Living "Questionably" and Answering Hopefully - Part A
Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 3:13-17
Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter
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Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles
Message: Living Questionably and Answering Hopefully
Airdate: 10/16 and 10/19/26
Programs: 2380 and 2381
Well, good morning again, and hello, Cedar Lake campus, Hope Portage campus this morning. I, last weekend, had the joy of speaking, ministering at one of our former associate pastor's churches. He is Jeremy Carr, who is the senior pastor now in North Des Moines at Johnston E. Free Church. And so I was able to go and to see his ministry there.
He's been there about a year now, and God's blessing, and they seem to be doing super great. So it was great to to be with them. I also understand while I was gone that we had a special offering last weekend to help meet needs in Nepal with the earthquake victims as well as some of the needs that we have with our facilities here. When I say here, mean at our Gary campus and at HP and at Cedar Lake with some of our facilities we use for primarily youth ministry and student ministry, our gymnasiums that we have. And I just was encouraged.
We had an offering last weekend, second offering, kind of like lunch money, people throwing it in, of $13,500 that came in for that, which is really great. And if you're an old sports guy, you love sports, and maybe you have a heart for young people and all that, I'm sure you could still throw money in the offering towards that. And we'd find a way to apply that to some of the things that we need and probably still will need in those facilities. But thank you, everybody, for being a part of that. And that's pretty exciting for me because I'm one of those old sports guys.
And I'd love to see our facilities be able to minister through athletics to primarily young people. Well, my title today kind of gives away the whole sermon, frankly. Here's my title: Living Questionably and Answering Hopefully. Now I could just stop and say, amen, amen, let's go home, because that's basically all that I'm going to say today. And some of you are excited right now.
Like, wow, we're going to get out of here early today. The problem is most of us would leave having no idea what that means. And that's really what lies before us here is, like, what does that mean? What does it mean to live lives that are questionable and give answers that are filled with hope? And what does that have to do with really God's entire plan for the fulfilling of the great commission?
It is a summary of first Peter three verse 15. If you went to Moody Bible Institute and say, I'm gonna take a class on evangelism, this might be the very first verse that you would memorize. If you have ever read a book on Christian apologetics, this verse always talked about. So this is one of these verses that that that stands out in a unique category and is often referred to when it comes to the whole matter of how we represent our faith, how we even share our faith. What does it mean to live Christianly and to speak Christianly in a hostile environment around us?
And so we have this verse about bold, fearless witness. And who's the writer of it? Ironically, Peter, the most famous coward in all of the Bible. But I'll get into that in a moment. So let me read the text.
And so follow along, please, if you have your Bibles. I think we have it on the screens as well. Here's what Peter writes beginning in verse now 13. “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.” Now if that language sounds familiar, it means that you've been dialed in in this entire series in first Peter because he is repeating what he has said here over and over again, of in different contexts.
But basically, this same point. Christian, how do we live in a hostile environment? How do you how do you represent Jesus when the world around you looks down on that? You live lives of moral and spiritually observable beauty that causes the people around you to think maybe there's something to this Christianity. That's the whole point really of first Peter.
And you do that primarily in your persecution and in your suffering. Now he has already said that as it relates, for example, the beginning of this chapter to Christian wives who are married to unbelieving husbands. What are they supposed to do? They are to by their moral behavior and their the beauty of their life, he says, to win their husbands over without a word. K?
We talked about that. He talked about it with slaves, with their owners with their owners, and he's talked about it with Christian citizens as it relates to the government. And it's the same kind of point that he is trying to pound home. And I think we need to hear that it is our lives that speak about the truth of the claims that we make regarding Jesus being the Savior of the world and the person that will transform your life into one of hope and one of of of moral beauty and one that will live forever with eternal life. So what I wanna do today, since some of this is repeat, I wanna focus in on what is is unique that we have not seen so far, and that primarily is in verse 15.
Again, I'll just read it. “In your hearts, Christ the Lord is holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” So we find these threads being weaved here regarding the implications and the applications of living a life of love and of goodness to others that even an unbelieving world can't deny. But he is saying something unique here because he gets at what I think is really our big obstacle in doing this. What's the biggest thing that all of us struggle with when it comes to somehow identifying ourselves with other people as Christians?
I would submit to you, the biggest thing we struggle with is fear. Right? Fear. We are afraid of something. Maybe you know how this works.
Let me just walk you through it, see if you can relate to this. You're at work. You're in some context, and you're having a conversation with your neighbor, your coworker, your family member, doesn't matter what it is. They'll say it's at work, it's coworker. And you're having a conversation, you're talking about the Blackhawks game last night.
And you're like, yeah, in the second in the second period, did you see the and then did did you notice that? And yeah. He's like, yeah, man. That was awesome. And, yeah, it's just smooth.
It's natural. You're having a great conversation. And then somehow, you say, well, how did the weekend go? Oh, my daughter. You know, she's dealing with that chronic illness.
And my wife and I, we just oh, we're so devastated. We're just wondering what, like, what's this all about? And in that moment, there is a frog that resides down here. And in that moment, it goes ribbit right to the throat. Right?
And now in your throat, there is something that with the Blackhawks or with whatever else it was, your garden, natural conversation, all of a sudden now, in the moment where the door swings wide open, Right? Because that person is sharing something very personal to them, something down on the heart level, down on the soul level. They're hurting. They're in pain. They're looking for what?
Hope. They're looking for hope. But in their worldview, atheist, secular, agnostic, whatever it is, there is no hope. There is no confidence about anything in the future. Everything's random.
Everything you just don't know what's gonna happen. They want hope. And the door swings wide open in that moment. And in your throat, there's ribbit, ribbit. And you're like, buddy.
And something in you is going, tell them your story about when your daughter was sick. Tell them your story. When your mom had cancer, tell them your story of how you went through that terrible thing in your marriage. But your throat's going ribbit ribbit ribbit. And all we can sometimes get out in that moment is like, I pray for you.
Oh, look at the time. I gotta go. And off we scamper. And that person who in that gospel moment of heart level kind of interaction is left hopeless. Can you relate to that?
What is it about those moments that we get all clunky? Right? We are eloquent with the gardening and clunky with Jesus. What is it? And I believe Peter is putting his finger down on the heart of the issue that we have, so many of us have, when it comes to this.
We are stupid, if I can use that word. Children, don't use it. But we're we're spiritually stupid. Why are we being stupid? Because there is something inside of us that is assessing whether or not this person's opinion of me is going to rise or fall dependent on what I dare share with them about the hope that I have in Jesus.
And you might say, no, it's not that. I haven't completed my PhD in apologetics yet. And so until I get that done, I don't think God wants me to say nothing, and I'm just gonna stay silent until I have the diploma on the wall. Or you might say, well, yes, but I'm that's not my gift. I'm more called to a serving ministry.
So I'm gonna mow his yard for him. But I'm not gonna tell him about the hope that I have found in the Lord Jesus Christ. This fear, Peter addresses in verse 13 by saying, now who is there that is going to harm you if you are zealous for doing what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. In other words, when we do what God has called us to do, when and that can be in word or in deed, but as we are kind of living out loud this Gospel that we believe, sing, treasure, he says those kinds of activities generally are not going to have people saying to you, you're an evil person.
There there are generally good things that we are doing, helping other people, showing care and concern that in the world is not so evident. But he says, but even if let's just say that the opinion of that person goes down on you because you say something spiritual in that moment. He says, you'll be blessed by it. Blessed by who? Class.
God himself. God himself. There's a promise there. I've never heard anybody say, those Christians are so evil with all their feeding of the poor and the caring of the orphans. May the world be rid of them.
People don't say that. In fact, if you look at the first three centuries of the church. K? So this is prior to basically, in in church history, deciding moment is in the the early fourth century when Constantine, the emperor of Rome, himself becomes a Christian and then legalizes Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. Big moment.
Because up to that point, Christianity was largely hated and Christians were viewed extremely suspiciously and terrible persecution. Read Fox's Book of Martyrs as an example of the terrible things that were done to the early Christians. So prior to Constantine's conversion, if you look at that those three centuries, it's a interesting time to see how the church was the church when everybody hated them. And here is what one Christian apologist writing actually in the first century in the city of Athens writes about he writes to emperor Hadrian, emperor of Rome, about Christians. Here's how he describes them.
They love one another. They never fail to help widows. They save orphans from those who would hurt them. If they had something, they if they have had something, they give freely to the man who has nothing. If they see a stranger, they take him home and are happy as though he were a real brother.
First century people like you and me believing in Jesus. What did that look like for them? It looked like that. Not perfectly. They were sinners like we are.
But generally, that's kind of the ethos of the first century church. Now let me ask you a question. When Hadrian gets this letter from this guy named Aristides, what does he think about these Christians that he's heard about when he hears about their care for the orphans and that they're always taking people home that are strangers and they love, care, and meet the needs of of the widows? What does he think in his mind? Does he think to himself, these people are really bad people.
We've gotta get them out of the empire. Or in spite of what he had heard about Christians, when he hears about the way they conducted themselves, what did it do in Hadrian's heart? I'm saying to you, it created curiosity. It created curiosity. What are these people all about?
I know they claim there's only one God. They deny Zeus. But what's their deal? Because they're like about things that don't know anybody else is doing that kind of stuff. And that is the power and was the power in the first century, in the first three centuries, of people like you and me taking the love that God has showed into our hearts, shined into our hearts, and expressing it in ways that were observable in the world around them.
It said something powerful to people. It made them wonder what is the deal with these people. And the if you're saying, well, what's the theology behind it? Here's the theology behind that curiosity. It is known as the Imago Dei, the image of God.
And the Bible tells us that when God made man Adam and Eve back in the garden, Genesis one, Genesis two, that when he made Adam and Eve, he made us, all of humanity, different than anything else in the entire galaxy. He placed within us this spiritual, soulish capacity. Right? We are spiritual beings. And in that spiritual place, he placed his image, likeness, his morality or sense of it, a sense of right and wrong, good and evil kind of a thing.
Everybody has that. There is something innate within a human being that knows when something is good generally and when something is wrong. It's the Imago Dei. The fall happens. Right?
Mankind falls into sin, but we retain, the Bible calls this, Paul calls it in Romans, the conscience. We all have a conscience, and that is the theology behind what he is getting at here. And it is a powerful help for us when we are trying to evangelize is that there are we know that that other person is made in the image of this God and has a sensibility about them, broken, dulled, fallen, but it's still there. As John Stott said, in all evangelism, I find it a constant encouragement to say to myself, the other person's conscience is on my side. I like that.
And so this is the mantra of Peter throughout the entire letter is do you realize that you we, Christians, have an ace in the hole when it comes to buttressing the claims that we have about Jesus, and it is our lives and the kinds of things that we care about. And the world sees that, and they wonder. I drew up a diagram just to illustrate this. Maybe this will help. If you think about what is the common ground between an unbeliever, a non Christian, and and a and a Christian.
Because there I mean, we're a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come, Paul writes. But we still have shared common ground. This is this is the place that we can speak the language that even a non Christian can understand.
And you notice that non Christian and Christians made in the image of God. We all have a conscience. Right? And it is in this category that moral beauty and love and self sacrifice and compassion, these things speak to the non Christian in a way that bypasses their mental defenses against Christianity, and it gets right down to the heart, right down to where the gospel speaks first. And Peter says, leverage that.
Don't be afraid of them. If they look down on you, you're blessed anyway. Rather, leverage the normal Christian expression of love and good works in this world, which Paul writes that we were ordained before time began to do. Leverage those things. Do them in observable ways so that the world around you wonders inside what's up with them.
What is up with them? What is their deal? It's true for the unbelieving husband toward his Christian wife, the unbelieving employer towards his Christian employee, the whatever unbeliever toward whatever Christian whose lifestyle shows Christian love and moral beauty. And that's why Peter writes in 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 the reason of the hope that is in you.”
K? Now I just wanna point out to you, there's tremendous irony here in this passage about bold witness and not being afraid. Again, who's writing this? Peter. Right?
What do we know about Peter in the story, in his own story? We go all the way back to the Garden of Gethsemane. Here come the Roman soldiers way back. Actually, we go to the upper room, don't we? They're in the upper room.
Peter says to Jesus, though every other disciple here leaves you, I will never leave you. Hubris pride. Right? I will never leave you. And what does Jesus say?
Before the cock crowed, you're gonna deny me three times. Peter's like, no. I would never do that. Well, within a few hours, he's running away from the Roman mob that came to arrest Jesus. And shortly after that, he is right there in the courtyard.
And who does Peter who is Peter afraid of? And you might say, it was the Roman legion or he they had a point of a spear in front of him, and so maybe we can give him grace. No. It was a little girl. Excuse me?
Aren't you one of Jesus' disciples? And Peter's like, woah. No. No. I never knew the man.
Right? He's the most famous coward in the whole New Testament. He's the guy that's writing this. Now if we go ahead in the story a little bit, what do we find? After Peter's conversion, after the Spirit comes at Pentecost, right away now, there is this dramatic change with these disciples.
The same guys that ran away in the Garden of Gethsemane now are standing up to not only the Romans, but also the Jewish authorities that had put Jesus to death just days before. And they haul Peter in front of the whole Sanhedrin, and they command him not to preach this message anymore. And what does Peter say? “We must obey God rather than men.” Wait.
Aren't you the aren't you the same guy that like, the little girl? Isn't that you? And, of course, it is. And so we have in front of us somebody who knows something about going from being afraid and living by fear to living boldly as a testimony to Jesus Christ. This is a man that knows how to go from A to B, which ought to be encouraging, I think, for us because I would suspect that there's a lot of people still living in A.
And we look at B, which is the boldness bold witness, and we think, I could never do that. I can never be that way. And yet Peter, by the Spirit of God and the work of God in his life, becomes a bold witness and exhorts the church not to be like him in the garden, but to be like him in front of the Sanhedrin. But how do we get there? Like, what's the key to go from living as a Christian according to fear to living as a Christian boldly and by faith?
And I think Peter gives us the absolute key in verse 15. Look again. Don't be afraid of them. Rather, in your hearts, Christ the Lord as holy. Notice he doesn't say get out your apologetics books and get an answer to every question they might throw at you.
He doesn't say get your educational degree. He doesn't say go into hiding. Rather, it does so it it doesn't start here. So many people think, for me to be a faithful witness, I've got to have it right here. No.
That is not the key. It's not here. It's right here is the issue. Who is Lord of your heart? Or to say it in this context, whose opinion do you care the most about?
Really? Now we sing songs about the majesty of Jesus, and we talk about it's all about him, and we sing about the glory of God and all of that. But when I'm talking Blackhawks with a guy who shares with me that his child has is suffering a terrible disease, and they're wondering what to think about all of it, and the frog rivets in my throat, what does that say about who I'm really caring about? And Peter says, settle the matter, Christian. Who is Lord of your heart?
And you place Jesus Christ and his opinion right on that throne. And allow the boldness that comes from carrying only what he thinks to shape the way that you live your life. So when you're talking to the little girl in the courtyard, you're not ribbit, ribbit, ribbit. I wrote this sentence. Thought it was so good.
Want to read it. The frog rivets in our throats because fear of man resides in our hearts. That's the bottom line. Right? Proverbs says “the fear of man is a snare.”
It's a snare. How do we overcome it? I believe it's by consciously committing, like like deciding in my heart, in my life, I want Jesus and his opinion to rule the day. And when Christ is squarely exalted and treasured in that place, really frankly, it's just the application of what we believe, isn't it? Like, if right now we had the eyes to see, isn't it true that right now there is a throne?
It's the highest throne in heaven. And Jesus is alive. Holes in his hands and in his feet, glorified body, glory radiating from him, the infinite glory of the Son of God. He is sitting right there at the right hand of God. Do you believe that?
And that right now if we had ears to hear, we would hear the echoing, rejoicing song of innumerable air angels and seraphim and cherubim singing glory to Jesus. Do you believe that? And if we truly could see into that place, we would see the high and holy and exalted place that Jesus is. And if we could truly understand that and see that, which we believe it to be true, but if we could see and hear and grapple with that, and there he is. He's my Lord Jesus.
I worship you more than anything else. You're at the you're on the throne of my heart. Now I'm talking Blackhawks with the guy who's like three cubicles over in the office. How afraid of his opinion am I when it comes to sharing hope, the only hope there is in this world? See?
Do you see that? The higher he is, the lower the opinion of man. Bonhoeffer said it this way, those who are afraid of men have no fear of God, and those who fear God have no fear of men. So can I ask you, Bethel Church, and you individually, who really is Lord in your heart? Really?
Whose opinion do you really care about? Now I'll confess to you, I get this. Right? I get this. I talk spiritual things.
This is like what I do for a living. Right? So you might say, well, if we walked around with pastor Steve all the time, it'd be like, you know, amazing. Right? Because you just talk Jesus everywhere you go.
It's just natural for you. It's not natural for me. When I sit on an airport and and frankly, I have some advantage over most of you. Because when I'm on the airplane or meeting somebody at the golf course or whatever, you know, what's your name? First question.
Second question, what do you do? Right? So on the airplane, when the person said, so what do you do for a living? And I say, I pastor a church. They're like, oh, okay.
And right away, either that's a major turn off or it becomes a counseling session right away in that moment. So you like, okay. I went through a divorce three years ago, and then on it goes. Right? And in my heart, it's not like, you know, frankly, honestly, this is the sinful heart.
Sometimes I just wanna read my book that I brought with me, and now I have a two hour counseling session with this with and and even in that time, it's my mind is grappling. What do I share? What do I say? So it's I'm just being honest with you. I'm not up here condemning anybody here.
I say this to myself. I got the frog ribbiting in my throat plenty. So what do we do? How do we handle this? And I think Peter is just laying out a simple approach to lifestyle evangelism here.
Notice again, number one, we live a lifestyle of normal Christian love and others' orientation. In your neighborhood, are you one of the neighbors that all the other neighbors know when they're gone on vacation, you'll pull their trash bin back? Right? Or if they have some little need or something, you're the are you a conduit in your neighborhood, in your school, in your workplace? Are you are are you somebody that people sense they sort of care about me?
That's normal Christianity, isn't it? What are we called to do? Love one another. Right? Love one another.
So I'm not spending a lot of time on this, but we we live the normal expected Christian life. We just live that kind of change that Jesus makes in our hearts that turns us from being self centered and self obsessed to a approach where we're caring for people, engaging people. We hold high, secondly, Jesus. He is on the throne of our hearts above the opinion of anybody else. I want His approval more than I care about the guy three cubicles down from me.
So I'm free now. Right? I'm free because I'm living hopefully in a way that pleases the Lord. Third, keep your gospel bags packed. Here's what it says.
Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Keep your gospel bags packed. You're thinking, does that mean? Well, it's just what came to my mind as an illustration of this because we're like eight days from delivery roughly. My wife is expecting our second child.
And these kids, they don't tell you when they're coming, right? So about three weeks ago, realizing that we were entering the danger zone, we got ready. Now my wife's been getting ready for, like, months. Our house right now, we should sell it. It's like a showpiece.
Right? She has cleaned everything. The nest is ready. Right? There's something to that whole female nesting thing.
There really is. So she's been getting ready for but the last couple of weeks, we've been, like, really dialing it in. And if you were to go into our bedroom right now, you would see that we have you know, the the luggage is there. The bags are packed. In the in the bag is the clothes that we might need, little snacks, any little, you know, toiletries, any doodads, whatever.
It's all there. It's all ready to go. And the reason for that is that we don't know when this baby is showing up. So we gotta be ready just in case. Because when she goes, ah, I'm getting the bag, we're getting in the van, and off we go to the hospital.
I have found in my life the opportunities that I have to share in the world rarely come at unexpected times. They come at unexpected times. Okay? Now if your neighbors are like, okay, in three weeks, I'm going to ask you a very soulish question about pain in my life, you could be like, okay, I'm going to get ready for it, right? And you show up, you got your notes and okay, point number one, point number two, point number three.
They never do that, right? It's that meeting them on the way to the mailbox moment or happen to sit next to you in the lunchroom at work kind of moment where all of a sudden now this door swings wide open. Are you ready? Are you ready in that moment to say something that might lead them from the curiosity about your life towards an interest in who Jesus is and the difference he's made in your life. Like if right now, I took a microphone and I went into the crowd and I said, okay, what would you say?
Could you would you be ready to say something? I'm not gonna do that, but could you do that? And now here I'm freaking you out because you're like, oh, I've got to have all these answers and all of that. And the and and I want this is the the main thing that I've learned in this passage is this point right here is what is Peter suggesting that we say? Like, what are we supposed to be ready to say?
Notice it says, anyone who asks you for a reason. K? Asked you for a reason. Many of us look at this and say, I'm gonna go to the street corner and I'm gonna shout to that jazz festival in Chicago this weekend, Jesus is Lord, and I'll take on anybody. No.
That's not what he's saying here, isn't it? Where does this conversation start? It starts with them asking you a question. But where does that come from? They have observed hope.
There is something in your demeanor, in your approach to the problems in your own life that makes them curious, and they come to you. Now that doesn't mean that we don't broach things and all that. There's a place for Marcel preaching. But that's not what Peter is saying. They come to us and they ask us, what is your deal?
Like, I've known you a while here, and there's something going on here that I don't have going on in my own life. And here's the sobering reality, I think, that too often we give our answers when they aren't asking questions. And they aren't asking questions because our lives aren't creating them. One man writes this for Pascal, talking about a French cool theologian guy, who if I had had a son, I might name him after Pascal. I love Pascal.
I digress. For Pascal, presenting someone with a list of proofs for Christianity or evidence for faith is probably a waste of time. If someone basically doesn't want to believe, no amount of proof or proof text can ever convince her. And even if she were convinced, then it wouldn't be the Christian God that she had come to believe in, but only what Pascal called the God of the philosophers. The crucial factor in persuading someone to believe then is not to present evidence, but first to awaken a desire for God in them.
In other words, when commending Christianity to people, make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Such arguments as there are for Christianity can convince those who hope it is true, but will never convince those who don't. And Peter says here, there is one aspect primarily that the unbeliever is going to wonder about. And did you see it there? Always being ready to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason for the what?
Hope. The hope that is in you. What is hope? Confidence about the future that brings assurance into today. Now as Christians, we have every reason to be confident, don't we?
Future in heaven, future on the new earth, life with Jesus, glorified body, inheritance, being with Christ, and other loved ones in Christ. All of that sounds great and fantastic. It's not just that future hope, but also in our present trials where the promises of God come to assure us, “I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. Cast all your anxieties on me for I care for you,” etcetera, etcetera, provides the Christian who is in the hospital bed, in the hospital facing a major surgery with something that the guy in the gurney next to him doesn't have.
Right? He doesn't have that. And the neighbor whose daughter is dealing with the sickness doesn't have that. And the friend who just lost his job doesn't have the promise that I will never leave you nor forsake you. But the Christian does.
So guess when we have the best opportunity to be a faithful witness to Jesus in this world around us? Is it when everything's great, my health is great, when my life is great. And, of course, this is the way we present ourselves to one another. And even in the world, how are you doing? Everything's great.
And they walk away going, I can't relate to that guy. Because in reality, everything isn't great for any of us. I don't care what you said to me on the way in today. We all have trials and we all have troubles, but we live inauthentically in this sort of sheen like everything's fantastic and wonderful because that's what I'm supposed to say. But it's not.
And when Christians live authentic Christian lives of hope in trouble and in trial, or in this case, when they're being persecuted by the world around them, the world looks into that and wonders, what is the deal with these people? We they're hurting. They're dealing with troubles just like we are, but they got something I don't have. And so they come to us and they say, what is your gig? What is your deal?
And we respond, because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because I know, know, know who holds the future. And life is worth a living just because he lives. And they don't know what to do with that, but it intrigues them, and they come to want it.
I ask people often, how did you come to faith? New people in the church, I regularly hear this story. I was in college in my dorm in the dorm next to me, there was this dude. He was just like totally different. Or I was it was at work, and I worked with this woman, and I could just tell she had something that I didn't.
I wanted it. I mean, we hear that all the time. What is that? That is first Peter three fifteen. The life lived creating curiosity, and then in that door swinging open moment, not rivets, but simply sharing your story of the difference that Jesus has made in your life.
Not five theories about the existence of God, not seven proofs of the resurrection, but your story of how you have found hope in the midst of trouble. That's what Peter is getting at here. He isn't asking if we have the answers, but whether our lives are creating any questions. One great quote. I got to get to this, and I got to I got to be done.
The world today, as we all are well aware, is not ready to listen to us or to preaching. It tells us it has no interest in theology and dogma, and there may be some truth in that. The world has become psychological, not to say cynical, and it is not prepared to listen to what people say. But when it sees a life which is triumphant, a personality that is clearly victorious, then it begins to pay attention. The first Christians conquered the ancient world just by being Christians.
It was their love for one another and their type of life that made such an impact upon the pagan world. And there is no question but that this is the greatest need of the hour, the Christian quality of life being demonstrated among men and women. That is something to which we are called and something which we can do. And I just think that's the encouragement here. Like, if I got up here and said, alright, we gotta be ready to make an answer.
So you go out, memorize your Bible, memorize three books on apologetics, and we're gonna have a quiz next week. Everybody leaves here discouraged, and so do I because I don't have all the answers. But who here doesn't have a story? Who here, if you're a Christian, you have met Jesus, and that meeting has changed your life? Tell the story.
Tell that story. Weave into that a little bit the claims of Christianity and what it means to become a Christian. And we're next week's message is gonna be all about how to have these kind of gospel conversations. Okay? So that's next week.
This week is what Peter is the essence of what Peter is getting at. It's not philosophy. It's not arguments, but generous lives of Christian love lived in a way that creates curiosity and then sharing your own story of hope in Jesus. It's a powerful, powerful witness, and we'll talk more about it next week. And so right now, I'm gonna ask campus pastors if you would come to the stage and lead in a final prayer.
And here at Crown Point, I'm gonna ask you to stand with me, if you would, please. Heavenly Father God, the potential just right here in this room of us leaving here, taking the hope, living out that hope, being ready in that moment to share about the hope that we have in Jesus. Thank you for the hope, first of all. Thank you, God, that there is every reason for joy in the midst of our trials and our sufferings. But, God, I pray that you would help us to not just be self focused with that, but to leverage that in powerful and effective ways in a world that is hopeless.
May they come to know hope through us and through Jesus, to whom be all glory, seated on the throne at the right hand of God, angels shouting, singing. We join with them here at Bethel Church. All praise be to you. We love you. We thank you.
We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. God's grace to you all. We'll see you next week.
* This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.
