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Be Ready
1 Peter 3:8-16
Monday evening at our Cancer Support group we were talking about our
bulletin and I made the comment that people only read the bulletin when
the sermon gets boring and I knew that no one ever read the bulletin
here. For a brief moment I was feeling very full of myself but that all
stopped seconds later when the entire group said, “No I read it every
week.”
So this week I wanted to get your attention and get you thinking about
being ready before we read our passage today. But how? That’s usually
the hardest part of my week, answering the question “How do I get your
mind going in the right direction so that you will connect with the
sermon?” And then it hit me, there is something that we can all relate
to, I am sure that we have all done. I thought that we needed to all
play a big game of Hide and Go Seek, but don’t worry that thought faded
just as quickly as it entered. But if we are not going to play Hide and
Go Seek let me at least give you a refresher course in case you want to
play a little later.
The whole concept is that someone is “it” or the seeker and they close
their eyes and count at home base. Now usually we ask them to count to
100 or something that will give us plenty of time, but sometimes they
count by 2’s, sometimes they count by 5’s, and then there is the famous
1, 2, skip a few 99, 100.
Now while they are counting those who are hiding have to do just that,
hide. They have to pick a place that is not in plain view, and a place
that will allow them easy access to run to home base.
Once you have found your place you sit and wait until you hear “100,
Ready or not here I come.”
Now I want you to think about the game Hide and seek as we read our text
for today. Look with me in 1 Peter 3:8 - 16.
I want to be honest with you; I'm a little worried about today’s
message. I'm afraid this message will become your excuse sermon. You see
we're talking about being ready today and we are going to have to talk
about preparation. But my concern is that we'll all breathe a big sigh
of relief and say something like, "Whew! With all this evangelism talk I
was afraid he was going to say something today to make me feel really
bad. Good thing I'm not ready yet. I need more prep time."
It may be very true that you need more prep time, but there are some of
here in this church that have been prepping for decades. If you were in
training for 6 weeks at your job and you could not do it would they keep
you on that job? It doesn’t make sense in the world, and it doesn’t make
a lot of sense in the work of the Kingdom either. If you have been a
Christian more than 6 weeks then maybe, just maybe it's time to quit
getting ready and do something.
God is constantly giving us opportunities to serve Him, and advance His
kingdom. Ready or not here they come. So what does a prepared Christian
look like? Peter gives us some insight.
Your way of life matches your words.
Verse 15, "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord."
You are ready to be an evangelist when your own decision is clear; you
see you can't be a witness to what you don't believe. If we were to take
an honest inventory of our relationship with God, and the depth of our
own Christianity some of us are guilty of spiritual perjury. We testify
with our lips that Jesus is the Lord and Savior but we lie with our
lives.
Let me give you a gentle reminder of what the Apostle Paul had to say to
those who were already Christian believers, living in the first century.
And please understand that he was not only talking to them but God knew
that these words would apply to us as well.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
If you are a new creation then you cannot act like you did before you
were baptized, before you gave your life to Christ.
Too many of us are trying to get to heaven by working it out. The way we
live our lives says “If I can do enough good things for people, then
they will cancel out the evil that I do and God will be pleased. When I
die if I have more good than bad then I am sure to get in.”
So we harbor a grudge, gossip about them over lunch with our friends,
secretly wish that a BIG tree would fall on their car as they drive to
Piggly Wiggly. Now all of that goes onto the bad pile and I have to even
it out so I give an extra 5 dollars in the collection plate, take food
to someone when they are sick, send a card, sing extra loud in church,
so I can get more in the good pile.
The problem with that kind of thinking is that it veils or clouds or
minds so that we have a distorted view of God and His Kingdom. We try to
act like the world and please God at the same time. But it doesn’t work.
We are just fooling ourselves and we never get to have that relationship
that God desires with us.
Paul talks about this again in his letter to the church in Rome. He
writes in Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern
what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
I believe that the number one reason that we are not ready to evangelize
for God’s kingdom is that while we were very serious on the day that we
gave our lives to Christ and His Kingdom we have allowed the time to
conform us to the world’s standards. We are not called to be better than
those in the world we are called to be different, a 180 degree turn from
those in the world.
A rather arrogant man pulled the task of teaching the teenagers, and One
Sunday morning he was trying to communicate the importance of living the
Christian life.
"Why do people call me a Christian?" the man asked.
After a moment's pause, one kid said, "Maybe it's because they don't
know you."
Don’t you just love the honesty? Church if you haven't made up your mind
to let Jesus be Lord of your life, you're not ready to be an evangelist.
That's not an excuse for you to not to evangelize. That's a challenge to
get your heart right, to be transformed, and then get out there in the
darkness and shine.
You know you're ready when your faith has overcome your fears.
Look at the end of verse 14; "Do not fear what they fear; do not be
frightened."
Now I don't want you to hear what I'm about to say as condemnation or
criticism. I need you to hear it as diagnosis. If the doctor tells you,
you feel lousy because your blood pressure is too high; you don't feel
condemned by that. You're thankful for the diagnosis.
The reason many of us are reluctant to be evangelists is because we are
afraid. Now you are probably thinking, “Jeremy, you have lost your mind
I not afraid of anything.” And while you not be afraid of the boogie
man, or dark places I believe that we all struggle with this type of
fear.
We're afraid of rejection or failure or being laughed at or dismissed.
We're afraid we'll give somebody the wrong answer or no answer at all.
We're afraid of looking bad. Of being challenged because our lives don't
match our words. We don’t talk about that type of fear much but it is
very real.
So if fear is the diagnosis I want you to see that Peter also given the
cure. But in Peter’s fashion to find it you have to go up one verse
because he mentions the cure before he mentions the problem. If Christ
is Lord of your life then it doesn't matter what people do to us or
think of us or say about us.
Look at vs. 13. "Who is going to harm you if you are eager (literally "a
zealot") for doing good?"
You remember what a zealot is don’t you? In the New Testament we are
introduced to them for the first time. They were a group of Jews who
were willing to give their lives for their cause. It is where we get our
word zealous. So Peter is saying if we are willing to give back to
Christ what He gave for us then no one can harm us.
That’s a different call to Christianity than we are used to. Too many
preachers make it sound like, if you will walk down the aisle and get
wet in the baptistery that’s all you have to do, and you’re home free.
But Peter says something very different. To his way of thinking Baptism
is not the end it’s just the beginning.
We need to be more concerned with what the Almighty Ruler of the
universe thinks. If He's Lord of your life, then His commands take
precedence; His promises overrule all objections; His power overcomes
all obstacles.
We're like the little boy who was helping him mom in the kitchen. She
said, "Johnny, go into the pantry and get me a bottle of ketchup."
He said, "I'm afraid to go in there. It's dark."
She said, "Honey, what did you learn in Sunday school? Jesus is always
with you. He will be with you in the pantry. Now go get that ketchup."
Johnny walked over to the pantry, opened the door and said, "Jesus if
you're in there, would you hand me the ketchup."
It is time for you to trust God more than you fear opinions. I don't
know about you, but I'm sick and tired of opinion polls. I'm tired of
presidents and congress and supreme court justices licking their fingers
and holding them up to see which way the wind is blowing.
The only opinion that matters isn't an opinion at all; it was a command
to go, make, baptize, teach. No, not everybody will respond. Some of
them will even get angry. We're not in charge of their response. We're
only responsible for ours. It's time for our lives to match our words
and our faith to overcome our fear.
Finally You know you're ready when your eyes are open to opportunity.
Look back at verse 15 but in your hearts regard 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;
Peter assumes that if you are a Christian then people are going to
notice that there is something different about you. And eventually, one
way or another, they're going to ask. Now I doubt anyone is going to
come up to you and say, "You know, I've noticed that you have hope. Can
you tell me the reason for that?" Or “Boy there sure seems to be a lot
of joy in your life, can you tell me about that?”
But they will ask, and it comes in million different ways:
When they talk to you about their struggles, they've made the decisions
that not only are you safe to confide in, but that you just may have an
answer.
When they ask you to put them on your church's prayer list, they are
telling you they believe in God, they hope in prayer and they need a
friend.
When they seek your friendship, they are communicating their trust in
you and their openness to your ideas.
Opportunities come and go every day and we must have the eyes to see
them. Like I said last week maybe we need to stop praying for more
opportunities and start praying from more optometrists so that we can
see the opportunities that God has given us. We need to be able to see
the opportunities and the faith to overcome our fears and the lives to
back up our words.
If you have ever dropped into my office or our house you are sure to
notice our aquariums. I love fish and we have been privileged to have
them in our home for 10 years. But it hasn’t always a good experience.
When I was in college I stopped at a garage sale and found an old 10
gallon fish tank. After haggling I was able to get it the tank, filter
and gravel for $10.00. Satisfied that I found a bargain I took it back
to the dorm and began to clean it, and after two hours of scrubbing and
cleaning, I went to the pet store and bought two beautiful little fish,
food, and then back to the dorm to release my new pets into their
beautiful new home.
Twenty four hours later one fish was doing the backstroke and within 48
hours the second was doing its best imitation of a rock.
Being a little confused I went to see Dr. Foster, who was over the
biology department, and took a water sample. After a few questions my
problem was identified. My tank was beautifully clean and the water
crystal clear, however I had washed the tank with Ivory Liquid and I
didn’t realize that soap was toxic to fish.
I was well intended but since I was so unprepared I ended up destroying
the very lives I was trying to protect.
Our text today says that we have to always be ready to give our defense.
But sometimes we are not ready and in trying to give direction or
defense of the kingdom we use killer soaps - condemnation, criticism,
nagging, arrogance, etc. We think we’re doing right but our harsh
treatment is destructive of people, and the very Kingdom we are called
to build.
Ready or not here they come. Are you prepared?
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