It is so good to be back with you this week. I missed you guys so very much and thankful for your faithfulness, thankful for the fact that we have come together another week and are clinging to Christ. And it is my hope, my prayer that our time together this morning will renew us with the majesty, the glory, the wonder, our faith in Jesus. Our text for this morning is 1 Peter chapter 3 verses 18 through 22. We have some words here that are glorious, we have some words here that are It's confusing and uncertain, but we'll try to at least touch on them this morning. Peter writes, 1 Peter 3, 18, 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 formally 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. Let's again pray. Lord, our eyes are so easily cataracted by the things of this world. By the things that are passing and are temporary, we can be so easily distracted and our vision clouded and our lives disoriented and destabilized because of the raging of the nations, because of the raging of our own heart. And so we plead with you to reorient us, to recalibrate us, to recenter us on those things which are most surely believed among us, that which is our rock, our foundation, our bulwark, our shield, our high castle. that you would please bless us by the presence of your Holy Spirit in us and with us and through us as we hear your word this morning, as we have sung your word this morning, as we have heard it, as we have prayed it. Lord, may it get down into us in a deeper and more profound way this morning, we pray in Jesus' name. I'm entitling the sermon Polaris Christ, which if you had asked me a week ago. What Polaris is, I would not have been able to tell you, I'll just be honest, so you all can know how dumb I really am by that statement. But you'll see there on the cover card a ship with starry skies, it looks like an ancient picture there. And I want to talk about just the framework of what I'm thinking about this morning in regards to Polaris. Polaris is the more official name of what we call the North Star. And I can't remember exactly how this came on my radar, no pun intended, over the last week or so, but it was probably something I was reading. And just the idea that the Polaris star, the North Star, is at least in the northern hemisphere where a lot of the early navigation took place, the navigation, the nautical, finding their way from the Vikings to the Europeans to the English. In the Northern Hemisphere, the North Star was absolutely crucial. And as I've dug in it a little bit, it's absolutely crucial because if you're on a boat in the middle of the ocean and there's storms, or even if it's a clear sky and you can't see land, how in the world do you get to go where you want to go? There's a few different ways to try to do that before GPSes and compasses and such, the magnetic compass. You would try to navigate by the stars in the sky, but the problem with the stars in the sky, like the sun, you would think the sun would be a pretty steady, but depending on the rotation of the globe, the sun doesn't set except for twice a year, rise and set in the solstices in the exact east and the exact west. So unless you have advanced navigational tools, the sun doesn't help a whole lot. It gives you a general direction, but it's many degrees off if you're trying to navigate depending on the year. You can adjust for that and figure that out, but as a standalone entity, it's just not super helpful from my understanding. And then you look up at the stars and you think, well, they're all kind of fixed there, but they're really not. There's a picture there you can see of the stars. like well which one do I use if all I can see in the night sky or in the midst of a storm if I can peek through and somehow see the star which one is there anything that's dependable well the problem is if you have a long shot of that and extended exposure all of the stars are rotating and so they're constantly moving if you set your sights on any of the wrong one you're in trouble if you try to navigate by that and you'll end up going in circles in the middle of the ocean and eventually will run out of food and probably have mutiny against the captain, against one another. But if you'll see it there in that picture, if you can see it on your screen, there's right at the center a star that is essentially, not exactly, but essentially, approximately doesn't move, it's Polaris. There's a specific way to find it using some of the other stars. I won't talk about that. But here's the idea is that. In regards to how we navigate our way through storms, through darkness, through the oceans of life and the difficulties of life. When we look into the celestial realm. Christ is that early morning star. He is that Polaris. He is the unmoved one. He is the one that essentially is always there and is always dependable and the one to whom we always can look. And whether it be the sun, which is lots brighter to us, isn't it? I mean, to find the North Star is a little bit troublesome sometimes if you don't know your night sky. If you find the wrong star, Or if you choose another star, you're lost. And there's no way out. But in thinking about Polaris, Christ. We are in troubled times. And troubled days, and there is suffering that is yet ahead of us. Why? Because I think the world is collapsing, maybe or maybe not, but nevertheless, suffering is a part of life. It is part of the fallenness and fallingness of the world. I've heard someone say, well, if you haven't suffered anything yet, just hold on, it's coming your way. It's part of the nature of the reality of the world that we live in. We can be taken off guard and unexpected and have all kinds of trouble and feel disoriented and lost and not be able to find our way. And many people sadly existentially sink in the oceans of life because they have no way of finding their bearings. But part of the good news is there is a North Star with which we can fix our bearings, which doesn't By the way, when you find the North Star, you don't get lifted out of the storm, do you? But you know how to make your way through the storm. It doesn't keep the waves from coming into the boat, but it helps us to navigate and to know where to go and how to find our way. So in troubled times and in troubled lives, some of us have lost loved ones, parents over the last several weeks. Some of us have suffered COVID and flu and other ordinary physical ailments. The birth of babies, the loss of loved ones, the sadness of prodigal children, the brokenness of families. And then there's the political deluge of craziness. And there's a lot of fear. There's a lot of storms around us. And so between social media and news outlets. Who are putting microscopes on those storms around us, how will we find our way? Well, this text tells us this morning, and I believe is really, in one sense, the centerpiece of this entire letter, which you'll remember this letter is about how to endure difficult times, how to endure suffering and how to pursue holiness and righteousness and Christ-likeness in the midst of suffering. Suffering is not an excuse for sin. Difficulty in suffering is the very petri dish of growth in Christ that's laid before us. So what we see, first of all, in verse 18, is this connection to what Tyler taught us last week of the importance of doing good even when good is not done to us. That it is better for suffering for doing good. Suffering does not excuse doing evil. Well, you know, I was just provoked. I was beaten. I was having a hard time. I was suffering. the subject of abuse, and therefore, I will do evil in return. Peter says, look, who's going to persecute you? Who's going to hurt you if you do good? But even if they do, it is better. And you are blessed as you honor Christ. And suffering and having hope in the midst of suffering is perhaps, in this verse, the most powerful witness We heard about apologetics last week and having an answer for the hope that is within us. But as Tyler pointed out, the heart of this is not having academic and rational answers. It is going through hard things and yet having our eyes fixed on Christ and having hope in the midst of the storm and people going, how in the heck, in the midst of all this, are you so peaceful? How are you maintaining? How are you holding together? How can you be enduring what you're enduring and still have hope? Why don't you just give up? How can you have gone through what you're going through? How can you suffer and be buffeted by the disappointments and the difficulties? and not have a slappy, happy, silly kind of a hope, but a deep hope that says, even though He slays me, yet I will serve Him because I believe. And people go, why is that? Where does that hope, that elpida is the Greek word, that hope which is a fixed hope, that actually enables us to have a ballast for our soul in the midst of the storm so we're not completely turned over and overwhelmed. And that's primarily the apologetic that he is saying, that's what you need to be ready for. Yes, there are rational answers and there are things that we ought to be prepared for, but the world will not care if we give all the academic answers And every time we are buffeted by a storm, we tip over and capsize. And so all of that is leading into verse 18. He says, so you have this 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 And that should be God's will then for doing evil for Christ. And here's the connection for Christ, your hope in Christ and honoring Christ as Lord in your heart. So the people go, what in the world is going on with you? What is that hope of being ready to give a reason? And here is the content of the hope. The content of the hope is the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ, that's it. It's the simplicity of Christ that Paul talks about. I believe it's in 2 Corinthians. Why do you have hope? Because I believe Christ suffered and died and has been resurrected. And that's it. That's like if I don't have any apologetic answers beyond that, If I don't have the rationality and the philosophical underpinnings to be able to answer the metaphysical, ethical and epistemological questions, but I can say, I believe Christ died for my sins and was raised from the dead. That's my hope, that's a simple hope, and that's not only enough, it's more than enough. It's better to suffer for doing good than doing evil, he says, for Christ also suffered. And here he takes not only the rock and the hope and the North Star that we have, but he also says this is the example for us. And we've seen this earlier back in chapter two. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous. And what we have here, and it struck me, and I've just been thinking about this because I'm trying to, I have the tendency in taking theology and like putting it up into a philosophical realm. And putting it up into the upper story of truths of various sorts that I believe, which is certainly important. But what's interesting is we saw a few weeks ago is the logos, the Word, the eternal Word, didn't just stay in heaven, it became flesh. He became flesh, like real flesh, like baby flesh, like Titus Rice, born this week premature, hanging on for dear life. That kind of baby flesh is what God became. Not a bulletproof flesh. Not a kind of superhero flesh. Not a kind of Superman flesh that just came from another world and was nearly invulnerable except for kryptonite. This is the baby who could get splinters in his little feet. This is the baby who would grow up to be a man and be nailed to a tree. And those nails didn't bend as they were trying to pound them in. There's the Superman movie where he's shot in the eyeball. One of the strangest scenes I've seen. And it shows slow motion, side angle, that bullet spreading as his eyeball doesn't move and that bullet just It's not that kind of Superman we're talking about. Christ suffered once for sins. What are we really talking about? Remember, it's been a year or two ago, I was watching some, it's probably The Last Kingdom about Alfred the Great and medieval sacrifice and the Vikings come in and there's just a bloody world. And then watching shows about the Vikings and you're watching these animal sacrifices and you're just like... And you're like, wait a minute, wait a minute. That's way closer to the biblical world than we are. For thousands of years, God said, here's how you're going to learn about sin. My temple, I mean, this is a clean place, isn't it? Isn't this nice? Everything, the floors are clean, the bathrooms are clean. I took a shower this morning, got cleaned up. You got cleaned up. We all came here. It's all so clean. Isn't this clean? Isn't this a nice worship place? But you think the temple, the tabernacle is a slaughterhouse of burning flesh, for thousands of years. You would come and you would see the animals with blood gushing out of their split throats. You would smell the burning flesh from miles away. You would carry in your spotless lamb and your children would be like, oh, lamby, lamby, lamby. What's happening to lamby? Well, sweetheart, Yahweh says we are sinners and we deserve death. So we're going to take Lammi and give it to that man right over there wearing that blood splattered robe. We think of white turbans, don't we? We think of the white clothes and the clothes of the priest and these kind of pristines. They're in a slaughterhouse. It's a butcher shop. And they don't have like these plastic aprons to keep their they're splattered with blood. And what was it like in the temple on a day of sacrifice where thousands of animals' blood are being spilt out into the sand or onto the stone? And that was God's inspired way of saying, this is what your sin deserves. This is the multimedia experience of what it means to come before a holy God. And you go, wow, I'm just, man, I'm glad we don't have to do that anymore. If I went back and brought out a little lambslayer, I've got a little show and tell for you. You'd be thinking, what is going on here? But you see, that's not even the worst part of it. In watching some of these shows, which I have particular interest in because of stories and of history storytelling, you then watch a human sacrifice or a depiction of a human sacrifice. And you just think that's barbaric. That's wicked. That is that is awful. This is this is just evil and it feels evil. And then we come back to the reality is that's what it took to save us. Not the philosophy of the doctrine of Christ, but God becoming a man as a human sacrifice on a cross. And at least I can read it through a passage like this and have the right platonic abstract doctrine of, I believe Jesus died for my sins. What does that mean? Christ suffered in space and time. God become man and whipped and beaten and brutalized and spat upon. And now I watch these pagan depictions of human sacrifices and I'm thinking, that's not far from the truth. Except this was God in flesh, perfect, sinless, righteous, holy, pure, without stain, without sin. The perfect Lamb of God in human flesh who gave Himself a voluntary sacrifice as a man who would feel the same pain that you would feel in your nerves and through your bones splitting. He did that God in flesh becoming sacrifice. And He says, you can suffer because Christ has suffered for you. So it's not just an abstract doctrine or a teaching that we check off of our list. It's the humanity and the incarnation and the createdness and the life. This is a lot messier. When we say we believe a human being was sacrificed to save us. A man. That man was Mystery of mystery. God in the flesh. I watch some of those shows now, I go, wow, that's much closer than a kind of sanitized Christianity of abstracted beliefs and confessional statements that I assent to by themselves. Say there's something divine and human and brutal and beautiful taking place here. And so the Christ child that we saw born and remembered being born a few weeks ago, this one is the one who grows up and suffers once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous. This is what we call substitution. This is substitution. It means The one who didn't deserve it got what we deserve. Do we want to know what we deserve before a holy God? Look at the cross. Look at the beatings. Look at the spitting. Look at the humiliation. And if you want to know how bad I am, look at the cross, and that's how bad Stephen Gamble is and what he deserves. Every single day. So there's nothing you could say to me. There's nothing you could do to me. There's nothing you could say about me that is worse than what I actually deserve. There's no statement you can make about me, no accusation against me that is worse than I deserve. There's nothing that the government could do to me or withhold from me. that is worse than what I deserve. There's no right that you can take from me that is worse than I deserve. And so he says this, righteous for the unrighteous, and that's what you as a believer have said, is that I believe that I am unrighteous and that He is the righteous One. And for that reason, nothing I suffer in this world is what I deserve. What I deserve is eternal suffering from which he has rescued me. Therefore, anything less than eternal suffering is less than what I deserve. Therefore, Christ suffered for me, the righteous for the unrighteous. And then there is this beautiful, beautiful thing here, because the suffering language is his own atoning sacrifice, the spilling of his blood, the slaughter of the cross. And here's what happens. And here's the picture here that he might bring us to God. This word bring us. Has a couple of of and I think it's the NLT or the message it talks about to bring us home. I think there's a probably a couple of images that are embedded in here. First and foremost, this bring us language is temple sacrifice language. And here's what I think's going on. You imagine Christ on the cross. There we are, the unrighteous. Here he is, the righteous suffering. But when he's raised from the dead, here's what he does. He takes us, and because his righteousness has been given to us, and now we are holy, and we are set apart, and we are purified by his blood, The application of His blood on us makes us pure. Then He brings us to God to present us to God. That's the picture. It's like I can't get to God. I can't get to Him. He is holy and I'm unrighteous. Christ says, hold on. I'll be right back. And as He returns in His resurrection glory, He applies his righteousness to us and carries us and brings us and presents us to God because of his righteousness. And when he brings us to God, he does indeed, as a couple of the translations say, he's bringing us home. He's bringing us home. How did he do that? Well, he suffered. that He might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh, speaking of His crucifixion, His death on the cross, but made alive in the Spirit. What does this mean? I think it's equivalent to what Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 15. It can be translated a couple of different ways, but is to be made alive spiritually in a spiritually glorified body by the Holy Spirit. I think it's all three of those ideas. Made alive in the spirit doesn't mean his spirit died and then he was made alive. It means that by the Holy Spirit, he was raised from the dead and given a spiritual glorified body, which, by the way, is still a physical body. It's just of a different sort than what we have. You can read about that quite thoroughly in First Corinthians 15. But made alive in the spirit is, I believe, referring to his resurrection from the dead by the spirit. Physically glorified. spiritualized body, but still material body. So I think there's a chronological thing that's going on here. He suffered that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, being raised spiritually from the dead, which brings us then to verse 19 and 20. Some of you I know are just waiting and chomping at the bit on this one. The proclamation of Christ, verses 19 and 20, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. Now, the in which what's crucial to even interpreting this is the in which is it referring to him being raised in the spirit? Is that just his spirit? Is that his body of already stated? I think it's his resurrected body from the dead. So what is talking about here in which resurrected body he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison? And then it just gets more complicated from there. But I think essentially that's what he's doing. He's following chronologically. He's not going back to what the Spirit of Christ did thousands of years ago. I think he's talking about something that happens after the resurrection of Christ. And what is it that happens? He goes and preaches. This is the basic word, New Testament word for kerous, keruxo. It is just to preach, to proclaim. It is to proclaim typically the good news of the king and the kingdom. And to whom does he do this? He does this with the spirits in prison. Now, who's that? That's a great question. I don't know. I don't know. Well, surely you know. You're the pastor. I don't know. I could tell you two or three different possibilities. Who are the spirits in prison? Well, some people say it's because of the reference he's going to make to the days of Noah, that it's the sons of man. who may have been the Nephilim, the pre Nephilim, that they are the angelic fallen beings who come and take up the daughters of man and marry them. So the spirits in prison, because of what Peter says in his second letter, because of what Jude says in his letter, there's some indication that might be maybe the spirits in prisons are just simply fallen demonic beings. And it's Christ coming after his resurrection saying, see. I win, you lose or something like that. Maybe not that bully-ish, but he goes and proclaims, good news, I'm resurrected from the dead. The king and the kingdom have been inaugurated. So it could be that these fallen angels, it could be just as some people say, the spirits in prison being those in this place called the dead, Abaddon, Sheol, Hel, Gehenna, whatever this place of the spirits in prison, are that it's all of the spirits in prison that he goes and for what reason, whether it's to proclaim to them, just announce to them his victory, or is it to help them to understand those who are in faith who are in this temporarily temporary holding chamber until the coming of Christ? But it all becomes very complicated in all of these positions, which I'm not going to go deep into. But I think it's narrowed to this particular group and why this particular group I don't exactly know. But the spirits in prison, not generally speaking, all of the spirits in prison, whoever that may be, and they don't seem to be angelic beings, nor everyone in the abode of the dead. But the spirits in prison particularly are narrowed to a particular group within that prison. Or a special prison for this particular group, something like that. And if you're confused at the end of this, that's okay, cause I am too. All right? So fair enough. If you come away and say, well, I don't think he explained that very well. It's like, I didn't even try. I'm just telling you, just telling you some of the perspectives, but here's the particular group because they, the spirits in prison formerly did not obey when God's patients waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared. So here's the picture is that there are these in the days of Noah who do not obey And because they didn't obey, they wound up in prison. And then after Jesus resurrection, he went to that prison and preached to them about the kingdom. And about his resurrection, something like that. Honestly, that's about as close as I can get. Now, what the outcome of that was that so they could be saved, is that because some of them could get out of is it just a declaration of his victory? Well, I'll leave that to the commentators, none of them are fixedly convincing to me. There's good arguments for some elements of all these different truths. At the end of the day, I don't know. Peter knew what he was talking about. Maybe that's one of the first questions you should ask him when you see him. They say, Peter, just spirits in prison. Jesus going, can you help us out with that? He'll just go, yeah, there it is. Okay, all right. I don't know why Stephen didn't see that, but there it was. But the point of it is victory. The point of it, whoever he's preaching to, it's a resurrection victory that he's proclaiming to those who've gone on before. That's the point of it, is he is victorious in proclaiming it to at least some of those who have gone on and have died. I think that's the main point. Whoever the actual audience is, the point is, Christ can move in and out of the realm of the living and the dead. That's the point. Christ can cross over. Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, has access to the realm of the dead and the realm of the living, just as he seemed to pass through into the room where the apostles were staying. So Christ is the sovereign Lord with all authority among the living and the dead. And that's why he will be the judge of the living and the dead. This certainly shows it's not just an earthly kingdom. This is not just a nationalistic kingdom. This isn't just something he's doing for socio-national political Israel. What he is doing has. Impact even among the dead, and even among the ancient dead. He's the one. He is the one. And then it gets tricky again, but I think it's an easier kind of tricky. In which few? He says the days while the ark was being prepared. So he's referring to that historical event of the ark and the flood. in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through the water. I think somebody mentioned last night that the message says by the water and through the water, they were saved, they were brought safely through. OK, so he's referring to the historical event. Now here comes the second tricky thing in the passage, which is what I'm I'm saying is the baptism of Christ. And I'll explain why in just a moment. Baptism. Suddenly he goes from spirits in prison, ark, water, people saved, eight saved out of all of them. There were these few, the eight saved through water. And he says, oh, baptism. He's like, what? How do we get there? But he says baptism, which corresponds to this in the Greek word is The word from which we get archetype or typology, it is a visual symbol or it is a corresponding idea or symbol that is similar to this thing. It's like a type and archetype. It's not the exact same thing, but it's a similar thing. That's the word here used in the Greek. Baptism. which is an archetype of this, the flood and the ark and the ape being saved by water through water, that is an image, symbol of something here which now saves you. I would be surprised at this point if some of you aren't, if we could take your blood pressure and feel your heartbeat because of your past, because of your church upbringing. And you're ready for me just to slaughter this idea that baptism saves you. And I'll be your hero and champion for the day because I've released you again from the legalism of your church background. Well, yes and no. Yes and no. Here's why. Whatever baptism he's talking about here, the nature and features of it, he says in plain terms, now saves you. This is corresponding to a baptism which now saves you, which even clarifies what it's not and what it is, not as a removal of dirt from the body. I think this is a way of saying Not the physical reality of water and your flesh touching the water and the results of that. I'm not talking about just taking a bath, taking a shower, or having water wash over you, or being immersed in water. That's not what I'm talking about. The baptism which corresponds to this is not a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience. This baptism brings a person to be able to stand before God who's been brought before God by Christ and say, my conscience is clear of guilt. Are you with me? An appeal to God for a good conscience. Now, how does that relate to baptism is the question. Is it necessarily the case that if I've been baptized, I have a good conscience before God? But he's tying these things in together. He says it's not just what doesn't bring one before God is, hey, I got in the water and that's what saved me. No, it is in conjunction with what I did in the water, there's something that happened here that allows me to come and to appeal before you with a good conscience. And it's a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So let me explain briefly Let me explain briefly where I think we can go wrong on this, where I don't think we're right on, not we're right, but the right way of thinking about this, and then hopefully pull those two perspectives together. Here's where I think we can go wrong on this, and that is simply this. To take baptism as a sacramental act And what the Bible says, what the Bible associates, let me put it that way, associates with that act to so separate them that we put one way over there and the one way over here so that we don't get confused about what it is. Okay, so logically that makes sense. Take the act of baptism when somebody is baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. As a disciple of Jesus, as a follower of Jesus, here's this visible physical act that happens over here. It's a material act with water and a human body that's over there. But at least since the Reformation, here's here's been the tendency is to say, look. We need to so dissociate that from belief and faith and trust and hope and confidence in Jesus. And this thing we call justification by faith alone, because baptism can't save you, okay? As far as the East is from the West, so we separate salvation from baptism. That's what I think has been the Protestant Reformation tendency for a long time. Well, since the Protestant Reformation. Which logically I get, I understand, and I conceptually agree with. Here's the great difficulty I find with making such a the chasm between these two things, is the Bible just doesn't talk about it that way. It just doesn't. In Romans 6, is it talking about our baptism or the resurrection of Christ or a spiritual baptism? Well, we don't want to believe that baptism saves us. We don't want to teach that because we don't believe that because it's justification by faith, right? Right. Yes, we agree. So let's keep them separate. And so let's even say that somebody can believe and be justified and walk years and years and years and years and years. And baptism is really an indifferent matter. But we read in Acts chapter two, what should we do to be saved? You should repent. And believe. And be baptized, Peter says, to which we could the former say, hold on there, Peter. I think that could be misconstrued by your hearers, because you see, since the early days of the Reformation, we've made sure to separate the two quite strictly. So I think you should leave baptism out of it for now, Mr. Peter. And set that aside, because we've got to make sure that people trust in Christ alone, by faith alone, by grace alone. And we've got to so emphasize that, that we can actually create a culture in which baptism is optional. Logically, does it make sense? Yeah. Thief on the cross without baptism saved. Person who dies on their deathbed without baptism saved by faith in Christ. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Yes. Yes. OK, then we don't have to worry about baptism. That's doing something because of our theology that the Bible doesn't do with baptism. And quite frankly, it's not surprising. And I'll put it this way, that the ancient world and the East in general are way more comfortable with poetic and symbolic language and metaphorical language than we are. Peter says, repent, believe, be baptized, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. We write three volumes on how baptism doesn't save you and justification is by faith alone. And you should just believe in Jesus. And then if you feel so led and so moved, it might be a good time at some point to do that, but make sure you don't trust in it in any way. And we need three volumes for that. Peter says baptism, which now saves you. Does that mean if you're dunked in water, you're saved? No. But what it does mean is that there's a symbol here that the Bible is very comfortable with. So after we make our qualifications, which are necessary, after we make our qualifications, we don't just stay into the Aristotelian realm of of defining what everything is. The Bible takes things in symbols and realities and blends them together. And so after we've made the proper qualifications, let's go back to being more biblical and saying, what should I do to be saved? We should believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You should repent and you should be baptized. You should save yourselves from this wicked and perverse generation. And it's not okay to have partial obedience for the sake of theology. It's not okay because of a fear of what it could become to ignore what it is. It's not the way that Jesus would have us believe and act. And so Peter, without these qualifications, simply says. There's an appeal to God, I have a good conscience and here's how I think it's working symbolically. I have a good conscience. How do you know that? Symbolically, in the Eastern world, they have no problem because I'm a follower of Jesus. How do you know if you're a follower of Jesus? Because I've been baptized in his name. I've died to my old self, I've been raised from the dead. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I've marked myself and identified him. And I have the badge of the people of God, of baptism. And because I've been marked out and shown to be in union with Him and because of what I believe is behind the symbol, which is the death, sacrificial death and burial and resurrection of Jesus from the dead. That's why I believe that baptism should be by immersion because of that image. Because of that, I've identified with Him symbolically. And I'm No longer what I was. I'm a new creation. I've been raised from the dead and I have dramatized it in baptism. And you all have seen it. At least the church has seen it. And now I stand with a good conscience. Why? Because I'm in union with Christ by faith in him. And I've shown that I believe because I've obeyed. I've dramatized it. Well, you've got to be careful of that. Well, you've got to be careful with everything. But we can't be careful out of the reality of how God explains it. And it's through, no, not my baptism by itself. And let me give a little imagery here, a little image. Let me start by saying this, baptism is the sign and symbol of the New Testament of identification with Christ saving work. It is. It's the once. And I would say the Lord's Supper is the ongoing symbol of my union with Christ. And I won't go too far down that territory, but I think the same thing happens with the Lord's Supper. Well, we want to make sure we don't become Roman Catholics. So when we say this is my body, we want to make sure this isn't really his body. This is the blood of the new covenant, but by the way, it's not the blood of the new covenant. It's like I know it's not body and blood. I know that. But poetically, metaphorically, Eastern, biblically, this is my body broken for you. Eat it in remembrance of me. And there's a poetic and metaphorical richness that we have to dissect apart till we kill it. So it's just like it's just it's a physical way of me remembering the body of Jesus. I eat this little piece of cardboard in here. And somehow that's more magical than thinking that there's some actual something going on by faith that I'm remembering the body and blood of Christ, and this is an ongoing, yes, symbol, but a symbol robust in meaning and spiritual realities. Well, let's have several hundreds of years to debate about what that is. Okay, go ahead. This is my body, which is broken for you. This is the blood of the new covenant. There's something going on there because the symbols have meanings. Let me let me. State it this way. One of the legitimate answers, and I'm going to make everybody nervous for a minute, probably for some of you nervous. One of the answers to the question, there's probably several ways to answer it, but how do you know that you're a Christian? One of the biblical ways of answering that is, I've been baptized. And if that makes you nervous, that's the symbol. Now, it's not the only answer. Well, I've been baptized, and if baptism means something and is done biblically, then I think that's actually right. Well, what does baptism signify? That I've been raised in newness of life, that I'm in union with Christ, that I have faith in Him, that He is my Lord and Savior. You see, baptism isn't the complete summary term. It is the term that's used for this whole body of faith and love and hope and death and burial and resurrection. Baptism is just a simple word to associate all that stuff. And if it's emptied of all that, it's like the little Johnny just got baptized because his friend's word, it doesn't mean anything. The symbol doesn't mean anything. Does that save him? No, no, no, no, no. But the symbol of baptism, when it is packed with the biblical meaning, has a very robust biblical idea and say you should be holy because you have been baptized in Christ and baptism with all it means in union with Christ and faith in Christ. This now saves you by the resurrection of Christ. And because of your association with him, you have a good conscience before God. So the image I would use here, the illustration, is imagine that you could purchase, and I assume that you could, a police badge for Metro Police Department online. Or at least a facsimile of such. Now does the badge in and of itself give you the authority of a Metro Police Officer? It doesn't. It means nothing. You get the badge illegitimately, or you find one on the street. There was a brawl. Some policemen and some bad guys got into it. One of their badges fell off. You come along, you find the badge, and you go, oh, I got it. Therefore, I'm a police officer. It doesn't work that way. The symbol always has to be attached with the depth of meaning behind it. But when that symbol is attached with the depth of meaning, it has profound meaning in its symbolism. You can have a little child that has a fake badge. But the badge doesn't have authority in and of itself. It's all the badge represents when properly and duly worn that is entailed in the Constitution, the laws, the authority structures, the community acceptance, the training that goes behind it. How do I know one of you among us is a police officer? One way to prove that is for him to show me his badge. Would you agree? Does that mean if he gave one of his old ones to you, that would make you a police officer? You see, the symbol is empty of its meaning. But when the symbol is fused to its meaning, it is legitimate to say, I know what you are by your badge. And that's what baptism, that's the baptism that now saves you. not the one you found on the street, not the one that you swiped from somebody else, but when duly ordained and given and having all of the meaning behind it, we should not be afraid of the poetic metaphorical language that Peter is using here, as this baptism now saves you, not the washing of the water, but an answer of a good conscience before God because of the resurrection of Christ. Just as an officer can say, I have authority because I have this badge, is that strictly true? Factually true because I have this in my possession? No. But what is robustly meant behind that is exactly what he brings to it. It's factually false, but it's poetically, metaphorically true. That's what I think he is saying here. the ascension and supremacy of Christ. This Christ, the resurrection of Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to Him. This is what Jesus explains in Matthew 28. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. And I love what the message says here. Christ has the final say. Christ has the final say. The angelic beings come up and say, here's what we want to do. Christ has the final say. The governing authorities of our land come and say, this is what we're going to do. We're raging against the Lord, against his anointed. And Jesus says, no, I got the final say. Jesus always has the final say. Facebook, Twitter, Culture, Capital. Christ has the final say. Let me read here this passage in closing. I'm talking about Christ as the Polaris star. The death, burial, resurrection of Jesus and our association with Him through baptism and what He does there. His authority to go in and out of both the physical and the spiritual realm to proclaim who He is. Brothers and sisters, Christ is everything. He is, as Paul terms Him, our all in all. And so here's how Eugene Peterson paraphrases this section, which I think is just a helpful summary. That's what Christ did definitively. Suffered because of other sins, the righteous one for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all, was put to death and then made alive to bring us to God. He went and proclaimed God's salvation to earlier generations who ended up in the prison of judgment because they wouldn't listen. You know, even though God waited patiently all the days that Noah built a ship, only a few of them were saved, eight to be exact, saved from the water by the water. The waters of baptism do that for you, not by washing away dirt from your skin, but by presenting you through Jesus's resurrection before God with a clear conscience. Jesus has the last word on everything and everyone from angels to armies He's standing right alongside God and what he says goes That's why these verses in the middle of this book I think are the Polaris pointing us in whatever we're going through whatever we're facing and life, death, future, past, whatever it may be, Christ is the Polaris star to whom we look to get our bearings, the one who is the unmoving one, and all that he is, and our identification and association with him, because through him and our identification with him, he brings us to God, and that makes everything a right in the end. Let me share with you, and I hope you can hold back your giggles, my attempt at writing a poem. Well, no, let me come back to that. First, our response. Here's our response. If you're trusting in Jesus, you should identify yourself as in union with Him and His church in baptism. It's not about you being good enough. It's not about you learning more. It's not about you knowing more. If you believe that you're a Christian, that you trust in the Lord Jesus, then you should be baptized. You should obey the Scriptures. Only He, as Bonhoeffer said, only He believes who obeys, and only He who obeys believes. And so, well, I don't know what I'm getting myself into. Well, none of us do. I was baptized a couple times. What, 30-something years ago? Did I know what I was getting into? I had no idea. I got married 34 years ago. Did I know what I was getting into? No. Was I supposed to wait until I knew what I was getting into? No, it's an issue of obedience. I do. And then I learn and I grow. And then what my wedding day meant and what my baptism meant becomes richer as I grow older. And that's fine. But if you say, I believe in Jesus, I trust in Jesus, you know what you should do? You should talk to one of your pastors. You should talk to your parents. You should talk to one of us. And okay, I just want to obey. I don't understand it all, but I believe in Jesus and I trust in him and I want to be baptized. Okay, then that's what you ought to do. As Christians in troubled times, we need to constantly keep before us our Polaris, that is Jesus Christ, his death, burial and resurrection. His atoning human sacrifice of death so that we might suffer with Him. His victorious resurrection so we know we will be raised with Him. And His supremacy over all the earth and heavenly power so that we may reign with Him. And here's the tricky thing about a Polaris star. The Polaris star doesn't show up in the day, typically. when the sun is brightly shining. When things are going well, and you're living in the middle of a Disney movie and all the animals are singing around you and all your kids are, yes ma'am, no sir, and your job is going awesome and everything's going great. Bless the Lord for those sunny days, but often that's the very place that Christ has forgotten. But it's when the night grows darker and the land grows out of sight. We feel ourselves tossed and turned. It is in the night that Christ is often most clearly seen. But he has to be sought because there's a lot of stars out there. There's a lot of things that we can connect ourselves to. There's a lot of rival stars that are not dependable and they're constantly moving. We need to know how to identify the Lord Jesus Christ and fix ourselves on Him. Here's my attempt at a kind of a modified sonnet. Excuse me, it's as best I could do for now, but anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Polaris. Life's storms are harsh and hard to bear. They come and go without, we know. but too they come within our share of miseries and conflicts show. The dark despairs we think and feel, the guilt and shame surrounds us still, on ship we toss and turn and reel to leave us helpless with no will. But there is He who steadies all to give us light and truth and grace, to bear it all and heed the call to carry on and storms embrace. Polaris Christ, our northern star, shines in our storms from throne afar. Let's pray. Please pray responsibly with me. For Jesus, we look to you as our Polaris, our bright and morning star. By you, we navigate our way through a dark and stormy world. In your sacrificial death, victorious resurrection, and supreme enthronement over all earthly and spiritual powers, we find all we need for suffering and holiness in our fallen and falling world until you return again. Amen.