Holy Spirit. Now, we walk as sojourners, we walk as pilgrims, and in this life, Peter's writing to people who are really suffering. But he needs to give them why. And how do they live out that suffering to God's glory? And the key to this is that they're in Christ. And my call for you this morning is in Christ, live well, in Christ, suffer well, and fix your eyes on Christ. So first, as we try to live well, suffer well, and fixing our eyes on Christ, I want us to look first at verses 13 and 14 about our hearts and suffering. Look with me at verses 13 and 14. And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. Who can do evil to you if you are an imitator of God? That word here where it says, if you become followers of what is good, we get our word mimicry from this Greek word here. If we are mimics, if we are those who are imitating Jesus Christ, we see the footsteps he walked where he was reviled and yet reviled not in return. That he was being ridiculed and suffered malice against and yet he didn't return evil for evil. If we're following in his footsteps, what harm could come to us? Now notice, and who is he who will harm you? Well, it's, hold on, I thought this was all about people are getting harmed. So how does, how does he saying here in verse 13, and who is he who will harm you? That's what Jesus taught, told his disciples. That's what Jesus gave to Peter. Don't fear those who can kill the body, but cannot destroy the soul. There's a zealous desire of following Jesus here. He's telling them as they imitate Christ, that they don't need to be overwhelmed or filled with anxiety and concern over the fear of those who would harm them. And so my question for you this morning is, are you following Christ? Are you imitating Christ? Is your heart so united with Christ that when others see your footsteps, they look like Christ's footsteps? If so, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, if you are imitating Christ, if you are zealous for Jesus Christ, what harm could happen to you? Don't be afraid of those who could kill your body because they can't take your soul. This is what we find in the very early testimony of the Christian Church, Acts chapter 7, when Stephen himself is being killed. He prays for those who are literally taking rocks and throwing them at him to murder him. And he prays for them. And as they stand there killing him, it says in the text that his face glowed or shone like an angel. They were doing real bodily harm to him, but he knew where his Lord was in heaven. And so he could suffer well because he knew that he was following Christ. Can someone harm you so much in this life that they take away your Christian joy? No. No, see, nobody can harm you in such a way to take away your joy. Why? Because your joy isn't here on earth in fleeting passions and pleasures, but your joy is in Jesus Christ who's in heaven. This is why Pauly Carp, when he was 86 years old, as he was being tied to the stake, could pray this prayer. Lord God Almighty, Father of your beloved, I bless you. Because you have thought me worthy of this day and this hour to be numbered among your martyrs, sharing the suffering of Christ. An 86-year-old man being tied to the stake to be burned alive because the animals couldn't kill him. Praise, thanking God that he could be martyred. How could he have that type of joy? How could he thank God as he's about to die because his joy wasn't here on earth? They couldn't truly harm him. What harm could they do to him? They couldn't steal his joy. Can the world take away your peace? No. No, it can't. The world cannot harm you to this extent that it could take away your peace. There's a Christian woman in Carthage in prison for her faith and right around the year 200 AD. And as she wrote in her prison cell, she wrote, the dungeon has become to me as a palace so that I preferred being there to anywhere else. This Christian woman was put in chains in a prison because she would not renounce her faith in Jesus Christ, and they still couldn't take her peace away from her. Do you see what Peter's getting at? And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? They can't take your peace. They can't take your joy. They can't take your hope because your hope is in Christ. Your hope is in God. This is why Jesus told his disciples in John chapter 14. Peace, I leave with you. My peace, I give you. I do not give you as the world gives you. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. Brothers and sisters, if the Holy Spirit is in you, and if you are in Christ, then you have no one who can truly harm you. There's nothing that can separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. They cannot do true eternal harm to you. And so if you are suffering for righteousness sake, Jesus says that you are blessed. And they may do true harm to you bodily in this life. They may take away your job. They may take away your home. They may rip you from your families. They may crush your freedoms. They may starve you, make you poor, but they cannot take away your blessing. Do you remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 10? When Jesus is going through the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 10, the most famous sermon ever preached, Matthew chapter 10, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says this, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Then notice what Jesus says after this. What's our hearts supposed to do? Rejoice and be exceedingly glad. For great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Do you see when we face suffering and trials in this life for righteousness sake? We can rejoice and be glad. It doesn't have to bring us down to the pit of despair. God remembers and sees your suffering. God marks every single Christian who suffered and was persecuted under ISIS. All the Kurdish Christians who were killed by Islamic extremists. All the children in Nigeria, these Christian children who were murdered by Boko Haram, the Lord remembers them and they are blessed for great was their reward in heaven. But it's not just about outright persecution where people might kill you and murder you. I remember talking to a Christian man just not too long ago. We were on a vacation going to another church And there was, as I was talking to this man and his wife, we asked how they ended up in this city. And they ended up there because he couldn't find a job elsewhere. They had to move from the East Coast to the Midwest because as a Christian, he was committed to doing no evil. And his organization was doing illegal things. He was working as an actuary. He dealt with numbers like an accountant. And as the organization was fudging numbers and lying on reports, he blew the whistle. And his name was put through the mud. His reputation was ruined. He lost his job. And he became almost untouchable in the field, because even though he had done the righteous thing, they were slandering him as one doing evil. But they couldn't take away his joy. They couldn't take away his peace even as he had to go and move to a whole different part of the country just to find a job because he had done the righteous thing. He had peace in his heart because he knew that he had followed his Lord Jesus Christ. There are Christian parents who know what it's like to have their children walk away from them, shun them, call them hateful and bigoted and backwards because they stand for the truth of Jesus Christ. The Lord marks that. The Lord knows what that suffering looks like. And notice what he does here. The Holy Spirit leads Peter to write in verse 14 directly quoting Isaiah chapter 8. And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. If there's anybody who knew what it was like to be afraid of what God had called them to do? It would have been Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 8, God is telling Isaiah to go and to testify against the king of Israel, against the king of Judah, against Ahaz himself. Do you know what it's like to be a prophet and go walk before a king and tell them what you're doing is evil and you need to stop? Do you know what that can cost you? They'll cost you your head. And God tells Isaiah in this commission, do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. Make no doubt about it, this wasn't a small thing for Isaiah. During the time of Manasseh, the church fathers in ancient Jewish tradition gives us that during the time of Manasseh, Isaiah was sawn in half. That's how he ended his life, as a martyr for God. They could harm his body, but they could not take away his peace. They could not take away his love for the Lord. See, this is what Romans chapter 8 is getting at. When Paul is telling us about the hope that we have in Christ Jesus, He tells us, God speaks to us and he says, what then shall we say of these things? Speaking of all the different persecutions and trials. If God is for us, who could be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, As it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter, yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angel, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things that come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Don't be afraid. Don't have fear when trials and persecutions come. Do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. Instead, what should we do? Our second point, set your eyes on God. Look with me at verse 15. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. This idea of sanctifying, we've talked about it a number of times, but this is revering, right? We know that the Holy Spirit is the one who has sanctified us unto obedience, chapter 1, verse 2. But do we treat God himself as holy? Christians, the reason why we are able to suffer well for God's glory, for the furthering of the kingdom, is because God is not a common object in our lives. But we see him as holy. Let me just say, right, you're not going to suffer for something that you think is disposable. If you treat God as a commodity to be used and then put to the side, you're not going to defend Him. You're not going to cling to Him. Why? Because it's disposable. But not so with us. No. We sanctify the Lord God in our hearts so that we are able to give a defense to everyone who asks for the reason for the hope that is in us. You defend what's valuable to you. You defend what's sacred to you. You defend what's meaningful to you. I was just reading lately about how, and this is not a political sermon, but this is just a cultural insight. The U.S. military is having a really, really, really hard time recruiting. And they're having to give massive bonuses and lots of extravagant types of things to try to get people to join the armed forces. And I think that one of the reasons possibly why that's the case is as we look in our society, as we see how things are going in the educational realm, as we see what happens in culture, how do people treat our nation? In American culture, there's this sense that's risen up over the last decade of, well, you know, we're just not that good, and we have this horrible history, and America is trash, and I'm ashamed to be an American, and the rates of patriotism and the desire to see America as a great nation worthy to be defended, especially amongst the young generations, millennials and younger, has vanished away. Why would you defend something you don't value? As more and more young people are being told that the freedoms that they have and the nation that they live in isn't good, why would they want to then go pick up arms to defend that nation? How does this tie to this passage? Is your Christian faith worth defending? Is your hope in God that precious to you? Is God Himself that holy to you, that revered to you, that special to you, that if somebody was to try to rip Jesus out of your hands, it would have to be out of your cold, dead hands? Do you hold to Jesus Christ that much that nobody's going to take Him away from you, not even death itself? As we look to God our Father who's closer, who has chosen us, and who has known us, we're willing to suffer for His glory. As we value the blood of Jesus that has sprinkled us clean from all our sins, we're willing to go to the hard places. As we abide in Christ and the love of the Father is poured out on us in His Spirit and continues its sanctifying work in us, God becomes more and more precious to us. The Son becomes the pearl of great price that we would sell everything else if we could go and attain it. We are able to have grace and peace even in the face of those who would persecute us if we know that our reward is in heaven, that we get Christ for all eternity. So Christian, don't be afraid of their threats or be troubled, but be always ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you because you have God in your sights. He's revered in your heart. And so when somebody asks you, why would you hope in this? You're able to give it from your heart, why you hold to Him, why you love Him, why you follow Him. This idea in verse 15, and always be ready to give a defense. This word for defense is apologia, which is where we get our word for... Apology is not actually where we get our word for this, but apology is a defense for something. It's answering an accusation. This is a legal term. If you were to be put on trial, and you're a witness, and you have to defend your faith, defend your position, defend why you did what you did, or believe what you believe, that's what you would have to do. And Jesus says to his disciples in Matthew 10, verse 18, that they would be brought before kings and governors. And they would have to give a defense for their faith. Now it's interesting, as I was reading through this, I had never noticed before when Jesus says in Matthew chapter 10, that they're going to be drugged before those who are kings and governors, the exact same words Peter uses in chapter two, verses 18 or 13 and 14, when he talks to us about submitting to those who are kings as supreme and governors as those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers. When you give that defense, don't worry about what you're going to say. Well, how do you not worry about what you're going to say? Your life is on the line. You do it because you've sanctified God in your heart. You have his word that you've been meditating. It's been in your mouth and it's deep in your heart. And you give the hope that's deep within you. And you're able to speak from conviction, not worrying about words. There's all sorts of courses and things that you can do. I mean, I've read books and books and books on methods of apologetics. How do you defend your faith? And we're going to talk about that sometime, but I'm not sure if we have chalk and talk this afternoon or not. But the point is, there's all sorts of different apologetic schools and people have said, how do we give these defenses? And how do we counter arguments? But the thing here is, I'm not so convinced that when Peter says, always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you, that this defense is necessarily argumentation, kind of spiritual arm wrestling people into the kingdom. I read until I've had headaches reading Bonson and Van Til, I love reading apologetic works, I think they're really helpful to think through, but at the end of the day, you can't bring an apologetics manual with you. You can't take the training book with you. Either you've memorized the plays because they're deep down in your heart and it's important to you, or you're going to flounder when game day comes. But my issue with this, and this is a pastoral critique of what I see sometimes in the Reformed world with apologetics, is this is spiritual warfare, and we're going to use every means possible to go on the frontal attack of apologetics. I'm worried that though there may be a lot of truth, there's also a mixture and a lot of pride with Reformed apologetics. As I've been with men during these apologetic encounters, and I've seen plenty of videos of this, where Reformed Christians will be so certain of the truth that they have, and that's good, you want to be certain of the truth of God's Word. But how they spoke of that truth was angry, bulging veins, spit flying out of their mouths, yelling, That's not what the Lord tells us to do here. And always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you. Notice we're commanded how we do this with meekness and fear. Our tone and the condition of our heart affects the effectiveness of our apologetic encounters as we give a defense for those who ask it. These are people who are demanding an answer. Sometimes we put ourselves in situations where we confuse evangelism with apologetics. But when we are asked, do we have gentleness or meekness? Do we restrain ourselves? and show reverence, especially in a legal setting that I think apologia is being used here. When it's being used, especially combined with the idea of an attitude of fear, this is as you're standing before kings and you're standing before governors, you don't have a right to break the fifth commandment and act like they don't have any authority from God at all. It's quite the opposite when we read about Paul and he's giving his apology, to the king. It's very different when he gives his apology even to the high priest. And when he realizes he has spoken a little bit too abruptly, a little bit too harshly, a little bit too sharply to the high priest, he even backtracks and apologizes and said, I didn't know that he was the high priest. He would have spoken with more reverence and fear if he had known that. I got to say with outsiders, they're largely unimpressed. By any type of defense we would give, if it sounds more like a vein popping out of our forehead, if we look more like Westboro Baptist protesters outside of a military funeral than we do like Christians with meekness and humility defending our faith, then we've gone off the wrong path. We walk in the footsteps of Christ, who showed us what it would look like to be reviled and yet not revile in return, to give a defense without having to repay evil for evil. And so we have reverence and humility not because that's what we naturally want, but it's because it's what our King tells us. So lastly, as we seek to suffer well and live well in Christ, We need to check our lives. Look with me at verses 16 and 17. Having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better if it is the will of God to suffer doing good than for doing evil. The question I have for you this morning is, do you have a good conscience? Did you notice that, verse 16? As we're always ready to give a defense for the faith or for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear, notice we must do it having a good conscience. A good conscience comes from being united to Jesus, realizing that it's not our righteousness, but His. It's not our footsteps, our way that we want to go, but it's that we're following the way of Christ. A good conscience must come from being in Christ. And so I have to ask you a series of diagnostic questions. I have five written down here. First, are you clinging to Jesus alone? Is Jesus your hope? Right, if somebody was to ask you for a defense of the reason of the hope that is in you, is your hope Jesus? Or is your hope your own goodness? Is your hope your own confession of faith? Is your hope your own righteousness? What is your hope? Are you honest about your faults and failures? Are you treating God as a liar by saying or acting as if you do not have any sin? You cannot have a good conscience and also be calling God a liar by saying you have no sin or acting like you don't have sin. Where there is a gap, where there is sin, are you confessing that sin to God? your conscience will be burdened your conscience will not be good it will be heavy and and and it will just continue to to well up with the poison if you're not confessing your sin unto God fifthly on a good conscience where there is righteousness in your life is it coming from faith in Christ or Is it coming from pride in your own good conduct? And you might say, well, I don't really understand that last one, Brian. What do you mean? What I mean is this. When you do a good thing, do you do it for the glory of God or because you want other people to think you're good? Because if you're doing it because you want other people to think you're good, that's self-righteousness and pride. versus no, I'm doing this good thing because I love Jesus Christ. This is where a good conscience comes from. And so we're able to have a good conscience because we truly hope in Jesus Christ alone. But notice this, this good conscience also comes from a good conduct, right? A hope in Jesus Christ, and it has at its root a good conscience, and it plays out in good conduct. This is what brings shame to evildoers, those who would malice and say evil things against you. But what does this good conduct look like? I'm gonna give you 10 diagnostic questions here, and you just gotta wrestle with them for yourself, and we're gonna be quickly moving to the conclusion, so I'm not gonna waste a lot of time here. First, are you loving the Lord as your Redeemer? Secondly, in your good conduct, do you seek to worship Him in spirit and in truth? Thirdly, is the name of the Lord sweet to you? And do you reverence the Lord's name in your heart? Fourthly, is the Lord's day a delight to you? Do you sing with the psalmist? I was glad to hear them saying, let us go to the Lord's house. Fifthly, are you praying for and blessing those who are over you? Does your good conduct look like for those who are in authority over you, that you love them, you care for them, and you are seeking to do for their well-being? And for those who are under you, are you a blessing to them? Are you truly loving your boss? Are you loving your children? Are you loving your neighbors? Sixthly, do you value the preservation of life? Seventh, is your marriage bed pure? And are your eyes free from lust? What else does good conduct look like? Three more diagnostic questions. Number eight, does your life look like the promoting and preserving of your neighbor's wealth and outward estate? Are you stealing from your employer? Are you taking from your neighbor? Are you cutting corners from the products you make and stealing from your customers? Are you breaking contracts? Ninthly, is your neighbor's good name important to you? Or are you prone to accusations, gossip, slander? Last diagnostic question on the good conduct that people should be able to see in us, this conduct which is in Christ. Are you marked by contentment in your inner heart? because you've learned the secret of Christ. Paul says he's learned the secret of contentment. Whether he has much or whether he had little, he knew what true contentment was and where it came from, and it was because he had Jesus Christ. It didn't matter if he was suffering or being persecuted, whether he was shipwrecked or feasting among the wealthy. He had Christ, and that was enough. So do you have a good conscience that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed? Why, for it is better if it is the will of God to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. It's better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. And there's a loose quote from Plato as he talks about Socrates. This is a pagan guy, right? Even a pagan guy at one point, as somebody, one of his friends was trying to get him out of this situation where he was going to have to kill himself. And he was trying to, his friend was trying to convince Socrates to escape from prison because he didn't want him to suffer for doing good. And Socrates said, would you rather me suffer for doing evil? Even the pagans know it's better to suffer for good than suffer for evil. Right? Because even there, there's a good name. There's suffering in this Christian life, but it doesn't mean that those who are bringing the suffering can steal away your hope, joy, or peace, because your hope is in Christ. That's why you can give an answer for the hope that you have in Him. and why you don't have to be angry or or you don't have to be malicious about it right but your good conduct speaks for itself and you can say i do these things and i say these things because i love jesus christ he is the hope that i have in life and death i'm going to end this sermon with one more example of somebody suffering well hoping in christ many of you have heard of william tyndale in the Roman Catholic medieval age in Western Europe there was the rise of the church and part of canon law at that time was the only translation of the Bible that was allowed anywhere in the Roman Empire was the Vulgate, the Latin. But as There was a rediscovery of Greek and of Hebrew, and people started getting the biblical languages as they were actually written, and all these manuscripts started coming into Europe. People started studying them and realizing, hold on! There are things that the Vulgate got wrong, and here's what God's Word actually says. Here are things that are actually true. And the other thing that was happening is that if it was in the Vulgate, and you were living, if it was in Latin, the Vulgate is the Latin Bible, and you live in England, You don't know Latin. What do you know? Some type of weird English. We can't even read their weird English now, right? But the point is, they didn't know Latin. They didn't have God's Word in their own... It was so bad that there were Roman priests, Roman Catholic priests, who were saying entire things from the Bible that they had memorized in the Latin, and they had no clue what it actually meant. It was just rote. And Tyndale knew this was not godliness. And so he started to translate the Bible from Latin into English. And he suffered for it. It was illegal. He was exiled. He couldn't live in London. He couldn't live in England. He had to flee to the continent. And even there, as he was living in as a fugitive, poor and isolated, even one of his best friends betrayed him while he was in Belgium. And he was imprisoned. even more severely and in 1536 he was strangled and he was burned at the stake but before they took away his dying breaths this is what he prayed lord open the king of england's eyes do you see They could take away his life, but they couldn't take away his hope. They could take away his breath, but they couldn't remove him from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. His persecutors could burn him at the stake, but he would still pray that God would convert them. Live well. Even as you are sojourners and pilgrims on this earth, you may suffer, persecution may come, but be ready to give an answer always for the hope that you have that is in you. And let your conduct, let your good conduct and your good conscience put to shame those who would try to slander you. You just hope in Christ. You cling to your Savior. He walked this path before you. Go in His ways. Let's pray. Father, only Your Holy Spirit could ever possibly let us do this. Lord, so we pray that Your Spirit would give us a hope that is so deeply rooted in our hearts that it would be unshakable. Lord, we pray that by your sovereign power, your Holy Spirit would let us build our house upon the rock of Jesus Christ. Father, we plead with you that you would never let anything snatch us from your Son's hand. Lord, we thank you for the hope that we have in your Son. And Father, we pray that we would endure and that we would be ready in season and out of season, to give a defense for the hope that we have. Father, we need your spirit to do this. Help us, Lord, we pray in Jesus's name.