Be Light – Eternal Protection in ChristGood morning to you all. It is great to be a part of this family. Last week I didn’t get the chance to reply or talk about becoming a part of this congregation. I believe speak for Kata and Michael and for Henneke as well, that when we know that the Lord has changed our lives, He does not only save us from our sins, but He also gives us a new belonging, and we know that we belong to the Church of God, the world-wide Church of God, His bride, but it is a privilege to be a part of this family as well. And to all of us who do not have any family here in Greece, you are more than family. So, if you are not part of this local church yet, I want you to pray about it. But I want to warn you, because you get to work straight away. I’m preaching today. But it is a privilege, to use the gift that the Lord has given us to worship Him, and to bless one another, and to reach out to this world.We are the Light to this world. It’s not something that we will eventually become. That is who we are, and we continue to learn what it means to be the light to this world. So, can I ask you to turn to 1 Peter and we will continue where pastor Gail left off last week. It’s interesting that when you read 2 Peter 3, he refers to Paul’s letters, and how difficult it can sometimes be to understand Paul’s writing. But when I read Peter’s letters, they’re actually a bit more difficult than Paul’s letters, and this passage that we’re going to look at today, is maybe the most difficult in this book. So, I don’t know why pastor Gail gave this to me. But I want to encourage you, when you read something that you don’t understand in God’s Word, or a boring part like Leviticus, don’t just put it aside. Struggle with it. Read it over and over again. Read the passages before and after (the context), and most importantly ask the Lord that He will teach you, to explain to you what you are reading through His Spirit. So, that we can understand what He is trying to tell us.Martin Luther, one of the Church fathers, writes about this passage, that it’s a beautiful passage, but he doesn’t know what it means. So, as we read this together, if you don’t understand it, don’t worry, you are not the only one, but we will try to look at it verse by verse, to try to figure out what Peter is trying to say. I think the difficulty about this passage, it’s like Peter on an overdose of caffein because he jumps around, and it’s difficult to follow the thought that he has.So, I hope you had your coffee this morning, so that you can keep up with Peter in his high impact today. Let’s look at this passage, but before we do that, let’s pray together.Father, we thank You for Your Word, we thank You for Your Spirit. We pray that you’ll break open Your Word for us today, and that Your Spirit will teach us today, even in the difficult parts, Lord, that we learn more about You, that we learn more about ourselves, and we’ll put these words into action. We than You Lord for Your Word, especially Your Son that is the eternal Word. And He alone is worthy to be praised. Amen.1 Peter 3: 13-22, “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. Keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits, to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand —with angels, authorities and powers in submission to Him.”Ok, let’s go back to the beginning and look at this passage. So, reading through this passage, brings so many difficult questions to mind. Would God allow any Christian to be harmed? Are we immune to suffering? Who are the imprisoned spirits that Peter talks about? Does baptism save us? How do we look at these difficult passages?Let’s start at the beginning and see if we can find some of the answers to these questions. So, when we read the first verse, “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?”, we also need to look at the passage just before this, to understand this in context. So, in 12 Peter writes, “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their prayer,but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” And so, if the Lord is for us, and He is against those who are doing evil, can anybody actually harm us? Can we suffer? And it’s a valid question that Peter asks? There are Christians who say, no, we are protected all the time from hurt and pain and suffering and evil. But for many of us, we know, that even if we are Christians, there is still pain, there is still suffering, there is still death. And how then, do we reconcile these passages? I think the way that I see this, is that we know that we are one person, but we have a body and a soul and a spirit, which is more of a Greek understanding. The Old Testament talks about the body and the inner person. And we know that when we become a follower of Jesus, He gives us a new life and it is the inner life, the inner being that is being regenerated. But we still live in this body, the broken body, and up to the moment we die, we will always suffer in this broken body. And although Christians can have pain and suffering, if we trust in God, and follow His Son Jesus, then nobody can hurt our inner being. So, if you follow Jesus and you have the desire to do good, you may suffer the abuses of others, or go through pain and suffering, but our inner being, our soul, is protected by the Lord.And so, Peter continues in 14, “But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.” So, Peter says, we will not just suffer, but our suffering is a blessing. Now I know that we all desire God’s blessings, have you ever prayed for the blessing of suffering? So, if we don’t pray for that blessing, we do not want all God’s blessings. But we’ll answer this a little further in the text. I think we just think of the blessings of goodness and of health, of fellowship, that a blessing is towards us, but a blessing is not just towards us, but it is for us, it is to draw us closer to God, and to make us a blessing to others.So, Peter is saying, “Do not fear these people, do not be frightened.” He quotes the prophet Isaiah, we don’t have to fear any person, we don’t have to fear any government, we don’t have to fear suffering and pain. It may hurt us, but it cannot harm our inner being. And if we endure the suffering, see that as a blessing from God. Ask Him how He wants to bless us through this suffering and praise Him for the suffering we’re enduring.Peter continues in 15, “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect”. So, when we go through suffering, instead of focusing on the suffering, focus on Christ, who protects us from the hurt.And now he goes onto a little bit of a different side track here. “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” How many people have asked you, what is the reason for the hope that you have? Has anybody ever asked you that? Some, yes. I had to look at my own life, and realized that not a lot of people have asked me that question. So, I had to ask why not? Maybe, we don’t have the hope, or maybe we complain so much, we focus on the negative, that we forget, that despite everything that is happening, we have the eternal hope in Christ. And so, we need to understand the hope that we have, and if you don’t know that hope, and if you don’t understand that hope, ask somebody to pray with you, and to study God’s Word together, that we can understand the hope that we have.I don’t like counselling. I’ve got my own problems. I don’t want to listen to other peoples’ problems, but I had to do counselling classes at seminary, and I forgot most of what they taught me. But the one thing I remember, was that if you do not have hope, it’s very, very difficult to start the healing process. If you cannot work towards a better thing, if you don’t have hope for tomorrow, why do you want to live? We don’t only have a good hope, we have the eternal hope, therefore we need to strive towards that, not just as one of the things of being a Christian, but Paul says that it is one of the 3 most important things that define us – it is our faith, love and our hope. And therefore, we need to know what that hope is.So, that might be the reason that we don’t know what that hope is. The second reason, that we don’t show that hope. That we focus so much on the negative, and things that are not always going our way, that we are not known as people of hope. So, we need to change our hearts and lives, that we not only know the hope, but show the hope. When the world talks about the negative and bad things, we need to talk about the things in Christ, the hope that we have in Christ. And therefore, we need to change the way we interact with the world.I think the third reason why people don’t ask that question, is maybe God protecting us, because we are not prepared to answer those questions. So, we should not only know what the hope is, and show the hope, but we should also be prepared to answer the questions about that hope.Maybe the fourth reason is, that we are not prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks. Peter isn’t saying to anyone but to everyone. It’s maybe easy to give that answer in a Bible study group, or when we meet with our brothers and sisters, but we need to be prepared to give the answer to any person and every person that we meet. And therefore, we have this hope.Now the question is, how should we answer these questions? Peter says, “But do this with gentleness and respect”. When Christians are in the majority, or when we are very self-assured from our faith, we can be very dominating in the way we answer questions, or we can look down on people, giving these answers. Don’t you know the Bible? Don’t you know God? Don’t you know Jesus? Don’t you know the hope that we have? Are you stupid? Peter is telling us, that is not the way to answer. We need to respect every person that we talk to. Especially those who are asking us questions about our faith. Respect them as being created in the image of God, respect them as a person who is broken, because each one of us was broken before, as well. Especially respect that person, because he is loved by Jesus. But also answer with gentleness. Not speaking to them loudly, looking down on them. But speak to them with love and care.Let’s continue to the next verse. “Keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” Keeping a clear conscience, not going against God’s will, not going against His way of teaching and knowing that everything that you say and do, is not for your own pleasure or benefit, but is in line with God’s Word, in line with His will and actually glorifies Him. So, we need to speak the truth, so that those who come against us, will be made ashamed. Because the world will eventually see, that we are not only speaking the truth, but we are also living out the truth, not aligned with the world, but is in line with God’s Word and for His glory. 17, “For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.” There are Christians that desire suffering, because they think it will bring them closer to God. Peter is not saying this, and I don’t find any passage in God’s Word that says, “Desire suffering”. So, don’t look to suffer, don’t look for ways to suffer. But if you suffer, and it is God’s will that you suffer, suffer for doing the good things and not the bad things.So, the question is, ‘How can God desire for us to suffer?’ That doesn’t sound like a good God. That sounds like an angry Father, or an angry King. But let’s look at the next verse, because this gives us the reason, why God desires for us to suffer, or allows us to suffer. 18, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.” So, when we say we are disciples of Jesus; discipleship does not only mean we learn about Jesus, or worship Jesus; discipleship means to imitate Jesus, to become like Jesus. And so, our whole being strives to be like Jesus and to do like Jesus. And when we look at the reason why Christ came, not only to show us the way to the Father, but to become the way to the Father, and the only way to become the way to the Father, was to suffer for our sins, because He was without sin. He had to suffer for the unrighteous, because He alone is righteous. That’s the only way to now go to the Father. So, His suffering was not the judgement of God on Him, but His suffering, was a blessing to others. So, when God allows us to suffer, for doing the good that He asked us to do, our question should not be, ‘Lord, why do You allow this suffering?’ but, ‘Lord, who do you want to bless through my suffering?’ That’s not an easy question to ask. None of us want to suffer. But we have all suffered in some way. So, the question we should ask, should not be directed to us. For us to receive the answer, or for us to receive the blessing, by being healed or being taken out of the suffering, ‘Lord, how can this suffering bring blessing to others.’So, up to this point, we’ve dealt with the easy part of the passage. And now we go to the difficult part. 19-22 “After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits — to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand —with angels, authorities and powers in submission to Him.” Let’s go back and try to understand what he is saying. So, when we read about the imprisoned spirits and Jesus being made alive and went to proclaim to them, what is Peter trying to say here? I don’t know exactly. Because it is so difficult, even the translation is difficult. There are 3 main theories about what Peter is trying to say here.The first one is that Jesus did go to the depths to hell, to proclaim to the fallen angels, and that’s in line with what he says in 2 Peter 2, that God imprisoned the fallen angels in hell. But this doesn’t fit nicely with what he says in 20, because he speaks about those who were disobedient when God patiently waited in the days of Noah, and we know that the fallen angels rebelled much further back, before Noah. So, I cannot fully agree with that.The next theory, is that that first part after being made alive, that is not a good translation. The Greek, is closer to, ‘In whom He was made alive,’ and we read in the verse before that, that He was made alive by the Spirit. And so, they believe that as it is referred to in other parts of the New Testament, that Christ proclaimed even through the Old Testament prophets by Spirit, that Christ through the Holy Spirit, proclaimed to the people in Noah’s time, through Noah, that Noah was the messenger through whom Christ in His Spirit spoke to the people. And in 2 Peter 2, Peter refers to Noah as the proclaimer of the truth. Now many people believe that is what Peter said, but it is very difficult for me to understand that, because he refers to Christ proclaiming through Noah, before He became a person, a human being, but the Scripture alludes more that He proclaimed after He was made alive, not was born.The third theory, is maybe one of the oldest theories, and it was adopted by the early Church, that Christ, after His death, went to Sheol, went to hell, and proclaimed the truth of grace, even to those who died without Him in the Old Testament times. And for me that is the easiest thing to believe. That He died in His body, He was made alive by the Spirit, as Spirit, He went down to the imprisoned spirits, those who had died without knowing the truth, to even to proclaim to them the grace and the power of the resurrection, before He rose on the third day in Body again.But whether it’s one or the other, it doesn’t really matter, because it doesn’t change our relationship with Jesus. There are certain things in God’s Word that we can disagree about, and this is one of the things. Because we will not lose our salvation if we think one way or the other. But if we focus on understanding why it is written here, then it will help us to understand the rest of the Scripture as well. And so, I think this was a nexus point, between Peter saying Christ suffered and He rose, and what that resurrection means for us. And here he brings in Noah. So, the proclamation to the imprisoned spirits that lived in the time of Noah, brings us to the point of Noah. So, what happened in the time of Noah? The people were extremely evil. They lived without God and they did not want to have God, and God wanted to destroy all of mankind, and maybe start anew. But there was one man, and his family, that loved God, and obeyed God. So, God saved this one family and He started anew from this one family. Noah and his wife and his 3 sons and their wives.So, God told him to build an ark, a big boat, to put all the animals into. We know the story. And then it rained and rained and rained, and everybody died, and everything died, except for those in the ark. And so, God used the water, the rain, as a destruction of the evil, but also a blessing, to wash clean everything that was disobedient to God, so that Noah and his family, could start anew. So, God did not only bring the water as a destruction, but a tool of salvation. 20b-21, “So, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you”. Baptism does not save you. When I say that, we need to understand the word ‘save’ and ‘baptism’. When the word to be ‘saved’ is used in the New Testament, it does not only refer to that free ticket to go to heaven. To be ‘saved’ means to be delivered from something. You can be delivered from your enemies; you can be delivered from sickness or drowning; you can be delivered from various disorders or you can be saved from your sins. The same with baptism. That means the New Testament, does not only refer to that thing we do as Christians, where we dunk somebody into water and they all cheer afterwards. John had a new baptism in the New Testament, it was more a sign of cleansing oneself. In 1 Corinthians 10, we read about a baptism into Moses. In Matthew 20 and Mark 10, we read about the baptism of the cup and the crucifixion. We also read about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we read about the baptism of fire of judgement.So, when we talk about the baptism, in the New Testament, don’t only think about the dunking, but think about what the word ‘baptism’ So, baptism means to be fully immersed into something, so that whatever we baptized into, completely overtakes us, or totally overwhelms us and so, we become what we’ve been baptized into. And so, this water, that we are baptized into, is not like the baptism of John, that shows the taking away of the dirt, but Peter says in v. 21b, “it is the pledge of a clear conscience towards God.”I believe that our biggest enemy, from the time of Adam and Eve, has been our own minds. And that’s the tool that the evil one used from the beginning, when he brought the deception to Eve and Adam, when he said, ‘Is it true that you cannot eat the fruit of this tree, and that created the thinking that we can become like God. We can be like Him, to know the difference between good and evil. And most of our sins start within our minds and so, the baptism that Peter talks about, is the same that Paul refers to about the transformation of our minds. That when we become a new creation in Christ, our sins are taken away, but our minds are changed from ourselves and our own desires, to what Christ wants and He desires. So, that is the pledge of the clear conscience before God.So, we are baptized in this water, so that we can have a new mind, a new consciousness, and we are saved by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is what we are baptized into. We are not baptized into the water; the water is the symbol of the resurrection. Because baptism has a two fazes with it. You dunk something in the water and then you take it out of the water. Otherwise, it is a drowning and not a baptism. I think some pastors what this to be a drowning. And therefore, the death of Jesus is important. But we cannot just hold on to the death of Christ, because then we are just dunked into the water. The power of this new life, is because we are lifted out of the water, because we are also baptized into the resurrection of Christ.Our baptism does not save us. Christ’s resurrection saved us, and when we are baptized, we are reminded of that resurrection that happened 2000 years ago, but also the resurrection that happened to us when we came to faith in Him. It is also a testimony to everybody of Christ that saved through His death and resurrection and that I am part of that death and resurrection. So, it actually doesn’t matter how we are baptized or when we are baptized. I don’t want to go into a theological debate here. But what is important that we believe that it is Christ and His death and resurrection that saved us. And that we can celebrate in that death and resurrection, through our new lives, but also through the act of obedience, by being baptized, where we declare that this is what we believe and this is where we proclaim who Christ is and what He has done. So, if you have never been baptized, talk to one of the leaders so that we can celebrate with you, what He has done for you, and how you can be a witness of that to everybody around. So, we have been baptized into the resurrection of Christ.And then the last verse he says, “Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand —with angels, authorities and powers in submission to Him.” And now I want to say that our baptism has now three parts. We are dunked into the death and suffering of Christ, we are taken out of the water into the resurrection of Christ, but our baptism also ensures us into a place of authority with Christ forever. And that is why we can have hope. Because our hope is not on a man on the cross, or a little baby boy in a manger, but the Lord of the universe at the right hand of God who rules over all authorities and angels and powers and everything. That’s where our hope is. And if you don’t recognize Him as your hope, then you do not have much hope.So, what does that mean for us, living out this life that we are, I’m just going to mention 5 things, we’re running out of time.We are called to be eager to do good; even if we have to suffer, we should have a desire to do good.We should not fear; do not fear anybody that can harm our bodies but can do nothing to our souls.We should always be prepared to give an answer; especially about this hope that we have. And when we answer, do that with gentleness and respect.Always keep a clear conscience; When I look at that picture of the light bulb, you dim a light bulb, not by covering the light bulb, but by turning the dimmer switch. I’m not an electrician. So, you dim it from inside not from outside. Our light is just as strong as our conscience is clear before God. We cannot be clear disciples, clear witnesses if our mind is not focused on Christ.And then celebrate in the baptism that we have received. Because that is what we believe, that Christ died and rose again, so that we can die with Him and be raised with Him and live with Him eternally.Let’s pray together…