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Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
This is a reading from 1 Peter 3:13
through 22.
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,
but in your hearts honor Christ.
The Lord is 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,
having a good conscience,
so that when you are slandered,
those who revile
your good behavior in Christ
may be put to shame.
For it is better to suffer for doing good.
If that should be
God's will than for doing evil.
For Christ also suffered once for sins,
the righteous for the unrighteous,
that he might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh,
but made alive in the spirit,
in which he went and proclaimed
to the spirits in prison,
because they formerly did not obey.
When God's patience waited in the days of
Noah while the ark was being prepared,
in which a few, that is, eight persons
were brought safely through the water.
Baptism, which corresponds to this, now
saves you
not as a removal of dirt from the body,
but as an appeal to God
for a good conscience
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
who has gone into heaven
and is at the right hand of God
with angels, authorities, and powers
having been subjected to him.
Well,
good morning and welcome to the weekend
gathering of Christ Community Chapel.
My name is Zach.
I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm
so glad we get to be part of your weekend.
We are almost done with our fall sermon
series.
Going through 1 Peter,
which means, by the way,
that it's almost Christmas time,
which is crazy, crazy.
But we are going through 1
Peter this fall for one simple reason.
Now, first, Peter is a letter written
to a growing church
in the middle of a hostile culture.
And we think there are a lot of parallels
between that church and this one,
that culture and this one, which means
that the message God has for that church
where he calls them not to shrink back,
not not to hide out, but to rise up,
to engage the culture with the gospel
is the same message he has for us.
So we've been doing each week
is looking for a new way that God is
calling us as a church to rise up.
We're going to do that again this week.
In fact, if you have a Bible,
would you take it out and open it to 1
Peter chapter 3?
Perfectly okay to take out your phone
or your tablet.
Get there however you'd like.
And hey, if you're here and it's
been a while since you've been in church,
I want you to know
you're in absolutely the right place.
And even if you're thinking,
I have no idea where first Peter three is
and I didn't bring a Bible, that's okay.
The verses are going to be
on the screen behind me.
But if you want to in the back of East
Hall or in the back of the pew
in front of you here in our West
service is one of these Bibles,
and if you use one of them, I can tell you
that today's reading is on page 954.
So glad you're here.
Thanks for taking that step.
But however you're getting to first
Peter chapter three, let me hold out to
you three points I'm going to use
as an outline to guide our time together.
Very simple.
I want to show you three things
I want to show you the need,
the cost, and the question.
Okay. The need,
the cost, and the question.
All right. Let's start
first with the need.
One of the things
that you'll notice about this passage
is that Peter talks
a lot about the way this church lives.
Now, I want you to keep in mind
that the framework of this passage
we've been looking at for the last
few weeks is that God has a vision.
This goes all the way back to first
Peter chapter two, that God has a vision
and his vision to this young church
in the midst of this hostile
culture is he tells them, everyone
who is your enemy.
Today I want to be family tomorrow.
That's who God is.
God says, I know you're surrounded
by people who hate Jesus.
They hate the Bible.
They hate the church.
And he says,
but you have to understand my vision.
My mission is to turn them
from enemies into
family, enemies into worshipers.
So everything God is calling this church
to do is to accomplish that mission.
Two weeks ago that meant to surrender.
Last week it meant to live in relationship
in a certain way.
And this week, what he says is
if we want to see those people
go from enemies to family, it will take
your moral obedience is
I want you to live lives
of goodness, lives of righteousness,
lives of obedience.
Look with me at the passage.
Just pick it up in verse 13
and read through verse 16.
Here's what it says.
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,
but in your hearts honor Christ.
The Lord is holy, always being prepared
to make a defense to anyone who asks
for a reason, for the hope
that is in you, yet
do it with gentleness and respect,
having a good conscience,
so that when you are slandered,
those who revile your good behavior
in Christ might be put to shame.
Do you see all those references?
He talks about?
Good conscience,
good behavior, righteousness.
What Peter is telling them
is that part of God's
plan to reach your family,
your neighbors, your community,
your workplace, is your moral obedience.
And mine.
In other words, what Peter is saying
is that the choices we make on a big scale
and a little scale are the things that God
will use to get their attention.
Why, he says, live in such a way
that they will ask you questions.
And then when they ask you, ask
you questions, tell them it's because
of Jesus.
Your moral obedience matters.
Now, you might not be surprised to hear me
say that.
After all, for most of us,
when we think about God, we think a bit
about him as someone who probably cares
about the way we live.
And if you've read the Bible, you know
it has a lot to say about do's and don'ts.
Live this way, not that way.
And that's because God is holy.
God is righteous, and also
because he knows how life works best.
So he's telling us that this life
will lead to flourishing
and this life will lead
to the opposite of flourishing.
What you may not realize, though,
is that the way you live
is not just about you and God.
It's about you and the people around you.
It's part of God's mission to reach them.
Let me give you an analogy
that I think will help this make sense
throughout history.
When armies would go to war with one
another,
there would be this particular job
that on the face of it,
was not very glamorous
but was really important.
And that was the job of a flagbearer
like in American history.
You can best see this in the Civil War.
A flag bearer was someone
who would march towards the enemy,
and they didn't hold a weapon.
They held a pole
and on the end of the pole was the flag.
And they served a really important job,
actually, a couple of jobs.
I mean, one is they let people know
where their army was
because once the battle got going,
there was smoke and dust
and all kinds of things all everywhere.
And if you got separated from your unit,
you would look for the flag.
It was a kind of rallying point.
It was also inspiration.
So as long as the flag was flying
and moving, that meant your side
was still in the fight.
So in the thick of battle,
you could look up
and if the flag was there,
you knew we're moving forward.
Generals would stand a far away
on a hill, and
and the flags are actually how they would
know if they were winning or losing.
If their flags were moving forward,
that meant they were winning.
If their flags were stalled out or down or
retreating, that meant they were losing.
And so flag bearers
would go to battle without a weapon.
But as a central part of the strategy
of their side to win the war.
And the reason I think that's
such a good analogy is that Peter says,
if you want to change your family,
if you want to change your marriage,
your your, your neighborhood,
your community,
your culture, your workplace,
you don't pick up a weapon.
You pick up a flag.
You live your life in such a way
that it is a stark
contrast to the people around you.
It is evident there's a different kingdom,
a different way of living.
It brings up the idea that God is real,
that he's changing people.
You see, when you move
from a person of bitterness to a person
of forgiveness,
the flag of Jesus is waving.
People have to reckon with that.
When you move from a from a life of greed
to a life of generosity,
that flag is flying.
In other words, what Peter is saying
is that if you want the culture around you
to change, you cannot see your daily
obedience as insignificant.
It's crucial. It's crucial.
What this means then, fathers,
if you want to shape your family,
your daily decisions matter.
Your moral obedience matters.
Husbands and wives,
you want to shape your marriage
and doing relationships.
God's way matters.
Obedience is how the flag of Jesus flies.
You want to change your business.
You tell your partners,
we're going to stop cutting corners.
You want to save your relationship.
I know it's counterintuitive.
You go home after the service and say,
I think we got to stop living together.
Because the blessing of Jesus,
the evidence of God's reality, comes
when the flag is flying.
And I want in particular
young people to hear me on this.
If you want to go further
than my generation with your experience
of God and your experience of the Kingdom,
and I hope that you do,
the key to
that is going to be to surrender to Jesus
in every area of your life,
because Peter says,
When God's people are obedient,
the world takes notice.
How prone are
we to shaking our fist
at the state of the world,
at the state of our family,
at the state of our
marriage, of blaming everyone else,
pointing at everything else?
When Peter says the only hope of change
is for you to start taking
Jesus seriously.
So the first question is
this is your flag flying?
Are you surrender
to the Lordship of Jesus?
Can people see in you
a contrasting narrative,
because the world is the way it is,
because we do marriage
our way, relationships our way, money,
sexuality, identity our way.
We have a broken world because
we're broken people and we're in charge.
But people will live
and die that way
unless there's a counter-narrative,
which is what Peter says
your life is meant to do,
that's the need for your obedience
to fuel the mission of Jesus.
But here's the disclaimer.
Second point the cost.
You may have noticed this
when we read the verses,
but these verses are like going up a hill.
You go up one side
and all he's talking about are goodness
and righteousness
and living with integrity.
And that sounds nice.
And then you go down the other side of
the hill and he's talking about suffering.
In fact, let's read these verses again.
But this time, instead
of putting the emphasis on goodness,
I want you to notice how many references
there are to suffering.
Verse 13.
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,
but in your hearts honor Christ.
The Lord is 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,
having a good conscience,
so that when you are slandered,
those who revile your good behavior
in Christ may be put to shame, for
it is better to suffer for doing good,
if that should be God's will,
than for doing evil.
Do you see how many references
there are to suffering
when they do you harm?
When they persecute you?
He says he's talking about
big persecution, physical jail, beatings
that many of our brothers and sisters
around the world will experience today.
But he's also talking
about little persecution.
He says, when they lie about you,
when they slander you,
you see, God is very honest.
He says, if you decide in the middle
of a broken world
that you are going to begin to follow
Jesus, to really give your life to Jesus.
If you decide that,
then people
are going to take shots at you.
That's what's going to happen now.
Now, why is that?
There are two reasons,
and I want you to understand them.
The first, is it their own insecurity?
You know,
he talks about when they slander you?
Well, why would someone slander someone
for the way they pursue their marriage
or the way they pursue generosity,
or the way they pursue forgiveness?
Why would your family turn on you
and you're the one working towards
reconciliation?
Why would that happen?
Well, the answer is because none of us
like it when our brokenness is exposed.
I can be wildly insecure.
Most people, by the way,
who live their lives on the stage,
can be wildly insecure.
And in fact, let me give you an example.
We could be driving
through the neighborhood, my wife and I,
and we pass a guy out in the front yard
throwing the football to his son,
and Amy will say, oh, that's sweet.
What a great dad.
And I'll say what?
I throw the football with our son.
He probably doesn't work as hard as me.
He's probably not as tired as me.
You know, he's probably not his husband.
You know what?
You know, he's not even throwing a spiral.
But when I react in that moment.
It's not about Amy, is it?
It's not even about that dad in the yard.
It's about me.
I'm worried
that maybe I'm not measuring up.
And another dad pursuing
his son makes me feel threatened.
Friends, listen, you have to understand,
when people take shots at you
for following Jesus,
when you have that hard conversation with
the person you're in a relationship with,
when you tell your family that you are
going to try to reach out again,
when you tell your business partner
you're not going to cut a corner.
When they take
shots at you, it isn't about you,
it's about them.
And I only say that to say
that that's not a reason to stop.
How silly would it be for that dad
to say when his son says, hey,
can we throw the football?
And he goes, actually, son, we go to seek.
And I've heard that makes Pastor
Zach feel vulnerable.
So let's stay in the house.
That would be silly, right?
That would be silly.
But then why wouldn't
you push forward into
what God has for you?
Just because someone's
going to criticize you?
But here's the second thing.
The Bible tells us
we're in a war, a spiritual war.
Can I tell you something?
If you're here and I've been saying this
the last few weeks, I feel like,
let's be honest with you, I feel like
the Holy Spirit has put this on my heart.
If you feel like your
Christian life is boring,
stale, stagnant,
can I tell you why that is?
It's because your flag
is laying on the ground.
Because if you live life the way
everybody else lives, you get the results
everybody else gives you.
You don't get the blessing of God.
You don't get the anointing
of the Holy Spirit.
You don't get the amazing move of God
towards restoration and reconciliation.
The good news is no one will shoot at you.
The bad news is when the battle is over,
it will not even matter
that you were on the field.
Is that what you want?
So here's the bad news.
If you pick up the flag,
you know why. You know why.
Most American Christians
have no theology of Satan.
I'll tell you why that is,
because if you leave your flag on the
ground, he leaves you alone.
Why wouldn't he?
You're
doing exactly what he wants you to do.
You see every benefit you get.
By the way, did you know in the Civil War,
they shot flag bearers
first?
And the reason for that was because all.
All the benefit.
Smooth,
I already had it unwrapped and everything.
I'm a professional.
All the benefit
that the flag bearers brought.
The rallying point, the inspiration,
the ability to tell if you're winning.
If they were dead, the enemy lost
all that.
Listen, brothers and sisters,
if you pick up the flag of Jesus, here's
the good news.
Your Christian,
your Christian life will not be boring.
It will not be stale.
It will be exciting.
It will be invigorating.
It will be passionate.
You will see God move.
The bad news is
you'll be on Satan's radar.
And he will come for you.
And you will suffer.
But here's the thing
we understand intrinsically, don't we?
The pursuit of anything good comes
with suffering.
You want to get healthy,
you have to suffer.
You want to get in financial shape.
You'll suffer.
You want to earn in your career.
You will suffer. Jinxy, hear me on that.
You got to suffer a little bit.
It was one of the best metaphors
I can think of for that is moms.
That's why we love moms.
Moms are incredible.
They will suffer for all of us.
I mean, my wife at 11:00 at night,
you hear noises like, what is that?
You think the kids are okay?
I don't even care
at that point. If I'm honest.
She'll
go to bed late, she'll get up early.
She'll make your favorite lunch.
She'll drive things to you at work.
She doesn't care her life is about us.
She'll suffer every day for us. Why?
We love moms.
And if you ask her,
why don't you need some me time?
She'll say, the happiness of my family
is worth it to me, I gladly suffer.
We get that.
So listen friends, if you find yourself
at the point of obedience,
if the Holy Spirit has put his finger
on something in your heart
and he's telling you to give it to him
and you don't want to
because you know you're going to suffer,
here's what you have to realize.
Your problem isn't pain tolerance.
Your problem is you don't know
if the suffering will be worth it.
That's my third point.
Not just the need for you to follow
Jesus, not just the cost of doing so,
but the question,
if I suffer for Jesus, will
it be worth it?
That's why Peter answers,
but do you feel that in this room?
You know,
I know you feel that because I feel it.
That's why Peter ends this passage
by teaching us this.
God never wastes
the suffering of his people.
Look at what he says in verse 18.
Of course.
Where does he turn?
But to Jesus is what he says.
For Christ also suffered once for sins,
the righteous for the unrighteous,
that he might bring us to God.
Being
sorry, being put to death in the flesh,
but made alive in the spirit,
in which he went
and proclaimed the spirits in prison,
because they formerly did not obey.
When God's patience waited in the days of
Noah while the ark was being prepared,
in which a few, that is, eight persons
were brought safely through water.
Baptism, which corresponds to this now
saves you not as a removal of dirt
from the body, but as an appeal to God
for a good conscience
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
who has gone into heaven
and is at the right hand of God
with angels, authorities, and powers
having been subjected to him.
Here's what he's saying.
He's saying two really powerful things.
The first thing he's saying is
when you get to that moment of obedience
and you think, God, if I give you this,
if I stop sleeping with him,
if I stop living with her, if I stop
holding bitterness in my heart towards
him, if I stop cutting corners at work,
if I start doing things your way,
I am going to suffer.
And how do I know
if it's going to be worth it?
Peter says, here's
how you know it was the suffering
of God's own son that saved your soul.
God doesn't waste suffering.
He uses it to redeem.
He uses it to save.
Every blessing you have in Christ came
through suffering.
So when you get to
that moment of obedience, it's as though
Jesus himself is saying,
give it to me because I am your witness.
By the way.
That's why he connects it to baptism.
We're baptizing 25 people
across the weekend, which is amazing.
Maybe you're here because you came
because a friend or family member
is getting baptized.
Maybe you thought,
I don't know why they invited me.
Here's why.
Because when that person gets baptized,
they're getting into Akron
City Water in a tub
we bought, probably on Amazon.
So there's nothing holy about it
except for this.
What they're doing
is they're identifying with Jesus.
They're saying Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, lived in my place.
And then he died on the cross.
And he and he died.
He went into the tomb.
So also I get lowered into the water
and then he rose from the dead.
So also I get brought back up
and they're raising the flag of Jesus,
and they're saying people can change.
God is real. He will forgive.
He does restore.
Here's how you know he's done it in me,
friend.
Suffering
is how God has given you every good thing
he's ever given you.
The amazing life
God has for you,
the experience of the kingdom
that God has for us here at the church
is on the other side of suffering.
It's on the other side
of being lied about.
It's on the other side of being slandered.
It's on the other side of that hard
obedience.
But here's the second thing he says
he does this whole weird bit about Jesus
descending and preaching to spirits.
And some people say, well, that means
Jesus went to hell after he died.
And I don't think that's true.
I'll give you two reasons
why one, a Jesus on the cross as he was
dying, said to the thief next to him,
today you will be with me in Paradise.
He didn't say, today you'll go to
Paradise, but I have a layover in hell.
But second, he doesn't
talk about preaching to everyone in hell.
He talks about preaching in the spirit
to people in Noah's day.
Here's what I think he's saying.
He's saying
that Jesus literally lived and died,
and he rose and ascended into heaven.
And he is with us now in spirit.
And you might think, well,
I don't need a spirit, Jesus.
I need a physical Jesus.
But he says, but it was spirit
Jesus who was preaching
through Noah back in Genesis.
It's the same Jesus
who preaches through your obedience today.
You see, we don't have a general
who stands on the hill
watching the flags
to see if we're winning.
We have a king who's on the battlefield
or gripping the pole
alongside of us saying, hang in there,
we're going to win this thing.
The Christian
life was not meant to be boring.
This should be the most exciting place
in Northeast Ohio.
And I'm telling you, were close or close.
But sermons won't get us there.
Music won't get us there.
You know what will
your obedience
and mind.
So that the flag of Jesus
might be waving
and draw all curious people
to him.
They pray for us, father God.
Our hope is in you. God.
God, we.
We struggle to give you the little things.
Some of us would be eager to give you.
Big things.
It's the little things that we struggle
with, and I believe
in most people's minds and hearts
right now.
They know what the thing is that you want.
Holy spirit, would you overwhelm us
with the belief
that God does not waste suffering?
Would you give us a
glimpse of the families
and communities and church we would have
if we would just raise your flag?
Would you make this church
the most exciting place in Northeast
Ohio for your glory?
We just want to come along for the ride.
Use us in the little things
to raise the flag of Jesus that all men
might be drawn to him.
In his name we pray. Amen.