Ready to Give a Reason | 1 Peter 3:8-22 | Enduring Trials, Proclaiming Christ

In this week's message, Pastor Mark preaches from 1 Peter 3:8–22, calling us to live faithfully under pressure, show grace when wronged, and be ready to share the hope we have in Christ. The gospel isn't just something we believe — it's something we display. When we endure trials and hold fast to Jesus, our lives proclaim the truth of who He is.

Watch the full sermon below and consider: where might your own quiet endurance be the clearest testimony someone around you will ever see?

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Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon from First Reformed Church in Edgerton, Minnesota. Each week, we dig into God's word, trusting that the Holy spirit will continue the good work of sanctification in us.

It wasn't terribly long ago that I found myself having a conversation with someone, and the topic of suffering came up. I'm not 100% sure how we landed on where we ended up with the conversation, but I do know one thing. We didn't go looking for this conversation. It came up over the course of our talking together. We ended up talking about multiple people that we knew in common who have experienced substantial loss in their lives.

In the course of that discussion, this friend of mine asked me a question that I actually receive relatively often. Why does God allow these type of situations to occur? And why does it seem that some people receive suffering in a double or even a greater portion? And this is a difficult question. A question that people far smarter and more insightful than I am have failed to answer well. What I said, I'm confident in, you never like the answer to these questions because you always feel you can do better.

But what I said is that we live in a world that's broken by sin, and suffering is a part of that. Now, I was very clear that I don't believe that it's the sin of an individual person that causes them to suffer. They don't experience this great loss because they're being punished. I believe it's a part of the general brokenness of the world because of sin. Bad things happen. Eventually, we all suffer.

As this conversation continued, we ended up doing something that was very productive. We turned towards hope. We talked of the ultimate hope that we have that one day all things will be restored. This world where suffering happens because the world's broken by sin, one day that will be restored. There will no longer be brokenness. There will no longer be suffering. Every tear will be wiped from our eyes.

Even though I'm confident neither one of us walked away from that conversation with all the answers, we both found ourselves struck by something else, the faith that we've seen in people who have experienced suffering. The hope that comes through in them. People who have endured deep suffering, and yet we see them living out their faith with quiet, steady hope.

They embody what we only have to say we believe. I'm always impressed by that. It's easy to say you believe those things. It's another thing to live it out.

So as we are in the sixth week of our Living Hope series through 1 Peter, we have seen that the churches that Peter is writing to, they are experiencing serious hardships, they're experiencing persecution. And through that, these first century believers are being called to humbly live in submission to those who are in authority or over them, even when those situations are awful. And Peter tells them that this is a way for them to witness to the saving work of Jesus in their lives.

And he expands upon this idea as we're finishing up chapter three today. So as we come to verses 8 and nine, we find that these situations that they find themselves in are situations where they're called to have unity and where they are told to bless instead of responding in a hostile way.

We see that Peter here is closing up a thought because he uses the word finally. This is expressing the importance not only of endurance, but why and how we endure these difficulties.

It's through the grace that we've been shown in Jesus. That's what brings us together. We can have unity of mind because we understand the saving work of Jesus for his people.

Now, Peter isn't calling telling them here to be mindless drones who agree with each other just for the sake of being an agreement. That isn't unity, that's uniformity. There's a big difference between those two things. Christian unity means that we understand what matters and we come together around that mission and that message.

Peter makes this clear multiple times in this letter because he reminds us of what Jesus has done for us in the gospel. Now everyone desires unity. What happens usually is we think that the best way to accomplish unity is by not worrying about details and just letting things slide so we don't have any confrontation. But we all know that doesn't work.

If we deny that the gospel is a message of rescue by God for his people, then we not only lose the plot, we lose any reason to be united together at all. You can go and get a motivating message, or you can go and work for a social cause anywhere.

The church is where you come to hear that God in Christ has rescued you from sin, death, and hell. You have been saved from his wrath, a wrath that you deserve because of your rebellion against his Holiness. That is where our unity is found, because that is who we are as the people of God. This is the only place where you receive that message, that message of rescue.

So centering on that truth is how we have unity. It's how we have sympathy. It's how we have brotherly love. It's how we have tender hearts and a humble mind, because we understand that none of this is about us. It's about what God has done for us in Christ.

I want us to consider the next statement in light of that. We're told not to repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling. As those who have been brought to Christ, those who have been given the gift of his righteousness, we have not received evil for the evil that we've done. God did not revile us, even though in our sin, we spoke against him. We mocked his ways, and we rejected his truth. We have been blessed in Jesus.

And so our calling is to do the same to others. We were not shown evil in our evil, so we should respond that way to others. And same with the mocking that we might receive. We mocked God in our sin. We should not mock others because he has forgiven our mockery.

And We can see this truth in our lives when we choose to do what Peter is saying here, right? When we try to respond by blessing others instead of repaying others, you see the benefit in your life almost immediately because you don't feel regret, you don't feel sorrow, you feel as though you are serving someone by responding in that way. You're doing what God called you to do.

But Peter doesn't just call us to this living. He shows us that it's a scriptural call, and he shows us why it matters. So what we just read isn't just some spiritual suggestion for how to be nicer to people. This is a call that flows out of what it means to belong to Jesus.

And to underline it, Peter quotes from Psalm 34 here. It's a passage about how those who fear the Lord are by peace and by a trust that God watches over the righteous.

So he's showing us here in quoting this passage that this way of responding with unity and compassion and blessing instead of a retaliation isn't just about making our lives smoother. It's about living as those who have been set apart. People who know the eyes of the Lord are on them. It's about trusting that even when we are wronged, God sees, God knows, even when no one else knows, and he will act.

Peter has been building something here. He's building to a particular message, not just in our passage for today, but throughout the whole book of 1 Peter thus far. He tells us of the reality of suffering for doing good and how our response then becomes a powerful witness to the hope that we have in Jesus.

Verse 13 repeats a theme we saw Peter mentioned previously. Back in chapter 2, verse 20, you may remember, he said, For what credit is it if when you sin, you are beaten and endured? But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

We get the idea. If you sin and you're punished for no one is going to really feel sorry for you. It is expected. But here, Peter is saying that when you don't do anything wrong and you are punished, you receive a blessing from God, though the world sees this suffering you're enduring as a curse.

So essentially, these first century believers were getting it from every side. They believed in Jesus and said that he alone is Lord, and the pagan religions in the state would have been against them, and they would have threatened them with persecution. Then, on top of it all, if they were in an area where there would have been a substantial Jewish population, they would have been under threat of persecution from them as well because they believe Jesus was the Messiah.

This would have been the threat that they would have been continually operating under, getting it from both sides. Peter is telling them that no matter where the suffering may come from, they need to know that God will bless them and that they can endure. They are to have no fear because they have ultimate victory in Jesus. Even if their persecution ends with their death, they have the hope of eternal life because of what Jesus has done for them.

What I want us to do for a moment is put ourselves in the position of these first century believers. Imagine that persecution has come to you, and instead of repaying evil for evil or fighting back in some way, you do what Peter is challenging them to do here, and you endure. And you continue to do so. You continue to trust in Jesus.

You're facing these hardships, and you do what Peter has called you to do here. What I want you to think about is what do you think the response of those persecuting you would be? How would they respond? I have a few things that I came up with, and hopefully We can have some that correspond here.

The first one I came up with was that it's a response of mockery. Because everything is against you because you are confessing Jesus is Lord, and instead Instead of turning away from that and stopping the persecution that you have, you're just digging in and you're holding to what is causing you pain. The first thing I imagined I might receive, if I was one of these first century Christians, was mockery.

Another potential response that I thought of would be people having a conviction over how they're treating me. Through that, they might learn to have a respect for me because I'm holding to my convictions that in the midst of everything, including the mockery I was just talking about, I'm holding fast. People, even if they don't agree with you, you can respect that.

The number one thing, though, that I thought of that people would respond if I was holding fast in the face of persecution was confusion, that they most likely would be very confused. In a good way, what is it about Jesus that has this person's devotion to him be so strong that he holds fast to Jesus even while we are persecuting them.

Now, each one of these examples that I came up with could have that end result of curiosity, right? What is it about the hope that this person has? This is what leads Peter to tell them to be ready in verse 15. He tells them that when people come inquiring of why they endure, they need to have an answer.

They're to be ready to share the truth of the gospel with them. They're to continue acting with gentleness and respect. I think you can see the power of this.

This is why I think right now is a good time for us to get really practical here by asking ourselves a couple questions. The first one is where in your life might your enduring for the sake of Christ cause people to ask why you have hope. The second question follows from this, what would your answer be? How would you explain why you trust Jesus as your savior?

It's going to look different for everyone. There is no special formula that's going to magically do the trick. From the time I was young, I have loved studying the defense of the faith, what we call apologetics. I have loved it. I love that topic. I love evidence that defends the faith. I love even more so the philosophical approaches. I really love these things. I really do. And they strengthen my faith.

But I have an understanding of the reality of it. Rarely, if ever at all, is my knowledge of reformed epistemology going to change somebody's mind. People don't care. And my point here is, you don't have to study master's-level textbooks to have a defense of your faith. We think it's about that. We think it's about people studying.

That's not what it's about. I say this because we all know that at the end of the day, we are not creatures who are swayed by facts. We like to think we are. We like to think that we can stack up evidence on the scales, and whichever side is heavier, that's the side that will win the argument. We like to think that that's the way. We like to think that we're that way. We're only influenced by facts. Everybody thinks that, but that's not how it works.

We are emotional beings. We are. We are people who have difficulties, struggles. We are people who have pain. Most people aren't looking for you to defend the faith with facts, to disprove their facts. They're looking for hope in the midst of struggles and pain and suffering. That's what they're looking for. They're looking for us to meet them where they are.

And this means that when we are asked why we have hope, we need to assume that they're looking for hope themselves. And this might mean you have a few reasons of those facts I've talked about, about why you believe the Bible to be true. You have those in the hopper in case they ask.

But primarily being ready to give a defense here means that you're able to testify to what the gospel is and how it set you free from sin and how it's your source of hope and eternal life. Peter makes sure we know the hope we're to proclaim by reminding those who may suffer for the faith that Jesus suffers suffered as well.

We see the sacrificial nature of the gospel here in the fact that Peter tells us that Christ was righteous and he suffered for the unrighteous. It's that great exchange we talk about that brings us into right relationship with God because we came with nothing. In fact, our situation was worse than that. Our unrighteousness is the problem. But God brought us to himself by suffering for our sins.

Peter makes it clear that this is once and for all. This is the hope that all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have. It's the answer to the reason that we can endure. It's the reason that we have hope.

Peter tells us here that Jesus went and claimed this message to the spirits in prison. Now, this is a confusing portion of this passage, and there are several different way as it's interpreted, but I'm just going to stick with what I believe to be the best way to understand because it's the simplest.

What Peter is saying here is that Jesus came and he preached to people during his earthly ministry, and he claimed liberty to those who were captive to sin. This was the mission of Jesus, and now as his followers, it's our mission as well to continue to proclaim the same message to people who are captive in our day. He came and delivered a message to captives. It is our message as well.

And so Peter also connects this idea to what happened in the days of Noah. In the days of Noah, there was a call to repentance, and God was patient because the ark didn't go up quickly. The ark was also a visible testimony to the impending judgment of God. But other than Noah's family, no one responded in faith. But those who did respond in faith were saved through water. They went through the flood, and they survived because God safely secured them in an ark of salvation.

As clear as this passage has been up to this point with the prisoners and with Noah, we come to an even more confusing confusing statement about baptism that we have to address before we close up.

It says here that baptism now saves you. It seems as though the administration of water here, as we read this, that the administration of water is going to get you a ticket to heaven, that all you need is to have somebody baptize you and then you're automatically saved. Some streams of Christianity believe that baptism is is what saves you.

But Peter isn't saying that if you want to be saved, go get a pastor or a priest to throw water at you in the name of the Father and the Son and Holy spirit, and then everything's good. That's not what he's saying. Instead, he's pointing to the idea that baptism is a sign and a seal of what saves us. He's clear it's not the water that's doing the saving because he says the water doesn't remove sin.

What baptism does is it points to our union with Christ in his death and resurrection. Peter says, It's an appeal to God for a good conscience. It's not a ritual that magically cleanses you from sin, but instead a visible expression of faith in the risen Christ. That's why in our reformed understanding of baptism, we say that baptism doesn't save apart from faith.

It's a sign and it's a seal that the gospel has done its work. We trust in that gospel. That's the point here, that we have hope and a good conscience because God has saved us, that he has set us free from sin. We haven't done this on our own.

We put our trust in the one who has done this because he has gone to heaven and is right now at the right-hand of God with all the powers subjected to him. That's how this chapter closes up, telling us and reminding us that Jesus is over all things and that we are united to him by faith. That's our hope.

That because Jesus has suffered, because Jesus was victorious, we will be victorious as well, even in the face of suffering. So as we bring this passage home, I want to go back to that conversation I talked about at the beginning of this message, where I was talking to someone about why some people experience so much suffering.

As I said, we didn't walk away with a good answer to the questions we had. This passage in 1 Peter doesn't give us the perfect answer to that question either.

But it does help us to know what God can do through those things. It helps us to know what good can come from the trials that believers endure. Because when the world sees these believers enduring hardship and faithfully holding to Jesus, they can see hope in a real and tangible way.

Suffering is something emotional creatures like us humans understand. Because we've either been through difficult times or we know we don't want to. When our lives testify to the truth of Jesus, it gives power to the gospel that we confess.

If we show that it isn't just a story in a book or something that we give lip service to, it shows that our real hope is in a real savior who we know has defeated death, our greatest enemy.

So when you suffer, you're going to naturally ask why. That's natural. But this passage challenges us to ask another question. What? What might God be doing through this situation? Your quiet faith, your steady endurance, your clinging to Jesus might be the clearest sermon someone around you ever hears.

So be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you, because the hope that we have in Jesus is real. It may our lives, whether in good times or in suffering, persistently testify to this hope that we have. Amen.

Let us pray. Great and merciful God, we thank you for the hope that we have in the Lord Jesus. We pray that our lives us, whether in good times or in times of hardship, would be a testimony to the hope that we have through his death, resurrection, and ascension.

Help us to be faithful witnesses. When people see that and they ask why we have hope that we would be able to share, that is because Jesus Christ has overcome death for his people. Grant us this opportunity and grant us confidence to testify to your great love to us. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon. For more information about First Reformed Church, head to our Facebook page or website, edgertonfrc.org.

You can find five days of short devotions related to this sermon here.