Sharing Our Hope - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. He's Lord of all. You see, he's Lord of all. He's Lord over everything. He's Lord over the politics of our country. He's Lord over, you see, the situation in the world. He's Lord over your diagnosis.

He's Lord over where you work in our economy. He's Lord. He said, so sanctify, set him apart as Lord in your hearts. You see, once I see him as Lord, everything else then falls in a place where it should.

But if I don't set him apart as Lord of my heart, something else becomes Lord of my heart. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. The Christian faith is losing traction in Western culture, including the United States. The great irony of that statement is that according to the AP, 76 percent of Americans self identify themselves as Christian. But if we're honest, we can see the ever increasing chasm between our postmodern culture and what you and I would call biblical values. Each decade, it becomes a little more obvious. That they don't like us. And somewhere down the road, the persecution of believers may become the norm.

In the United States. And that'll be great. That would be a time of great hope for the church and the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

If. We respond to that persecution the way that the Lord wants us to in the way that the Bible tells us to. And if we respond the right way. We will have a platform to share the hope that is within us.

With those who so desperately need it. Open your Bibles to First Peter, Chapter three. First Peter, Chapter three, as we continue our study on hope. And Peter. The context, of course, as you know, is that there's tremendous persecution already beginning. They're already suffering.

Nero is emperor. Peter will give his own life within about three years of writing this. He is trying to encourage. Those who are being persecuted and he is trying to give them what we all need. He's trying to give them hope in virtually in every single portion of this letter.

Peter talks about hope, this certitude that we have about the future and that how it should make such a difference. We dealt with it last time because in the last time we said that when they were persecuted by the government, they should submit. If they're persecuted as servants or slaves, they should submit.

Even if there is that kind of unfairness in your family, you should submit. And he said, whenever you do that, it would have really tremendous results. And I want to pick it up in verse 13, where he lays out a principle. But it's only a principle.

The principle is this. Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? Now, if you look back to verse eight through verse 12, he gives us nine different virtues that we should have. And some of them are that we would be harmonious and sympathetic and brotherly and kind hearted, humble, not returning evil for evil, all these things.

And he said, you know, if you prove zealous for good, basically what will happen is people will kind of leave you alone. That's a principle. And that principle is normally true. But there are exceptions to this principle.

And that's what he wants to talk about. In verse 14, he says, but even if you should suffer. But even if you should suffer. In other words, we could do everything we should be doing as believers.

We could live lives with the kind of character that he's talking about in verses eight to 12. And in spite of that, we could suffer. And if we do, what Peter tells us is this, he gives us five pieces of advice how to respond to a hostile culture. How do we respond when the culture becomes so hostile that it's persecuting us? How should we? He says, let me just give you five things.

You remember these five things, you're going to be just fine. The first thing he says in verse 14 is this, whenever the culture is making you suffer, consider yourself blessed. He says, but even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed.

Wow, that's an interesting thing, isn't it? The Bible always seems to do that to us. We never want to put the word suffering and the word blessing together, not ever. In fact, we say that blessing is almost by default the absence of any suffering. But that's not what the scripture says. He says you need to consider yourself blessed.

You are blessed. Why would he say that? Well, there's a few reasons. One is this suffering strengthens us. That's why James wrote in James one, consider it all joy, my brother, when various trials come your way, because you know what it's going to do?

It's going to make you stronger. In fact, most of us know that most of the time the greatest growth that we have ever had spiritually have come through really hard times. The reason that suffering strengthens us is that it makes us more dependent on God. Suffering at a certain level gets us to such a point that we have no alternative but to go to God. It's amazing, and you know this is true, but there is an intensity in your prayer life when you're suffering that is absent when you're not. Boy, you're praying. You're asking everyone around you to pray because you're suffering. God says, I love that. I love when that happens. Jesus said, blessed are those who suffer for righteousness' sake.

He wasn't kidding. He said, blessed are those who suffer for righteousness' sake. Also, when we suffer for righteousness' sake, especially under the persecution that they are, what ends up happening to us is we need others for support because we're suffering altogether and the one anothers take place. And you know what this is like when we're all suffering together is an interesting dynamic. There was a dynamic, for example, even in this congregation that was post-Katrina that we never had before and we really haven't had since.

What happened? We all suffered. That drew us all closer together to each other. It was amazing what the mutual suffering does. Suffering has tremendous benefit to us. It also, the reason we are blessed or we should consider ourselves blessed is that when we suffer, it forces us to look forward, what the Bible would call hope. You see, no matter how intensely you're suffering, Paul looked forward to such an extent that he called all of his suffering momentary light afflictions. Now, they weren't momentary from our point of view and they certainly weren't light. But Paul said, looking at eternity ahead, when I try to compare them to the surpassing glory of what was waiting for me, this is momentary and this is light.

It's a forward look. That's why we say over and over again that the worst thing that could happen to you can't happen to you. What should that do? That should produce hope in your life. You see, that should produce hope in our life. Also, the Lord says that there are rewards for us when we suffer.

If we suffer the way that the Lord would have us suffer, there are rewards. He doesn't overlook anything. So he says, consider yourself blessed. Secondly, he says, don't panic and don't worry. He says, and do not fear their intimidation. Do not be troubled. Don't panic. Don't worry. That word fear is, of course, the word phobia.

It's still with us today. It's the kind of fear that makes you want to flee. That's phobia. He says, don't let the persecution intimidate you. He said, whatever, don't be troubled. Don't worry. Remember in John 14, he said, let not your heart be troubled.

Same word. Let not your heart be troubled. Remember, they were really troubled because Jesus was leaving. They knew he was leaving. And he was going to leave them on their own.

They felt tremendously insecure. He said, let not your heart be troubled. He said, what you need to do is believe in God and believe in me.

In my Father's house are many dwelling places. I'm going to go and prepare one for you. So that where I am, you be also.

And I'll receive you to myself. All those things are true. He says, don't panic and don't worry. We have this tendency, especially at the national level with our country, to be full of all kinds of panic and worry. You can go to almost any Christian site and you start reading and it's so doomsday.

It's incredible how bad everything must be. Hold your place here and go with me back to Isaiah chapter 8. Isaiah chapter 8. In verse 12. Well, actually pick it up in verse 11. Isaiah says this, for thus the Lord spoke to me with mighty power and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people.

Isaiah, don't act like the people around you. He says, you are not to say it is a conspiracy. He said, in regard to all, he says that this people call a conspiracy. There's a thing afoot that we're all doomed because the Assyrians are making a conspiracy. And we're all going to be doomed. We're all going to be doomed.

God says to Isaiah, don't believe that. Certainly don't be fearful and troubled by it. I know so many of you and there are many of you that always have a conspiracy afoot. There's always a conspiracy. Look, let's just take it for granted since the Garden of Eden there's been one conspiracy. It's always here.

Let's just take it for granted and leave it. But inevitably what happens is when you begin to think about the conspiracy and propagate the idea of conspiracy, you become preoccupied with the conspiracy. That's what you talk about and you end up fearful and troubled.

Notice what he says after that. He says, and you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. It is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as holy and he shall be your fear and he shall be your dread. You want to be fearful about something? Be fearful about me, I am a holy God. Don't be fearful about what's going on out there.

Oh, it's going to be terrible out there. He said what you need to do is just be fearful that you don't stay right with me. That's what he told Isaiah. That's what Peter is telling the readers of 1 Peter and that's what they're certainly telling, both of them telling us. Now let's go back to 1 Peter. Consider yourself blessed.

Don't panic and don't worry. And then he says something that's interesting. Acknowledge Christ as Lord. He says, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.

Sanctify, set apart Christ as Lord in your hearts. Now clearly Christ is Lord, but the problem that we often have is even though he is Lord, we won't recognize his Lordship and especially in suffering and difficult circumstances. You see, if I said that how far does the Lord's Lordship go? He's Lord of all. You see, he's Lord of all. He's Lord over everything. He's Lord over the politics of our country. He's Lord over, you see, the situation in the world. He's Lord over your diagnosis.

He's Lord over where you work in our economy. He's Lord. He said, so sanctify, set him apart as Lord in your hearts. You see, once I see him as Lord, everything else then falls in a place where it should. But if I don't set him apart as Lord of my heart, something else becomes Lord of my heart.

And it can be the persecution, it can be the suffering, it can be the conspiracy, it can be anything else, but that's what's ruling my heart. He says, don't do that. Acknowledge Christ as Lord. The best way to do that is constantly in prayer. Constantly in prayer, declaring Christ to be Lord.

Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. And then he says this. He said, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence. Wow. In all of these different things, consider yourself blessed, don't panic, don't worry, acknowledge Christ as Lord.

And then all of a sudden he gets to what he really wants to say. Use this to bring people to Christ. Share your hope with the lost. Share your hope with those who are persecuting you. Share your hope with those around you as they see you suffer.

He says, that's what I want you to do. Always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you. Wow. A defense. Apologetics. That's the word. It's the word we get apologetics from. Apologia. It's a legal term. It means to provide legal testimony. That's what apologetics is. To provide legal testimony that will hold up in a court of law. He says, make a defense to give an account. Now one thing's for sure. If you aren't doing one through three of what Peter said, you'll never do this.

If you don't feel that you don't consider yourself blessed, you're panicked and troubled, and you don't acknowledge Christ as Lord but the circumstances, I'm pretty sure you're not going to be able to give an account for the hope that's in you because I'm pretty sure there's not much hope in you. You have to do these things. That's why each year when we talk about this time of year and we talk about missions and outreach and taking the gospel across the street and around the world and supporting it, it's good. I mean, it's good to support it financially. It's needed. But I want to tell you something, applying it in your own life is infinitely better.

It's just much, much better. You see, there are so many implications in this little part of one verse. One implication is this, apparently the lost are always watching you.

Isn't that interesting? The lost are always watching. They want to see. You see, most of the time I think when the lost looks at us, besides seeing all of our hypocrisy, they basically say that these are people who are just talkers.

They just talk. They're proselytizers and talkers, and that's all they want to do is to talk. In other words, we often lack credibility with those who are watching us. There's another implication here. You have to have a relationship with lost people.

I mean, you have to. You have to have a relationship with lost people. That's what Christ was talking about when he said, look, I'm going to leave you in the world. I just don't want you of the world, but you need to be in the world. So often as Christians, our whole mindset is to isolate ourselves as much as we possibly can from them.

You see, and then we sort of get to what is called historically the holy huddle, and that's great for the huddle, but that's awful for the lost. You see, when he talks about that you need to let your light shine, you can't put it under a bushel, you need to be salt, and if salt isn't salty anymore, it's useless. He's talking about us. He says we have to be able to make an impact, and we have to be in the world to make that impact. So we have to have relationships.

The other thing he said there was always being ready. You see, that's up to us. That's a choice you'll make. God will not force you to do this. He'll prompt you with his spirit, and if you take the step of faith, he'll empower you, but he won't make you. You don't have to share your faith with anybody ever.

That's completely up to you. Apparently, Peter is speaking to everyone, so God is not looking for ability. He's looking for availability. You see, sooner or later in your life, and in mine as well, all of us individually and sometimes collectively suffer. He says don't waste that.

He said don't waste that. People on the outside are watching you. You see, you may even be asked how can you go through this, what you're suffering, and still in a sense have these kind of qualities, like you're harmonious and sympathetic and brotherly and kind-hearted and you're humble. You're not vengeful. You're peaceful.

How do you do this? That's what is called the open door. It's not me. It's Christ.

You see, that's the opportunity that I have. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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