I'm sure that when we are spending time out in the lobby and enjoying some fellowship time, you will want to let this family know that you're praying for them, that you love them, and that we want God's blessing upon them. And surely, the children that God has given to us, we give back to him. That's what we have to do, isn't it? That means, by the way, that we give them back to them if the Lord says he wants them to go to the jungles in Africa or the Amazon jungle, that we're saying, Lord, they're yours. And we pray your blessing as they go. So thank you for being a part of that service. I invite you now to turn with me to 1 Peter 3. I said this was a It's a packed morning, and so far it has been, and here it is a quarter after 10, and we have the Lord's Table. You probably have seen that, right? So, no pressure on me here with dig classes also to start later as well. So, we'll see how we can work our way through this. I will say up front, that we're going to give the first part of this message this morning. Next week we will have the Fraser team with us, so two weeks from now we'll come back and finish this passage, but I hope that we can get a good sense of what Peter is challenging us in this portion. This morning, the title that I've given to this message is a very simple title. I hope that it's instructive in itself, and that is simply this. fighting fire with kindness. In my mind, at least, that encapsulates what Peter is saying here in this passage. The overall sense of what Peter is saying, beginning here in verse 13 and following, really in the entire book of 1 Peter, is simply this. Our witness in a hostile world. The witness of a believer to a hostile world. Thus, my saying, we fight fire with kindness. The most kind thing that you and I can do as we face the hostility of a world that hated our Savior, and we are told that if it hated Him, it will hate us as well. The most kind thing that you and I can do in the face of that hostility is to share the good news of Christ. Fighting fire with kindness. Follow with me as we begin reading here in verse 13. And who is He that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? But, and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye. And be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. And be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. having a good conscience, that whereas they speak evil of you as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For it is better, if the will of God be so, that you suffer for well-doing than for evildoing." Let's pray together. Our Father, we once again are so thankful for the opportunity that we have to be a part of this service this morning, to sing together with brothers and sisters, to lift up our voices, to bring praises to you and to acknowledge who you are and that you are worthy. And Father, the opportunity we have to be a part of a family who loves you and a mom and a dad who desire to bring up their children to love you, even though We live in a world that will work against their desire to raise children who love You. We're grateful that they are willing to stand up for what is right. And I pray Your blessing upon them. And Father, I pray that You would bless us now as we have the privilege of spending this time in Your Word. May it be an encouragement to our hearts. May we understand the reality of the days in which we live, but may we recognize what you called us to do in the face of hostility, in the face of a world that is not open to the gospel, the reality that we who are children of God are to stand and provide a testimony before them of your love and mercy. So Lord, encourage our hearts. Give us understanding this morning. Help us to make application. And I pray, Father, by your grace, no matter how hostile the world might be, help us to be witnesses for Christ. Help us, Lord, not to fight their hostility in kind, but help us, Lord, to show the kindness of sharing the gospel of Christ with them. Thank you, Father, as we pray this for your glory, in the name of Christ, amen. Last week we spoke about relationships, the last couple of weeks. In a general way, we talked about, we looked at our walk and our talk and the relationship of our walk and our talk to cultivating healthy relationships. how we cultivate healthy relationships in a walk and a talk that are reflected in the given character qualities that we see in verse 8 here in this passage, and that as we inculcate these character qualities by the grace of God and through the power of the Spirit of God, that we are to actively seek to live in peace with those around us, that relationships are important. And that brings us here today to this particular portion of the passage. And the question we might ask as we continue working our way through this, looking at this in the context of relationships, how are you and I to relate to the world around us? We live in this world. We breathe in this world. How are we to relate to this world? Does our walk and our talk play into our relationships with the men and women around us in this world? And if so, how and to what end? That's what we want to think about as we look at this particular passage of Scripture. For modern believers, for you and me living in the Western world of the 21st century, we have a problem truly understanding the context of these verses. because we read them and we aren't reading them in the context of those first century believers who, when they read these words, would have seen them in a far different context than the context of my life and your life. The fact is, we live comfortably. Contrary to the way we sometimes feel and we sometimes talk, you and I living in 21st century America, we are not under direct threat of persecution because of our faith. Now, I know we like to talk about how the direction things are going and how Christianity is being marginalized, and that's all true. We can see where things are headed, but even though we are looking down the road and saying, you know, there are some storm clouds, they're on the horizon, really. Because the truth is, you and I have not yet begun to suffer because of our faith. We do not face the possibility or the likelihood of persecution. Now we say, well it could happen. You're right, it could happen. And I would not say that it could never happen in our lifetime. But the truth is, here we are this morning, we're gathered together openly freely and we aren't concerned that there might be someone rushing in the back door of the church any minute to shut down our meeting. We have the freedom in America still to come together and we have the freedom to worship God and we have the freedom to share the gospel with those around us. They may not like it and verbally they may abuse us, but again, None of us have really begun to suffer because of our faith in Christ. We do not live in the fear of our property being confiscated, of our families being torn away from us because of our commitment to the gospel. The fact is, none of us has suffered much for our faith in Christ. Now, I say that acknowledging that there are places in this world today where God's people do suffer, sometimes horribly, because of their faith in Christ. Chinese Christians have suffered. We're going to talk a little bit about that tonight in the men's time that we have together. We talk about events in the world, and we're going to touch upon this tonight. Believers suffer in Africa, the Middle East. In fact, I'll share this one statistic with you. Since the year 2000, so for the last 24 years, 62,000 Christians in Nigeria have been murdered because of their faith in Christ. That would be between 2,000 and 3,000 Christians every year for 24 years have died for their faith just in that one nation in Africa. It has been called the silent slaughter. They are being killed by Boko Haram, by the Islamic State West Africa province, and by the Fulani missions. These are all Muslims. And they are slaughtering Christians. and they are taking daughters away from Christian families. Horrible things. Now, we don't hear a lot about that in our Western world because, again, this is where we look and say, well, Christianity is, you know, they're Christians, so it's not really that bad. If it was the reverse, we would see it in the newspapers every day, right? but because it's Christians being treated this way, we don't see the headlines. We don't see the world at large being upset. But you and I should be moved by this to realize that there are brothers and sisters in Christ who are being martyred in our modern day because of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't know what that's like. We don't know what it's like to come to church and be in fear of a militia mob surrounding our church and putting it on fire and burning people inside the building alive. We don't have to worry about pastors. being murdered. It happens in India. It happens in Africa. It happens in parts of the Middle East. There are believers today who are suffering, so when they read a passage like this, they're going to read it far differently than you and me. We read a passage like this in our comfortable homes and we say, well, we're really suffering for Jesus, aren't we? Not really. We aren't. Now, I'm trying to convey the real weight of what Peter is saying as he is writing to first century believers, many of whom are suffering physically persecution, many of whom will become martyrs for Christ. And if not this first generation, in the second and third generation, many of them will become martyrs in Christ and they will be reading these words as the Holy Spirit moves Peter to write them. So there's a weight upon these words for them that kind of goes over our heads because we're not quite connected to what real suffering for Jesus looks like. Now, I'm saying that because we need to understand the context into which Peter is writing here, but now let me take a step back by way of application. It really would be difficult for you and me to really understand what that would be like, right? Because we've never been there. We live in a very comfortable world, all things being considered, right? But is there an application of this passage that is true for you and me? And I think there is. Though the context is what I've just described, you and I still have experienced another kind of fear that comes with our faith. And this is where the application, I think, is true and where we need to recognize the weight of this in our lives. What is the kind of fear that you and I have when it comes to our faith? Well, it may not rise to the fear of physical persecution or martyrdom, but it does rise to this level. It is the fear of witnessing to lost people about the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't know if it's the flesh, if it's an inbred fear of conflict, But haven't you felt, I'll have to admit, I have felt that the churning stomach, the sweaty palms that go with the thought, oh no, I need to talk to this person about Jesus, I'm scared. What am I going to do? Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever found yourself in a context where you're with an unsaved person, and you know you need to share the gospel, but you feel a little intimidated. Now, that doesn't even begin to rise to the level of the fear and the pressure that these first generation Christians would have felt as Peter is writing 1 Peter, but you and I still share this fear of sharing the gospel, don't we? I remember years ago, And this is on my mind because of a particular area where this happened. This was in Western North Carolina. Jan and I and two of our children, we had dropped Rebecca off at the Wilds Christian Camp. And we were on our way through the Pisgah National Forest in Western North Carolina to where we were going to be spending the week. And lo and behold, our van, as we're going uphill, our transmission goes out. Not a nice place. Not a wide road. And it's like 6 o'clock. And it's going to be dark fairly soon. It feels like it's dark under the canopy of trees at least. And we have to call out in the middle of nowhere to get somebody to come to tow our van so we can get it fixed. Not the best way to start your vacation. But what really happened is this guy came, put our van on the back of his flatbed, and we're driving through this forest. And he and myself and Jan and two kids in the one little, you know, there's only one seat in this truck. How else are we going to get where we're going? But I'm sitting there next to him and I'm thinking, I will probably never meet this guy again in my life. The Lord created this opportunity, our van broke down, to put me in this guy driving through the middle of nowhere, and I'll never have this opportunity, and do I want to one day stand before the Lord and say, you gave me an opportunity to witness to a guy, and I chickened out. Now I'll be honest, I didn't feel like witnessing. because I had a broken down van and I didn't know how much it was going to cost and this is vacation. And we were supposed to be having fun. How much fun are we going to have? Worried about trying to fix this vehicle. I wasn't in the best of moods, but the Spirit of God moved on my heart. And I finally just had to start talking to the guy about the things of God, and the gospel of Christ. And I wish I could tell you the man got saved. I don't know. I've never met him again. I hope one day I get to meet him in heaven, but I'm sharing this story with you simply to say that even though I did not have the best attitude, I wasn't in the best frame of mind, God put me in that place to share the gospel with that guy. Now, the end of that story is, by the time we got to a place where he could drop off our van, he pulled us around into a place where there were no lights on the side of the building. There's nobody there because it's after dark, and he doesn't even offer to take us anywhere else. He just pulls out and leaves us standing in the middle of nowhere by a closed business in the dark, me, my wife, and two kids. I don't know that he took very well. to my sharing the gospel with them. But that doesn't mean that God could not have used that witness to touch his heart, does it? And I trust and I pray that someday we'll meet that guy again and we can laugh about that story together as brothers in Christ. I don't know what happened from that. The Lord took care of us and there's a whole other part of that story that we could share. Jan will love to tell you about that later if you want to ask her. especially the next day. No, I better not go there. But at the end of the day, it's simply this. I did not really relish the idea, I'm a pastor. A pastor should be ready to witness at the drop of a hat, right? That's what we're paid to do. I'm human just like you. And it's not always easy. And we're not always in the right frame of mind. And sometimes we are fearful. But that's what this passage is speaking to. Peter's theme here is very simple. Our witness as believers to a hostile world. Thankfully, his words apply whether we're facing torture or whether we're just nervous about telling someone about Christ. Peter wants us to understand, he wants us to realize that the best witness in this hostile world combines three things. two things, and then one overarching truth. It combines our walk and our talk under the overarching authority of our Lord Jesus Christ. Does that sound familiar? our walk and our talk. That's what we have just been noticing in this passage. That he's been talking about relationships and we made that application primarily to our relationships with other believers and in our families. But here we see that Peter is moving this to a larger picture. that our behavior and our choice of words are directly related to our yielding ourselves to the Lord as His ambassadors. He has called each one of us to be a witness for Him. And the way we walk, our actions, our behavior, the way we conduct ourselves, and the words we use should be consistent, and each should support the other in our yieldedness to Him to accomplish what He's called us to do. And what has He called us to do? What is the Great Commission? To go and have happy lives! Is that the Great Commission? No, we all want to have happy lives, and I'm not saying we would say, oh no, I don't want to have a happy life. We all want to be happy, we want fulfillment, But at the end of the day, what Peter is saying, he's speaking to a people where he is acknowledging, and we'll get to the bigger part of this next time, but he says in verse 17, for it is better if the will of God be so that you suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. What is Peter acknowledging in that verse? He's acknowledging the very real possibility that in the will of God, we might suffer. And if we suffer, how do we view that suffering? Woe is me. It's not fair. How could God do this to me? That's not a very good testimony to the world. Because the world looks at us when we're having those kinds of pities and they say, you're no better than we are. You have no more hope than we have. But in the context of this passage, verse 15 says, they should see our hope and they should be moved to ask us how we have it. How can you have such hope? How can you live such a life having joy in the face of difficulty when it's just not normal? You're right. It's not normal. Our walk and our talk demonstrates that we are not like them. And they want to know why. What's different? And what is our answer? What makes us different? What helps us to live through the difficulties of life? Because we have hope. And that hope is based upon the good news that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. What a wonderful promise. What joy you and I can have. Not because there will never be problems. Not because we will never suffer for our faith. He's writing to people who are suffering and who will suffer more. and yet they can have a witness to the world in which they live. So note how Peter describes the believer's place in the world. Note, we see the hostility of the world toward believers. Verse 13, he talks about harm. Verse 14, suffer. Don't fear intimidation. Don't be troubled. Verse 16, slandered, reviled. Verse 17, suffer. And then he notes in the face of the world's hostility, the best witness combines behavior and thoughts, thoughtful words, good behavior, We see that in verse 13, zealous for what is good, 14, righteousness, 16, good conscience, good behavior, 17, doing good, and in thoughtful words in verse 15 when he talks about be ready always to give an answer that every man asks you for the reason of the hope that is within you. The terms that are used here speak of a verbal witness. We have to be ready not only to live the life that makes them wonder what makes us different, but then to be ready to share what God has done in our lives. And sometimes we want to make it so complicated, right? You've got to memorize these 20 steps so you can witness to somebody. And we get intimidated and say, I can't memorize all that. And so we just take a step back. But you know, here's the reality. Do you think these first century believers had gone to some seminar where they learned 20 steps to lead somebody to Christ? No. What they knew is what God had done for them. And they simply shared what God had done for them. I had a problem. I was a sinner. And God's holiness condemned me. But God loved me, and Christ died for me, and He promised that whoever calls upon Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Thank God that I called upon Him, and He saved me. It doesn't have to be the big 50 cent words with inflation, the $5 words. It's just the simple reality. This is what God did for me. That has the greatest impact on other people. We can use the big words and now they're intimidated. They don't know what we mean. We can use word like righteousness. The average person who hasn't grown up in church is going to hear that and say, right what? Those aren't words that are bantered about in normal conversation, apart from Christian services like this. But we can talk to them about right and wrong. And how God, through Christ, has provided forgiveness. Those are concepts they can understand. Peter wraps up these observations by pointing out how we can thus walk and talk by yielding ourselves submissively to our Savior. So, verse 13, he says, sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Verse 16, good behavior in Christ. Verse 17, the will of God. So, our walk and our talk, but it is our walk and our talk as it is submitted, as we submit these to His authority. We want to please Him. Remember last week, two weeks ago, when we started talking about relationships, cultivating healthy relationships, and that our goal or our purpose was not so that we would be happy, that that was the byproduct. What was the reason we should be seeking to cultivate these relationships? Because it pleases God. So we seek to have healthy relationships because that pleases God. And the byproduct of that is we're happy. But it isn't that I'm seeking to be happy first and foremost. I'm seeking to please God. And so too in our witness. And this is really getting to the heart of what I want to leave with you today. We may not live in a world that we have to be concerned that we're going to be persecuted, jailed, martyred for the Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe that'll come in our lifetimes, maybe it won't. But you and I do live in a world that intimidates us from speaking about the gospel of Christ. We are fearful of speaking to our neighbors or our co-workers or family members even. And here's my challenge. Do you want to please God? Because ultimately what Peter is saying here and what we'll see in two weeks when we come back to this passage is, what is it that would help these folks to overcome the fear of the harm that they might face because of their faith in Christ? Because they wanted to please God first and foremost. And seeking to please Him would give them the proper perspective on the difficulties of life. They could please God and they would provide a testimony that would shine brightly to those who are watching them. So can I say this for you and me? How is it that we can provide a testimony to our world? Do you love God? Do you want to please Him? That's really the only calculus that we have to do in our hearts and our heads is simply, will this please God if I share the gospel with this person? That gentleman that picked us up in Western North Carolina all those many years ago, I don't know what came of him. I've thought about him with all of the the destruction of Western North Carolina that we've all seen and read about in the last week. And I wonder, given his line of work, if he's still in that line of work, how it might have affected him. I don't know. I hope that one day I'll see him in heaven, that God will have used the word planted and the word watered, and somebody else got the increase, but God got the glory. I don't know. But I do know this. What I had to ask myself that day, riding in the cab of that truck, squeezed in with my family, with the stick right there. My knees are in the gear stick on that vehicle. Some of you know what it's like to have to actually use a clutch. Well, this was one of those with a big stick out of the floor. And when he was putting it in gear, there's no place for me to go. I did not want to witness. I wanted to have a pity party. But God convicted me. Do I want to please God? Yes. Then I need to witness to this gentleman. God brings opportunities to us every day. Some are more open than others. It may be simply living the gospel in your walk. It may be other opportunities where you can actually use your talk. But the question is, will you seek to please God and be the witness even to a hostile world that God wants you to be? I hope that this will become increasingly true of us as believers. The world needs the gospel. And God has given you and me the privilege of sharing it with those around us. May God help us. to please Him in this way. Let's bow our hearts. Our Father, as we come before You this morning, we thank You for this passage. And Lord, this was really more of an introduction to this portion of 1 Peter. But Lord, trying to give us a sense of the big picture that Peter is drawing our attention to, the Holy Spirit through him seeking to to impress upon us how we are to be witnesses to You, even though there are times when our witness is in the face of hostility. Lord, we may not suffer as those first century believers suffered. But Lord, we still fear. I pray, Lord, that you would help us to look beyond that human frailty, that weakness that we all share. And Lord, give us the boldness that comes from a desire to please you, that comes from a heart full of gratitude and thanksgiving for what you have done for us, for the salvation that you have brought, for the fact that we are kept through the Holy Spirit who indwells us and has sealed us. God, I pray that you would help us to be the witnesses we need to be both in our lives generally, but in our words when the opportunities come. Lord, help us to be ambassadors for Christ. And we'll seek to give you the glory as we pray this in Christ's name and for His sake.