1 Peter 3:13-22 - "Don't Be a XINO"

Introduction

Live the Gospel of Jesus Christ by ...

A. Embracing your identity without fear

B. Eagerly desiring God and sharing your hope in Him

C. Reveling in the triumphant victory of Christ

I. Embracing Your Identity Without Fear (vv. 13-14)

A. Verse 13 begins with a rhetorical question: Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good?

Romans 8:31 NASB95

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

In other words: love goodness, love God, with a passionate intensity

B. Suffering for the sake of righteousness

2 Timothy 3:12 NASB95

12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

When it comes to suffering, there are three options:

God keeps you from suffering

God takes you through suffering

e.g. Joseph, Job, the three young Hebrew boys

God takes you home in the midst of suffering

This doesn’t have to be persecution. Death, even naturally, is a form of suffering. I know plenty of Godly people who after a long life, or a long battle with disease or sickness, went home to be with Jesus.

Suffering can also take place because of our Christianity. Church history tells us 10 of the 11 disciples were martyred for their faith. All throughout Church history we see this, and even presently today. I want to share an example with you from one of my favorite people: Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian who was actively involved in seeking to destroy the Nazi regime. He was taken to prison due to helping 14 Jews escape Nazi Germany. During his time in prison he wrote many letters. The July before his execution, he wrote to his dear friend, Eberhard Bethge, saying:

How should one become arrogant over successes or shaken by one’s failures when one shares in God’s suffering in the life of this world? You understand what I mean even when I put it so briefly. I am grateful that I have been allowed this insight, and I know that it is only on the path that I have finally taken that I was able to learn this. So I am thinking gratefully and with peace of mind about past as well as present things. …

May God lead us kindly through these times, but above all, may God lead us to himself.

The following year, on April 9, 1945, one month before Germany’s surrender, Bonhoeffer was hung, naked, in a German concentration camp. His powerful, final words were:

This is the end - for me the beginning of life.

And where was Dietrich Bonhoeffer at the moment he was executed? Standing in the presence of Jesus hearing the words “Well done, My good and faithful servant.”

All three, as a Christian, are good options.

C. Refuse to live in fear or intimidation because of who you are in Christ.

II. Eagerly Desiring God and Sharing Your Hope in Him (vv. 15-17)

A. Sanctify Christ as Lord in Your Hearts

What does that mean? It means allow Jesus Christ to be the Lord of every area of your life.

B. Apologia - a defense of or explanation for

This is where we get our english word apologetics

Not every Christian is an apologist, but every Christian should be able to articulate why their hope is found in Christ.

Notice the words always and everyone in verse 15.

What does always mean?

What does everyone mean?

Can I tell you why too often we choose not to share this hope?

Because too often as Christians we recognize we have been released from the penalty of sin and forget we are also released from the power of sin.

What do I mean by this? It means even though you are a Christian there are still sin patterns that exist in your life, but you no longer have to live under their power and influence.

But the enemy whispers in your ear that you do. He says you will always struggle with anger, or with pornography, or with pride, or with selfishness and so what hope do you have? You can’t change yourself he whispers.

And he and the world are right. You can’t change yourself. But you know who can? Jesus Christ. And so you have hope because you have sanctified Christ as Lord of your life, you continually cast your sins at the feet of Jesus in repentance, you give Him lordship over your struggles, and you ask Him to change you.

Philippians 1:6 NASB95

6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

And Christian, once you begin to revel in this glorious fact, once recognize you have been delivered, you begin to have a testimony.

2 Corinthians 5:17 NASB95

17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

A part of my own testimony

We choose not to share the Gospel because we are ashamed of our sins and allow our sins to still have power in our life.

When we recognize the power of God at work in our life, we can’t help but share the glorious hope we have found.

C. But you do so with gentleness and reverence

Gentleness means we preach the Gospel with meekness. It means we have the power of God in our lives but we don’t use it to beat people into submission.

Reverence means that in our proclamation of this hope, we seek for everything we say and everything we do to be done to the glory of Christ Jesus. It means we recognize that it is Christ’s name that we bear. It means we don’t testify to give glory to ourselves. We testify to proclaim the goodness of our God.

D. Keep a good conscience

In other words, let your conduct be above reproach.

Proverbs 28:13 NASB95

13 He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.

III. Reveling in Christ’s Triumphant Victory (vv. 18-22)

Verses 18-22 are some of the most widely debated verses in the bible, so let’s go through verse by verse and word by word to unpack them so that you have a clear understanding of what Peter is saying.

A. To ‘revel’ means to be excited about

Packaged in the first half of verse 18 is the entire Gospel message

All sins, for all people, for all time

‘The just for the unjust’ or the righteous One for the unrighteous

No condemnation now I dread;

Jesus and all in Him is mine!

Alive in Him, my living Head,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach the eternal throne,

And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

B. Death in the flesh … Alive in the spirit

When Jesus Christ was on the cross, God the Father didn’t die, God the Holy Spirit didn’t die. When God the Father poured out His wrath on the His Son, God the Son in His flesh died. His flesh died but He remained alive in His spirit.

C. Proclamation to the spirits in prison

Gk. keruzo, meaning to herald

The word that is not used here is the word for evangelize. Jesus is not going to evangelize to human spirits in hell and offer them a second chance. He is going to evil spirits, demons, to herald that he is King.

Hebrews 9:27 NASB95

27 And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,

Nowhere in Scripture does it teach that Jesus went to hell. Jesus isn’t down there beating on the devil for three days. He isn’t evangelizing to eternally damned souls in hell. So where is Jesus and what is He doing? He is in heaven. Why? Because He told the thief on the cross:

Luke 23:43 NASB95

43 And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

And sometime in between His physical death and His physical resurrection, Jesus went and proclaimed to some demonic spirits who in the time of Noah disobeyed. By the way, this corresponds perfectly with your Bible.

Revelation 5:13 NASB95

13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.”

Where did you get this?

Jude 6 NASB95

6 And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day,

Genesis 6:1–4 NASB95

1 Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

D. Baptism now saves you

Is baptism required for salvation? Isn’t that what Peter is saying? To answer this question you have to ask yourself how the thief on the cross fits into your theology.

Peter is not saying physical baptism saves.

In fact he goes out of his way to remove this from the picture by saying ‘not the removal of dirt from the flesh.’

Peter is saying it is a spiritual baptism which saves. Being submerged in water represents death, and baptism symbolizes coming out of death into new life. So just as the ark carried those on board through the wrath of God into new life, so also the blood of Jesus Christ brings all who are under it into new life.

Matthew 3:11 NASB95

11 “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

IV. Conclusion