Blessed by Persecution

Introduction

If you are sitting in the front and near one of our offering baskets, will you please take that basket and pass it around. Someone will be in the back to pick it up after it makes it’s way around. Guests, please do not put any money in the basket, but members you can put your offering in the basket. Thank you for generously giving to the mission of our church.

Will you please open your Bible to ? Today we are going to look at together. If you don’t have a Bible, you can still follow along by looking at the screens in front of you, the verses will be there. Let’s read this passage together.

Read . Pray.

The Christian life is full of paradoxes. The Bible has no problem presenting us with paradoxes that confuse us. For example, the Bible teaches us that we are exalted through humility. It’s by making yourself low that you are exalted. Or again, it is through a suffering Savior that the Enemy is conquered. These paradoxes stretch our mind and cause us to rethink our lives and the ways that we perceive the world.

Today we encounter another paradox, one that, without a doubt, confounds our minds and causes us to reconsider our ways of thinking. Our passage today tells us that suffering brings blessings. Yes, you heard what I said, suffering brings blessing. Persecution leads to blessing. God has ordained that we are blessed by persecution. This is the title of our sermon this morning: “Blessed by Persecution” because what we see in this passage is that, though painful, We should be eager to honor Jesus Christ with our lives and lips because any persecution we encounter will lead to blessing. This is what this passage is all about. We should be eager to honor Jesus Christ with our lives and lips because any persecution we encounter will lead to blessing.

Truly, this seems paradoxical. After all, persecution is meant to deter a person’s eagerness. But not the Christian’s. Persecution does not deter our passion. Whatever persecution, slander, scorn, or ridicule you may receive for being a Christian or living out your faith in this world should not deter you from passionately pursuing Jesus Christ. Why? Because we are blessed by persecution.

This passage helps us by building two things into our hearts: hope and courage. We should come away from this passage with a sense of hope, knowing that our God will bless those that suffer for him, and with a sense of courage, being unafraid of our enemies and eager to honor Christ with our lives and lips. I believe this passage does this by building hope in verses 13-14 and by building courage in verses 14-17.

The first thing that we see from this passage is:

We Will Receive God’s Blessing Though We Suffer In This World

As sure as we are to encounter persecution in this world, we are certain to receive the blessings from God. Peter makes this point plain to us in verses 13-14. Let’s read them again together:

1 Peter 3:13–14 ESV

Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled,

Here Peter is getting to the heart of his letter. These believers that he is writing to have been faced with the sad but inevitable reality of suffering and persecution in this world. While I say it was inevitable for these Christians, is it true that persecution is inevitable for us? I believe so.

Though we are blessed in many ways by living in the country that we live in, I believe that persecution in some form is inevitable. For one, we are living in a society that is drifting away from Christianity and therefore our values are constantly at odds with our world. BUT, I think there is another way that we can anticipate and expect persecution. While living in a culture drifting from Christianity, most of us have also grown up in a culture that has been “Christian in name only”. We have grown up in a society that claims to be Christian but who’s heart is far from the Lord. Therefore, any attempt to live a genuinely Christian life is met with scorn, slander, and opposition.

What I mean is that as you live our your faith with genuine, heartfelt, and glad obedience to God and His Word, you will be met with opposition even by those who claim to be Christian. Perhaps this is the persecution you have faced? You are mocked by people that call themselves Christians. If so, there is hope laid up for you in these two verses. We will receive God’s blessing though we suffer in this world.

Verse 13 is actually a continuation of what Peter said earlier, in verse 12. In verse 12 Peter reminded us that “the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” Therefore, Peter is telling us, what harm can happen to you if you are zealous for what is good?

You may be saying, “What harm!? I can name a few: losing my reputation, losing my family, losing my job…shall I keep going?” Or what about Christians in Pakistan? What harm!?! Of course we are not being told that we will not have to go through rejection and harm in this world BUT we are told that if we are zealous for what is good, nothing can ultimately harm you.

Every persecution you experience in this world is temporary. Every evil you endure will be vindicated on the last day. All suffering comes to an end. If you continue to pursue what is good, you will be blessed on the last day.

Following verse 13, verse 14 tells us that even if we find ourselves suffering for righteousness, we will be blessed. Peter is echoing words he heard from Jesus in Matthew 5:

Matthew 5:10–12 ESV

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Have hope. Take heart. When you choose honesty over financial gain, when you choose humility over popularity, when you choose to be outspoken for what is good and right rather than being well-liked - you will be blessed. You may be suffering for what is good today. You may be feeling like the path that you have chosen is a hard path. If you are a young Christian you may even be asking yourself, “Is this what I signed up for?”

Yes. But oh, you will be blessed. We are citizens of a Kingdom that conquered its enemies through suffering. Our King Jesus suffered unjustly so that we could be brought back to God. But through his suffering he has been exalted. Jesus, through his glorious resurrection, passed through the Heavens and is not seated at God’s right hand. This will be our blessing as well. Have hope. We will receive God’s blessing though we suffer in this world.

This hope will produce in us a brave response.

We Must Be Brave With Our Lips And Lives To Honor Christ

What will people do who have their hope set on the blessing they will receive from God? What response should this produce in you? Courage. It should produce a brave people. After all, if God is for us, who can be against us? What can separate us from God’s love? In the face of persecution we must be brave with our lips and our lives.

We see this in verses 14-17:

1 Peter 3:14–17 ESV

14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor 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; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

There are two commands that begin this exhortation. “Have no fear of them, nor be troubled.” Have no fear for your persecutors. Don’t miss the fact that this is a command from God. Fear of man is forbidden. Instead of fearing man, we must trust the Lord and believe that he will vindicate his people on the last day.

With this courage, we are to honor Christ the Lord as holy in our hearts. This means that we will be awe of the Lord because of his love and his holiness. We will be aware of his presence, we taste and see that He is good. We love him because he purchased us from our sin.

Of course the heart is not just the organ inside of us, or our emotional center. It is the place that everything we think, say, or do flows from. This means that honoring Christ as Lord in our hearts is not a mere private devotion to God. Honoring Christ from the heart will be evident in our lives and from our lips.

In verse 16 we are told to have a good conscience. We should live all of our days before God, knowing that we are always in his presence. Have courage, church, and honor Christ with your life. Live before God with a good conscience, knowing that his presence is always with us and we always live before him. Will you cave in fear? ill you cower in shame? When opposition rises, be brave and live before the Lord.

Not only, do we honor Christ with our lives, but we also honor him with our lips. Look again at the end of verse 15.

1 Peter 3:15 ESV

15 but in your hearts honor 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; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

1 Peter 3:

Courageous Christians are surprising to the world. Brave Christians display a hope that reaches toward another home. And it leads the world to ask, “Where does this hope come from? If I were slandered, reviled, mistreated, and scoffed at, I would have no hope. I don’t have anything without my income and public persona. How can a person live without it?” You have a hope that the world does not have, but some want it. Does your life display hope to the watching world??

Therefore, we must be ready. We must be ready to respond with an appropriate word and defense of our hope. Do you realize something here? Your suffering for the gospel creates opportunities for the gospel. You lifestyle and your secure hope in Heaven creates an opportunity for you to proclaim the gospel to the world. This is why Peter does not ask us to withdraw from the world, but instead to defend the faith within the world.

Peter does not ask us to withdraw from the world, but to defend the faith within the world.

The word “defense” is a word that we get the term “apologetics” from. We should be prepared to boldly give an argument for our hope. Be assured in knowing that this does not mean that you must be a Christian “apologist” in the full sense of the word. Peter is not calling every Christian to the debate stage to contest brilliant secular scholars.

No, this means that every Christian should have a firm grasp on the essentials of the faith and have an ability to explain to others why the Christian faith is true. You proclaim the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of God plan and the display of God’s power. We confront the wisdom of the world with the folly and power of the gospel. It can be as easy as saying, “I can live this way because I have hope for life in another world. It is more joyful to follow Christ than to be honored by men. Jesus died for all of my sins, how can I not live for him?”

As we make a defense, however, we are to do so with a clear demeanor. Did you see the end of verse 15? “yet do it with gentleness and respect.” The temptation to respond to those opposing us is to respond with anger as well. But we are called to respond with gentleness and respect. We should have a humble attitude, not an arrogant one. And as for respect, this is likely talking about respect and reverence for God. Our respect for God should inform our gentle response toward man.

It can be as easy as saying, “I can live this way because I have hope for life in another world. It is more joyful to follow Christ than to be honored by men. Jesus died for all of my sins, how can I not live for him?”

The message of the cross is impossible enough to comprehend. Don’t make it harder by mixing it with your pride and arrogance. When we respond with a defense of our hope, we should respond with gentleness. Yet, be brave with your lips in honoring Christ.

There is a call to belief in this passage and there is a call to growth in this passage. Maybe you have come to worship today because you have lost all hope but you have a friend who has it. You’ve wondered where they get it. Christians have hope because they have been saved from all of their sins and now have the security of life after death, life after this persecution, slander, and evil. Maybe God is calling you to believe today.

Or maybe he is calling you to grow. For Christians today there is a call to grow: in our understanding of the gospel so that we can make a defense when appropriate, in our grasp on eternity so that we have a secure hope beyond the world, and to grow in our courageous living for the honor of Christ in a hostile world.

We must be brave with our lips and our lives in honoring Christ. As we live and speak for him, it will put those who slander us to shame. Sadly, it is God’s will for us to suffer for doing good. But in the midst of this suffering we must hang on to a hope that is secure for us in Heaven and know that through our suffering we will be blessed:

1 Peter 3:17 ESV

17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

Sadly, it is God’s will for us to suffer for doing good. But in the midst of this suffering we must hang on to a hope that is other-worldly

We should be eager to honor Jesus Christ with our lives and lips because any persecution we encounter will lead to blessing.

There is a call to belief in this passage and there is a call to growth in this passage.

You have a hope that the world does not have, but some want it.