Sermon Tone Analysis

We now turn to the next instalment in Peter’s letter.

And he asks the rhetorical question who will harm us if we do good?

Of course he is trying to get us to say ‘no-one’ but then we might actually suffer for doing good because there is evil in this world – and his name is Satan.

He is our very real enemy in this world.

There are people under his influence in this world who think in harming us that they are doing what is right.

But first things first: We ourselves are to be found doing right.

Last week we saw that if we want to overcome evil it is by doing good.

When temptation comes to us as it does to all of us in its various forms then to overcome we have to think about doing something else in its place.

We should already be prepared with Scripture in our hearts – just as in the desert Jesus answered the devil with: ‘it is written’.

Other things to do in moments of temptation is to pray, to read Scripture, to do something for someone else such as make a phone call to find out how they are and so on and so forth which distracts us away from what we’re being tempted with.

Each of us has to work out for ourselves what it will be that will best enable us to overcome and restrain our fleshly nature in each situation.

Most often these temptations are from within which is one kind of battle.

The second thing mentioned by Peter is that even by doing good we may find we run into trouble from outside of ourselves.

These are temptations that come upon us from others.

This is another kind of battle.

Last week we saw that Jesus did not retaliate out of anger but instead we inherit a blessing.

The response is similar to dealing with inner temptations as it is from those who want to do us harm – think to do good instead.

If we suffer for doing good then Peter reiterates his earlier message that we are blessed - and as a result we are to bless too.

He then quotes the latter part of:

This is similar to what Ezekiel is told

We are not to be afraid of people but of God.

If we are not afraid of people then we will be bolder in our faith to share the good news of Jesus.

Or at least we will not be concerned to give our opinion when we are asked in relation to our beliefs.

It is this even in the face of threats that will make the message stand out.

If we are only concerned for our safety than for Jesus than we will fail miserably.

If God is for us then we have nothing to fear.

We sometimes have to deal with individuals who will give us grief for our faith but even if a whole army is against us, even the whole world, we have nothing to fear:

But even if our lives are at stake and God does not deliver us, so what?

I know that the fear of being tortured plays on some Christian minds but to suffer for Christ will bring rewards beyond our greatest imagination.

For many in the Middle East and in Africa and various other nations of the world this is already their reality and many suffer and die as a consequence.

Should we then be fearful?

Jesus gives the answer in:

This life is not all there is.

We have hope in this life that God will work out all things for our good according to His purpose – but our hope is of the promised eternal life if we were faced with our imminent demise at the hands of others.

This hope will sustain us through the darkest hour.

And what has been said about the darkest hour – it gives way to the dawn of a new day.

Let us not fear anyone at all but find ourselves in the will of God.

The next verse (15) says very much that – make holy the Lord God in our hearts.

What does this mean – He is to be set apart in us greater than anything else – He is to be first in all things.

The next requirement is that we are always ready to give a defence of our faith.

I have said this before that we should know the general arguments against our faith and the answers for them.

We should also be aware of what other religions and cults believe to be able to counteract them as not being the same as what we believe.

The other part of this is that we are always to be ready – it is not dictated by how we feel but rather with readiness of mind to counter what people say as well as to promoting our faith.

This should always be done sensitively and with respect for we are not simply trying to win the argument but to win them over to the faith.

Love is to be the motivation.

Winning the argument may give us satisfaction but it is not about us but bringing people into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

All this is in the context of right living and therefore having a good conscience that cannot be undermined by others who would falsely accuse us.

Come time they ought to be ashamed that they have done so – sometimes others will simply say that all Christians are the same – they all do things wrong – I wish I could say that was not the case but we are all in the same boat – we are not yet perfect.

Sometimes our consciences should be accusing us for we do not always do what is right.

But blessed be God who gives us so many new chances for His great love for each of us covers a multitude of sins.

We can do nothing about the past but today and the future we can.

And if we do suffer we are again reminded of what Jesus did for us in suffering for our sins – not only that but here in verse 18 it says He did it for the unjust – there are many meanings for unjust – unfair, unreasonable, biased, prejudiced but here it simply means unrighteous, crooked or wrong-doers.

All that so that we could come back to God – and that is our task in the world: To bring people back to God.

And this was done by the death of the flesh, for Jesus this obviously meant His body being crucified, for us our bodies are to obedient also to death if required but certainly part of being a Christian is to love God with our bodies.

We have been made alive in the Spirit by the Spirit for the Spirit to do spiritual things.

Because of all that He has done He is exalted at the right hand of God and everything is under His power.

We read verses 19-20 in which there is obviously more to the story than we can work out from the rest of Scripture concerning what Jesus did whilst His body lay in the grave before His resurrection.

The earl Church would have understood clearly what Peter was saying but we can only surmise what they are about.

The Spirits in prison are not likely to be human spirits but rather those of angels who led the world astray in teaching humans the art of sin and they remain in prison awaiting the final judgment.

His preaching was not for their salvation but rather a declaration of His victory over them by the cross.

Scripture says there is no salvation for anyone once they have died and so this understanding of the preaching can be the only thing that can be true.

The angels’ disobedience was matched by those in the world who did not heed the preaching of Noah.

The world was washed away because of sinfulness but Noah was a man of faith – not sinless by any means – but he trusted in God and though the world drowned in water Noah was saved through water as a type of baptism.

He was saved by faith.

When we were baptised we were saying that we are committing ourselves to Him and for one another in the body of Christ.

It was a public demonstration of our intent to walk with God with a good conscience.

This also indicates to us that not many will be saved in the end either as Jesus testifies in:

Interestingly this was also the reading for this morning and I already had it in here for this evening.

Perhaps we really should be listening.

The time is drawing near when the door will be shut on this generation and the world according to Peter will be burned up – not water but fire will come in the next judgment of which we are to be concerned, not for ourselves but for our neighbours who will perish unless we preach the gospel to them.

It may be that they will refuse to listen but maybe they will.

The sorry tale is that most will not hear but we are not to be afraid to make known His Word to the world and the gospel will be preached in the whole world and then the end will come.

The whole world will then come under the authority and power of Jesus.

Satan and his servants will be thrown into the lake of fire.

The flood and Sodom are cautionary tales to the world and though they do not listen they will be a testimony against them.

The suffering that we may have to endure whilst here on the earth will pale into insignificance compared with Jesus sufferings but when we go to be with Jesus we will share in the victory that he won for us.

In the meantime we are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, taking up our cross daily, being ready to speak of our salvation because of the crimson cross, acting out our faith in a faithful and good way, enduring suffering and looking forward to the time when He returns to take us home to be with Him.

Benediction

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