Be Ready: The Holiness of Christ

I Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

Sanctifying the Lord in your heart does not make Jesus holy, but it is recognizing that He is holy. It  is to stand in awe of HIs holiness, have confidence in His power, love in our hearts for Him, and to obey His commands. Being ready to give an answer and witness for Jesus requires submitting the Lordship of Christ in your life and knowing our Holy God.

This passage is a reference from Isaiah 8:13. In Isaiah’s time, the people were not trusting the Lord and some went to peeping and muttering wizards and soothsayers for deeper understanding and guidance. The conventional wisdom was that people should get their direction from God by speaking to the dead. They lived in very spiritual times, but being a spiritual person is only good when you follow the right spirit. Israel preferred the unsure words of devil worshippers above the Word of God. Isaiah answered this error with the call to “sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (Isa. 8:13)  and when they come with their wisdom or spirituality, you go “to the law and the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isa. 8:20). Trust in the Lord and heed to His Word. In the context of 1 Peter 3, God’s people are following the good, even if it leads to persecution. They stand against the wisdom of the age and follow their Lord, not fearing the threat, nor being afraid of the trouble that comes when we do. Who can really harm you if you follow the Lord? How then do we sanctify the Lord in our hearts? To the law and testimony. We hold to and follow the Word of God and the God of the Word. Regardless of popular opinion, or the sincerity of the other message, Jesus is Lord and His word stands. Sanctifying God in your heart is to take God’s word as the foundation of your life, no matter the circumstances. If we are defending the faith against someone who is opposed to Christianity, or witnessing to someone who doesn’t believe, we must stand on the firm and solid truth that Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Truth. We won’t sway to popular ideas or conventional wisdom. Our hope does not come from our feelings and intuitions. Our confidence is not on the wisdom from below, but from above. Jesus is Lord, God is sovereign, His Word is powerful, and so we witness for Him believing those truths. When we see the holiness of our God, we will fear him. When you fear God, you have nothing else to fear.

Click below for the previous posts in this series.
Part 1
Part 2

Ready to Given an Answer: Apologetics and a Godly Life

Introduction.

The first step in being able to give a reasoned defense of the faith is to live a godly life. Some ungodly people are naturally drawn to apologetics because they love to fight and argue. Some immature believers enjoy apologetics because they feel it is sanctified rebel rousing. Their motivation is not for the glory of God in proclaiming truth, but to be mean-spirited troublemakers using the shield of faith as a cover for carnality or the hilt of the sword of the spirits to bludgeon opponents in the name of Christian charity. The goal of Christian apologetics glorifying God, truth proclaimed, and sinners coming to faith in Christ.

Peter imploring us to be ready to give an answer in 1 Peter 3:15 occurs in the middle of a book calling us to holiness. This book was addressed to “scattered strangers” or believers in Jesus who were uprooted from family, friends, and country because of persecution. The entire letter encourages disciples with a call to persevere in the faith as pilgrims journeying to our Heavenly home (1 Peter 2:11). Peter exhorts Christians to live holy lives as God’s chosen people. However privileged and blessed this calling is, God’s people are foreigners in this world. We make our sojourn here, not in rebellion but by submitting to God ordained authority. We are God’s children, yet we are to be submissive to the governmental authorities, even if we are treated poorly. We have an incorruptible inheritance in Heaven, yet called to be good employees, especially when we are treated poorly. We have the rewards of everlasting life and peace, yet are to be meek in suffering, as we follow our Lord’s example. Peter stresses in the importance of godly language and godly works (I Peter 2:1; 2:16; 3:10-11; 4:2-4) living in this wicked world. We are to live holy and separate lives in a world system that is enmity against our Lord.

A godly life reflects the light of Christ in a sin darkened world. A holy life will draw attention because it is different and will spark questions or accusations. When you are respectful to your leaders and politicians, when you are gracious to an employer who treats you poorly, when you never tear down your spouse when everyone else is making jokes about theirs, sooner or later someone will either ask you why or start giving you a hard time about it. By being patient and humble in unjust suffering, or showing love to your enemies, you are being a witness for Christ, and when they ask or accuse, you have an opportunity to explain why and proclaim Christ. How you live does not make something true or false, but it does affect how someone will take your words (Genesis 19:14). Being ready to give an answer to your faith starts with living the faith you claim to believe. Look to yourself first, take the beam out of your own eye and be ready to tell others about Jesus.

Tangled up in Allegory

I've been studying Revelation 20 and reading the different perspectives on the Millennium. I contend a consistent reading of Scripture will lead you to a premillennial view of Revelation 20. Just about every verse of the first seven, is a battlefield of eschatology.  Commenting on Revelation 20:1 on the "great chain" the angel uses to bind Satan, J.A. Seiss wrote "Figures, tropes, and shadows cannot bind anybody, unless it be some commentators, who seem to be hopelessly entangled in them."

Ready to Give an Answer: An Introduction

Apologetics isn’t the art of saying I’m sorry, but it is giving a reasoned defense of something. Scott Oliphint defined Christian apologetics as "the application of biblical truth to unbelief." In 1 Peter 3:15, we read that Christians must “…be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you…”. The phrase "to give an answer" is translated from the Greek phrase pros apologian, which is where our English word apologetics comes from. Peter is calling  all Christians to be apologists, or that we should all be able to defend and give a statement of what we believe to those who don’t.

Jesus gave his church a mission in Matthew 28:18-20. We are to  go, preach, teach, and make disciples. This verse is not only for missionaries who go to foreign fields. The call to go is for all Christians. The call is to take the gospel with us as we go, wherever we go. We go to work, or go to our neighbors house, we go to the store, we go to the ball game, we go all over the place and speak with people who don’t know Jesus. We go to school, we go to biology class, we go and look at solar eclipses. We talk with people about the weather that God controls, and politics, which God ordains. We discuss how elusive turkeys are and the nature of whitetails, all God’s designs. We are in constant conversation with people about God’s world. The way we look at God's world and how we act in a fallen world communicates our Biblical view of life. Biblical truth is not confined to the church walls, true belief will work itself out in our lives. Naturally, our view of the world will be different than unbelievers because our belief is informed by God’s word. When you have differences with someone, you have discussions. Discussions will (or can) lead to the big questions of life and Peter says that the Christian needs to be ready to give those answers.

We don't need to have the answer so we can win arguments. We need to be ready to tell people about the hope we have. Gospel hope isn’t a wish, like “I hope this is true” but a confident faith in God’s promises. Christian hope is not blind faith, but faith in God’s Word. We trust God and His promises. We have confidence that God has done what he promised to do. We have the assurance that Christ Jesus redeemed us with his precious blood. We have hope that He will return. We have assured confidence that He gives eternal life to all who put their hope and trust in His finished work. We can be certain in trying times. We can be joyful in difficult situations. We can be loving to our enemies, and compassionate and merciful to the wicked. We do this because of the hope that is within us.  

Blessed are the Merciful

Matthew 5:7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Mercy is compassion in action. While grace deals with sin, mercy deals with the consequences of sin and has pity on the miserable by relieving their suffering. Puritan pastor Thomas Watson wrote that “love is the friend who visits all and mercy is the doctor who visits the sick.” Jesus told a parable of a merciful Samaritan in Luke 10:30-37. A Jewish man was traveling to Jericho and fell among a band of thieves who robbed him and beat him half to death and left  him to die in the road. A priest, the man ordained for the good of men in things pertaining to God, passed by and didn’t help. A Levite, who was the religious man who served in the Temple also saw the man and walked to the other side of the road to avoid him. He had work to do for God after all. But the Samaritan had compassion. He didn’t just feel bad about the situation, his compassion led to mercy. The modern day version might have the Levite pass by the crime scene, take a picture and post it on Facebook. “Saw this tragedy on the way to Temple. Sad! Can’t believe someone would do this! #caring #compassion.” Posting a sympathetic post about suffering isn’t mercy. That doesn’t help anyone who is suffering. The merciful Samaritan bound up his wounds, provided him medicine, let him ride his animal to an inn, and cared for him. When the Samaritan had to leave, he had the innkeeper to continue the care on his dime. Not because of a tax return opportunity. Not because someone would see him, but out of love and pity to relieve the someone’s suffering.

Jesus is the perfect example of mercy. As the Samaritan cared for the physical needs of a helpless, wretched man, Jesus cared for the wretched and pitiful condition of sinners. Grace redeemed us, mercy pitied us and provided the cure for our misery. In our dreadful state, the merciful Lord Jesus did not merely look upon sinners and offer an option, but entered his own creation to bind up our wounds, open the eyes of the blind and set the prisoners of sin free. Jesus is compassion in action. Sacrificing His very life’s blood for the salvation of His people, Jesus saved us, cared for us, and provided for our eternal needs in loving grace and glorious mercy.

Christians are to be merciful people, not to earn mercy (since that is impossible) but because we have received mercy.  Could you imagine the Jewish man, getting healed up, leaving the inn and passing by a broken, beaten, dying man and not showing mercy? Since you have received mercy from God, show mercy to others. A mean hard-hearted person who takes the name of Christ is at best a shame to their Lord and at worst, a deceived soul who had never experienced mercy in the first place.