Ladies, gentlemen, all gathered here and all watching by video, I want to encourage you today. How many of us need encouragement in these crazy days? I want to encourage you that are trying to keep from catching a virus, don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be fine.
For those of you that might already have the virus, I want you to know it’s going to be okay. Don’t worry. It’s all going to be fine.
For those of you facing job loss, don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be fine.
For those of you worried about your stock market portfolio, don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be fine.
For those of you with cancer today, don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be fine.
For those that are in prison, don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be fine.
For those that are facing divorce, don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be fine.
Lastly, if you have lived a sinful life and have no relationship with God, don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be fine.
So, there. Don’t you feel better now? Surely you do because I just told you it was all going to be okay, right? Why should you worry? Todd just reassured you. Or does it feel hollow and useless, like empty words said just to make you feel better but not based on truth?
Have you ever been watching a movie and some guy gets shot really bad? He falls over, blood and guts are everywhere and one of his buddies runs over and looks at his wounds and knowing full well that this guy is circling the drain and about to die, he says, “Don’t worry, Bill. You’re gonna be just fine. It’s okay.” Why do they say that? Because they want to make them feel better, if only for a moment. That’s admirable. I appreciate that.
Years ago, I worked for an auto parts store and a dolly full of car batteries fell on my finger and it smashed my finger so bad, it split it open on the side. It was, as you can imagine, horribly painful. Well, my co-worker threw me a rag and immediately took me to the ER which I appreciated. But the whole way there he kept telling me how he saw the whole thing and how gross it was to him.
“Dude! I saw it! Your finger just busted open like a plum! It didn’t cut your finger. It busted it open. Blood went everywhere. Did you see it? Wow! It busted it wide open…” And he just kept on and on until I was about to throw up just listening to him. He wasn’t helping anything. It wasn’t until I got to the hospital and the doctor said, “Okay, that’s bad but here’s what I’m going to do to make it better. Here’s the plan.” That’s what I needed to hear. I didn’t want him to tell me it was going to be okay and not do anything to help it but I also didn’t want him to just stare at it and tell me how bad it was.
In this life, the whole world is in trouble, one way or the other. Job said in Job 14:1, “Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.” Isn’t that the truth? We are all hurting. We are all dying. We are all despairing and the church – you – have a choice. You can sit back and watch and tell people how bad they are. You can give them empty platitudes and hollow encouragement with nothing to back it up. Or you can tell them the Good News that Jesus died on the cross and rose again to pay for our sins and now we can have a relationship with God through Jesus and all we have to do is believe it and allow it to change our lives.
You may have heard it said, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.” I like that. That is true. You can’t expect people to listen to you if your life doesn’t reflect what you are saying. But I always say, at some point, you have to use words. You have to open your mouth and tell people why you say what you do and why you act like you do and why you believe the way you do.
I say that because scripture says it. Turn to 1 Peter chapter 3, please, and let’s dive a little deeper into our sermon series on apologetics. A series on apologetics or knowing what you believe and why you believe it, would not be complete without a look at this verse. We get the word “apologetics” from this verse as I’ll show you in a minute. It may be the most direct instruction, the most obvious command and the most needed encouragement in all of scripture for personal evangelism.
The days that we live in are difficult times. The world seems to be in chaos. People are hurting and dying and struggling to make sense of what is going on and Peter was writing in a time at least as chaotic, difficult, and confusing. He lived and wrote this in a time where if you lived in the massive Roman Empire and called yourself a Christian, you could and probably would be killed for it.
The government would have you arrested and sent to trial and at this trial they would simply ask you if you were a Christian. If you said yes, you were killed. If you denied it and renounced Jesus and said a few adoring words to the emperor, you went home free. It was that simple. It was in this setting that Peter encouraged his readers 50-60 years after Jesus went back to Heaven, all the way to today. And it was in this setting that Peter himself was arrested, tried and was killed for doing exactly what he was encouraging us to do here.
Let’s read 1 Peter 3:15. “But in your hearts revere Christ as LORD. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. Hope. What is hope and why is it important? When do you need it? How do we get it and how do we keep it? And why should we tell others our secret about it?
Let me give you a scenario that will help us answer some of those questions but before I tell you the details, just know that if I’m making up a story to use as an illustration, you don’t have to nit pick the plausibility of it all, okay? Just roll with it and humor me if it’s a little far-fetched.
Let’s say you take a vacation as a chef on board a luxury cruise liner and you go deep sea fishing with some friends. (See, it could happen.) You go out to deep water and everybody is having a great time but y’all realize pretty soon that the boat has a hole in it and is sinking fast. You throw on a life jacket and everybody swims to shore on a nearby island in the middle of nowhere as the boat completely sinks.
Everybody is panicking. There’s no food, no water, no communication. What are we going to do? We’re all going to die! But you aren’t the least bit worried. You are calm and cool and sitting under a palm tree working on your savage tan. You aren’t worried because you know that your cruise ship stops at this little island every other day to let the people off to swim and relax on the beach.
You know that maybe later today or tomorrow or the next day that ship is going to pick you up and pretty soon you are going to be eating shrimp and steak surrounded by all your friends listening to you tell your story of how your fishing boat sank. You know that everything is going to be okay. It may take a couple of days. Things may get uncomfortable for a while. This is not where you are supposed to be so it’s not supposed to be comfortable but you don’t panic. You have peace and even joy when everybody else is freaking out.
Do you know what you call that? You call that hope. It is not an abstract hope that has no basis in reality. It is a confidant hope that something is going to happen soon. You just don’t know exactly when. And pretty soon, the others are going to start to notice how peaceful you are. They should notice. It should be obvious. There should be a stark difference in you and the rest of those around you because you know something they don’t and so your life is different than theirs right now.
So, that illustration may be a little far-fetched, but it speaks to exactly what is going on in our world today. The ones that don’t know the answer don’t have hope and they probably should be panicking. This could turn out to be pretty bad. But for followers of Jesus, we have our hope based on Him and so we don’t panic. We can have peace and joy in this life even though it may not be very nice at times. It may be worse than uncomfortable but we have hope that there is more to this life than what we can see and feel here.
Go back to the island. Let’s say somebody sees you sitting all calm and collected underneath that tree and so they come over and ask you why you are so peaceful when everybody else is going crazy. What are you going to say to help them? Are you just going to sit there and hope your inner peace influences them so much that they somehow figure it out? Are you just going to tell them that you have a good feeling about this? Are you going to say that your mother raised you not to worry?
No! You are going to speak truth to them by saying the name of the ship that is going to come. You are going to tell them what you know and how you know it and about your relationship to that vessel. Then they can decide if they want to come with you.
1 Peter 3:15 says to always be prepared to do this. Sounds like the Boy Scouts or something but we need to be ready because we never know when somebody is going to ask or even demand an answer. It says to be prepared to give an answer. Maybe your version says, “give a defense.” That Greek word for give a defense is “apologia” which is where we get “apologetics.”
Always be ready to give a defense for the hope you have. Hope is defined as a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. In these difficult and chaotic times that we are living in, people have options but they want the truth. Their options include freaking out and self-medicating, being ignorant of what is going on or maybe getting mad at God for allowing such a thing to happen to them.
As always, God is controversial. His works are controversial. His motivation is controversial. His very existence is controversial but people want the truth and it is your one job to tell people the truth. But when you get your chance, if all you say is, “Well, the preacher says…” or “I think God is…” or, worse, you say nothing at all then you are not giving a defense for your hope and you are being disobedient to what God has told you plainly to do. You have to know what you believe and why you believe it and then you have to tell others.
A few months ago a woman in our community asked if she could store some of her stuff here at the church. She had made a series of bad choices in her life and they were catching up to her and she was getting kicked out of her house and had no place to keep her stuff. Then not long after that some guy called me and said he had the rest of her stuff and wanted to bring it up here because the lady had gone to jail and wasn’t living with them anymore.
When she finally got out of jail she came with several friends to pick up what she had here and broke down crying because she realized how much she had lost. Her friends had obviously made their share of bad choices as well but one of them put her arms around the lady and awkwardly said, “Don’t cry. It’s going to be okay.” I appreciated the effort by the friend but you could tell even she didn’t really believe it.
There was no real hope there. There was no real expectation of something better. It was empty words and the only hope any of us have is found in the grace of God who sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross to pay for our sins. In Him there is hope. In Him there is grace. In Him there is no more shame or guilt or trying to be better or crying because of our bad choices.
We don’t have to live that way anymore and we just want others to come out of that lifestyle as well and so we tell them about our hope – not blind hope just like it’s not blind faith – but hope that we know Jesus is going to come back and take us to be with Him in Heaven and this world is not all there is to this life. There is more. There is better. We don’t know when it is going to happen but His name is Jesus and He is coming soon.
I know it’s true because the Bible says so and the Bible has proven itself to be true from the Old Testament prophecies that came true in the New Testament and the New Testament prophecies that have come true in my life. I know it’s true because of what Jesus has done for me. I know that it is only by the grace and mercy of God that I can be forgiven of all my sins and mistakes and I can now have peace and joy in this life even in the midst of a pandemic AND…and…and I have the blessed assurance of eternity with Jesus in Heaven when this life is over.
How about you? Do you have hope? Do you have peace right now right where you are sitting there in jail or watching on Facebook wherever you are? You can. Have you been forgiven? You can be right now. What more proof are you waiting for? You don’t have to be good enough. You don’t have to try harder. You just have to go to God in prayerful conversation and ask for His forgiveness. 1 John 1:9 says God is faithful and just and will forgive you of your sin and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. Cry out to Him right now as the music plays.
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