First Peter chapter three. Before we start, we'll just have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for the Sunday school hour. And Lord, it seems like the Sunday school hour has some of the most practical teachings that we'll receive for our Christian lives to be victorious, to live a life which is pleasing to thee. I pray, Lord, as we open the word this morning, we'll read it with reverence, with respect, with awe, Lord, that you're speaking to us through these words, giving us instruction, helping us to live a life which is pleasing to thee. I pray, Lord, you just honour your word this morning, apply it to our hearts, help us to, Lord, see the practical aspects here that we can incorporate into our lives on a daily basis. We thank you for this time, in Jesus' name, amen. Now for those who were not here, we are doing a series at the present time called Christian Stability in an Unstable World as we go through 1st and 2nd Peter. And certainly it is a very unstable world and it's becoming more unstable day by day. If you keep up with the news and various events happening both in Australia and the world, you'll know that things are not getting easier for Christians who want to live for the Lord. The series this morning, we'll be looking from verses 13 through to verse 22. And the title of this morning's or the theme of this morning's study is How to Suffer for Well-Doing. How to Suffer for Well-Doing. Now, just for the sake of those who haven't been here for this series, the audience that Peter is writing to through the power of the Holy Spirit is a church under fairly extreme persecutions. And it's not just a church, there's a series, about a dozen churches in what we know now as Turkey, Asia, Bithynia, Galatia, Cappadocia, these different churches are all facing extreme persecutions for their faith. The purpose that Peter, behind this and behind the Holy Spirit writing this, inspiring this, is that as pastors mentioned a number of times, that they might have a good judgment. That when they come before the Lord, it will be a happy time, a joyous time, a time where there's great rejoicing and not great sadness. A well done now good and faithful servant. A good report. The aim in all this is, summed up in Romans 12, 12, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer. Rejoicing in hope. We should be rejoicing in our hope. We should be patient in our tribulation. That's what God wants. Hebrews 10.35 says, we should not cast away our confidence. We would live a life where we're confident. We're confident of who we are. We're confident of where we've been, where we are and where we're going. To have that in the right balance. Sometimes we get bogged in the middle part, where we are. The troubles, the trials come upon our lives and we tend to sink and faint. Hebrews 3.6 calls it a different way, says, It's not a matter of how long you've been on the path of a Christian life, how long you've been saved, it's how far you've come along that path. Some people get saved and that's as far as they go. They don't go much further. They don't engage themselves in local church. They don't see a priority of the word of God, their devotions or fellowship or whatever else, or witnessing, evangelism. They just seem to stay stagnant. And that's sad that God doesn't want that. And that's another great advantage of the local church. Come here in a forum where there's teaching, where there's preaching, where there's fellowship, where there's encouragement and exhortation to grow. And it says, and firm until the end. We want to finish well. We want to finish the race that God has allowed us to have. Now, just very briefly, chapter one, Peter, the Holy Spirit went to great pains to impress upon the believers their hope. Because if you don't have hope, life is not worth it. You're hopeless. And as Christians, we have no excuse for not having hope. It says the foundations of hope in chapter one. The foundations of hope, we have a place reserved for us in heaven. An inheritance incorruptible, undefiled. We are kept by the power of God. We are born again with a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And we have been sprinkled with the blood of Christ, washed in the blood, sanctified through the Holy Spirit. We have much to rejoice in. There's great foundations there for hope. And when you have that hope, you can live through those trials. You can see the trials from God's perspective. Sometimes we just see trials from our perspective. We can't see the forest for the trees. But if we think in the heavenlies of what God is doing and where we're going and what He wants in our lives, we can really stand firm and confident. that what we have is worth living for. In chapter two, more practical. It went to the first aspect, it was more practical, how to live, holy living, but also then went to great pains to talk about submission. Submission to, now who was it saying we should submit to? Come on now, quickly, quick answer there. Who, what would, sorry, government, yes. Who else? Who else should submit? Authorities, our bosses at work. And then this last week, the wives got a little bit of work over last week in chapter three and submission to the husband. But then again, there's responsibilities to the husband. Go and read Ephesians chapter five, I think it is, and you'll learn more about the sacrificial responsibilities as a husband. So it's not all just the wives in that case. So today we're looking at verses 13 through to 22, and we'll read those now. Chapter 3, 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 ye suffer for well-doing than for evil doing. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins. the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometimes were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him. There are various types of suffering that we can endure in our human frame. The word suffering here, where it says, but if ye suffer for righteousness, is the word to experience a sensation or an impression of pain. Pain physical, pain emotional, psychological, different sorts of pain. But specifically this is talking here about the sort of pain that you suffer for righteousness sake. Okay, now we've got to get that clear for a start. Because there's all sorts of trials and troubles that you'll have in your life. But they're not talking about all those here. It's talking about specifically you suffering for your faith. For the stand you have, for the position you've taken in your faith in the Lord Jesus, you are a target for persecution. The Bible in 2 Timothy 3 verse 12 says, Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. It's a give me. Jesus said in the gospels, you shall suffer persecution. And that may come in the form of rejection from family members. I'm sure some of you experienced that. It may come in the way of false evil accusations where you're accused of doing something which you have not done. It's just being hounded. It has the idea of being hounded for your faith. And as we know, there's other sorts of sufferings in this world. In Job, it says, man that is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble. Now, I'm thankful that we don't all have that testimony. Job was going through a trial proportionally greater than what we'll ever face, I'm sure. But you know, life, someone says, what, life wasn't meant to be easy. The Prime Minister said that some years ago. And life is not always easy. The people who, health, wealth, and prosperity doctrine, that false satanically devised doctrine, it's heretical, it's wrong. Because if you become a Christian, and you think that everything's going to be fine and dandy, that you're going to have lots of money, you're going to have lots of health, lots of prosperity, everything's going to be cool. When suffering does come along, you're going to get discouraged, and you're probably going to fail. And I think that's a source of a lot of people who go in with the wrong expectations, who go in for the false hope that everything's going to be fine and dandy, that everything's going to be great. And when trials come along, they're a bit like one of the soils where the The seed is planted in a rocky ground or in a weedy ground and when the weeds come up they choke out because the persecutions and trials and tribulations they can't handle, they just fade away. And I'm sure each one of you knows someone in that situation. But there are other trials in life, there are just general trials in health, health problems. I don't believe there'd be anybody here who could say their health is really improving. Maybe the younger people might be able to say that, but us here, if my experience is anything like yours, my health is not getting any better. We go through trials of health. There's various peoples in this church family who are going through trials of health. We go through maybe trials of financial problems. We might go through trials for our own silly fault, some silly decision we've made and we've ended up as a consequence in a situation which we didn't really plan on. So things haven't gone according to plan. In chapter one, he talks about just the simple trials of your faith, the simple trial through manifold temptations. I was reading my devotion this morning, there's a beach in America where there's a lot of boulders which are at a beach and the waves are continually rubbing these boulders together and these rocks and in time they become polished. It's a sort of symbol of what God does to us. He takes a rock, and he starts a mould. Chips a bit off here, chips a bit off there, and he's polishing. I think there's a verse in Isaiah 49. He hath made me a polished shaft. So God wants to polish us. God wants to work at us. He wants to knock off those chips of pride, those selfishness, and polish them into something beautiful. And we think of people in the Bible. You can think straight away. Think of people like Joseph, what he went through. We think of people like Job. When I see him, I shall come forth as gold. He believed he was going through a trial, but he believed he was going to come out the other side. Daniel, Paul, even Paul the Apostle, who was sore, and the trials that he went through, the things that he suffered, that God had a plan and all that. Now, in verse 13, we see a question. Who is he that will harm you, if it be followers of that which is good? Now, I'm not 100% sure what he had in mind here. Maybe he had in mind that the ultimate harm that we can have in our lives is the loss of our soul. In our physical being, because the Bible says, fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. Our soul is by far more important than our body. We're a soul with a body, not a body with a soul. And so we've got to be careful about our soul. There's things that can destroy the soul. Now, sidetracking a little bit, but adultery. The person committing adultery, it says it destroyeth the soul. So the ultimate harm is not possible if you're just doing good. Jesus warned of pending vehement persecution. In John 16.2 he says, Whoso killeth you will think that they do God a service. And that was probably back in those days and it may be in days to come. It certainly has been. Read the Fox's book of Martyrs and it's full of people who were doing a good service, preaching the gospel or whatever else or standing up for the Lord and they were burned at the stake. So, but today, in Australia, we don't really suffer that extreme end of persecution. But let's not get relaxed and take it for granted. That's going to continue on. Because things are moving very, very quickly in our society at the present time. If you keep up with current news on the the freedoms that Christians are being limited to at the present time. And of course, Israel, for us, is a very good example. But overseas, you know, in different countries, Christians have been killed in the thousands. And yet we see the world almost stop for, and I'm not denying it was an atrocious thing which happened in Christchurch, but the media likes to get hold of something like that, totally ignore what's going on in other countries. The people are being slaughtered for their faith. Yet the media, the world, wants to just concentrate on one event and think how the Prime Minister's done such a wonderful job over there. But what about all the people around the world who are being killed for their faith? We have a great freedom here. Johnny and I had the privilege of going down the street the other night, and we gave out some tracts, and it was all glory to Jesus. We had a great time. We even had three people shake my hand, said, thank you. Thank you for telling me what you've told me tonight. Keep going. That's most unusual. So it was easy. There was no harm, no injury, no problems. But that may not continue on as we go. Our freedoms are eroding very quickly. But in verses 14 and 15 we had what godly response to persecution. because there it says after the question, who will harm you if you be followers of that, which is good, but it says, but if ye suffer for righteousness sake, and this is the point I was stressing earlier, we're talking about suffering for righteousness sake, not suffering for the consequences of where we get in the problems, where we're sinned and we get into a difficult situation, but this is for righteousness sake, this is for Christ's sake, for the sake of the gospel. So in other words, he was never ruling out the possibility that you're going to get persecuted. In fact, this church was going through that, or these churches were going through that at that time. But when it says, all who will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution, there is a sort of an overrider there because it's saying all who will live godly in Christ Jesus. And not all Christians live godly in Christ Jesus. Now, I'm not the judge of that, but I've been a Christian long enough to see that some people just get saved. You think they're saved, they go along for a little while, and then they sort of drift away, or they, I don't need church. We've had some contact recently with some Christians, and we believe they're saved, but they didn't see a great importance in reading the word a lot. They didn't see a great importance on going to church. They're just relying on self. Some Christians say, yeah, I can get along. I've met Christians who, a lady up there in Nambour, she said, no, I don't need church. I got offended there once and that's it, I'm not going back to church again. And the devil's doing that to Christians all over the place. It's really a great shame. Let's turn over to Matthew chapter five, if you will, for a moment, please. Matthew chapter five. These verses really sum up what we're talking about this morning wonderfully. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 10. Matthew chapter 5 verse 10 through 12. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. And that really summarizes up virtually what we're talking about this morning. We need to consider, now this is a pretty challenging thing, to consider persecution as a blessing. To consider persecution as a blessing. So blessed are ye, Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven." And so persecution comes, but God says it's a blessing. We're blessed, we're doing it for Christ's sake, and it's a great reward. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 35 says, "'Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.'" And the word confidence there is bold outspokenness. just speaking out the gospel for Jesus, not being afraid of man, just sharing it out. And it's a megas reward we receive. In Luke 6.28, it says, bless them that curse you. And it goes on to say, love your enemies, do good and pray for them. And so this is totally diametrically opposed to our natural reaction to these situations. and how important it is that we walk with the Lord in a very close fellowship. So that we don't fall foul to allowing our natural reactions to come out. And you know, we're all guilty of it, I'm being guilty of it, a little bit of passive road rage, you know, what are you doing mate, you know, bumping in on me, or a bicycle rider coming in front, what's going on, you know? I've done it, my wife's a witness to it. And I've regretted it afterwards because it wasn't a good reaction. And that's really nothing compared to what the Lord is talking about here. And so what are our responses? It says there, happy are ye. We sing Happy Am I. The choir sings it. Great song. But happy are ye. We should be happy about it. We should be happy. Whereas we're following the path of Jesus. We're following the path, entering into being a partaker of Jesus' sufferings. Fear, not their terror. One commentator says, the best way to drive out the fear of man is with the fear of God. Having a fear of God. Building that up in your life, praying for that. Lord, give me a fear of thee, which drives out the fear of man. And how often, when we're out in a situation, just by ourselves or whatever, and the Lord puts us on our heart to talk to someone, and the fear of man just kicks in straight away, instantly. And we've got to fight that. And yeah, we really got to pull out the sword of the spirit and have a verse. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27.1. And we need to be, it's a battle. There's a battle. There's a spiritual dimension going on here. You're at the coalface of a spiritual battle because the devil and his minions will just seek to try and shut your lips. Put your hand in your pocket. You should always have a tract with you, by the way. I'm new to practice what I preach. I haven't got one on me this morning. Sorry about that. Forgive me, Lord. Don't be troubled. You know, sometimes we get very stirred and agitated and worried and anxious when we're affected by a person's accusation or we're persecuted for the righteousness sake. God wants us to have peace, that peace that passes all understanding in all those situations. Hebrews chapter 12, verses one and two are wonderful, wonderful verses. We'll just turn quickly over there. Hebrews chapter 12, verses one and two. Wherefore, seeing we also, a compass to bear, were so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your mind.' Jesus set the example. He didn't look at the circumstances around Him, He looked for the joy that was set before Him. And that's the example for us. We need to be looking for the joy set before us, the place for us reserved in heaven. The blessing, it goes back to, just go back to 1 Peter, in 1 Peter 3. Because in 1 Peter chapter 3 in verse 9, it gives us a clue of this. It says, He's saying, remember the blessing you've inherited. You inherited a blessing, a place reserved for you in heaven by God. You're kept by the power of God. You have the Holy Spirit, the down payment of your inheritance. And keep looking at that. Because if we look at the world, we'll get awfully, awfully discouraged. We'll sink. We'll fail. We'll faint. We just need to keep looking. Keep looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And we need to pray for them, those people. We need to pray for them. You know, Saul of Tarsus became Paul, the greatest missionary, recorded in the Bible. through the prayer of the saints. He persecuted the church, put them in jail. I think he even murdered some of them, had them killed. He certainly was a associate to have Stephen killed and others. Yet he was a candidate for salvation, as all mankind is. So we need to pray for those people. And that's a real test of where you're at when you're persecuted. Do you love them? Do you feel it a blessing? Do you pray for that individual, or you say they're just a lost cause, mission impossible? There's a real challenge there for each one of us, and I haven't perfected that by any means. Thanks, brother, thanks for that. Emphasizing my faults, that's great. Okay, verse 15, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you for the reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. We need to be ready for persecution. We need to be ready to give an answer. Christian, you need to be ready. It's not a time to be slothful, not a time to, oh, I'm just on holidays or whatever else, I'm retired, I should kick back and drink lemonade all day long or whatever I might drink. No, we need to be ready. You never know where it's going to come from. Could be the maintenance man that comes to your house, it could be the garbo, it could be anybody, where that's going to come from. So we need to be ready. ready for persecution to respond biblically. And that requires some discipline. You know, if you've got a slack attitude towards your devotion time or a slack attitude towards church, chances are you're not going to be ready. The Holy Spirit hasn't had the word of God to sanctify you, to make you holy, to bring you into that state of fellowship with the Lord where you can, yes, I've got an answer for that person. And particularly when you go out witnessing, that's a really good test when you go out witnessing, can you remember the verses you've learned? Can you quote them? Can you share the gospel? And you know, being ready to give an answer doesn't mean just like, oh yes, I knew a Christian, I've read about a missionary and he got saved and he really did well and we don't want secondhand stuff. We want a first-hand testimony. How you've experienced the Lord. How you've experienced salvation. What God means to you. What Jesus Christ means to you when He hung on that cross. What Jesus Christ means to you when He's coming back again. It needs to be first-hand. It needs to be genuine. It needs to come from your heart. And you need to be ready to give it out like that. Not in a belligerent way. I've seen people, a YouTube video the other day where there was a TV interviewer asking a group of Christians to explain a verse. And they said, look, if you can't understand it, that's your too bad luck. Just that's what it says and that's what you've got to accept. It was belligerent. It was arrogant. God says we're not to be arrogant. Arrogance doesn't get you anywhere. Arrogance will just get contention. People just walk away. We need to be humble, gentle. just willing to share the precious testimony of your salvation, of what you're hoping in. It says all those there with fear, with reverence, with respect for that individual. If that individual has placed themselves in a position where they've asked you, what's the reason of the hope within you, Christian? They're leaning with their chin a little bit. I can't remember the last time this happened to me, but I'm sure it's happened to some of you here. We need to answer that very carefully, very carefully. We can be condescending very easily. God doesn't want that. Sanctifying the Lord in your hearts is having Jesus at the very centre of your life. Every plan, every ambition, every goal, You need to have Jesus there. It's not all about you, it's all about Jesus. You're not your own. But if you're a loose living Christian, if you're Sunday, yeah, maybe you'll go to church sometime, no devotions, you probably won't be ready. And the worst thing that can happen in that situation where someone, some heart is moved to ask a Christian, what's your hope? And the Christian can't give an answer. What a sad situation. What a sad, terrible situation, just silence. Oh, well, you know, I'm a Christian I believe, what a little weak little sort of a testimony that is. So when the shockwave of persecution hits, we need to be ready. We need to have the Lord sanctified in our heart, the fear of God, the love of the Lord. You're not perfect. I'm not talking about perfection, but I'm talking about a readiness, a state of alert. Think about the armed forces, how they're on a state of readiness. and they're ready, or a fireman. The fireman's probably even a better example. He's got his uniform down there, he slides down the pole and virtually into the uniform, into the boots and just pulls it up and he's in his truck and he's off. And we need to be ready. Let's not be asleep. Let's really stand up and be ready. Okay, verse 16 and 17, silencing your accusers. You know, having a good conscience that whereof they speak evil of you as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse you of good conversation. You know what the greatest weapons we can have or the greatest safeguards we can have as a Christian is a good conscience? A good conscience. Do you this morning have a good conscience? Is there something which just niggles away in the back of your mind every time you get down to pray, oh yeah, I should have got that right with that person, or I should have gone to that person. And I heard a story yesterday about a man who committed murder early in his life and he got away with it. And he was, I think he got married, had children, and he's living a good, just normal civil life, and he'd become a Christian. Well, he had to go to the police. His conscience wouldn't allow him not to do that. Went to the police, owned up, got several years in jail. But there's a lot of people out there, and probably in churches too as well, that don't have a good conscience. And you know, the world will overcome that by imbibing in maybe alcohol, or immorality, or maybe just working at the gym often, or drugs, or whatever it might be. But Christian, you and I are to have a good conscience. Paul said in Acts 24 16, a conscience void of offense between God and man. That should be our goal. There's no outstanding issues that haven't been dealt with. but the matters between you and God are clear, the slate is clean. So if someone comes along and does accuse you of doing evil, you can stand firm and have a clear conscience. This is very much like what we learnt when we started this series way back however long ago in Ephesians chapter 6 and it talked about the breastplate of righteousness. We learnt that the breastplate of righteousness protected the chest area, the breastplate, and it had little chinks of armour and they're overlapping. And so that a person come to you with a knife or a sword or whatever, and try to penetrate that, they couldn't. Because there was a complete protection. But when we haven't got a good conscience, some of those chinks are missing. They're still in our lives. Maybe a chink here, maybe a chink missing here, maybe they're on there. And the enemy will know exactly where those chinks are missing. And the enemy will get you on those, and it'll be your Achilles heel and your Christian witness. and it'll cripple you. It'll stop you being fully effective to serve the Lord. So all sins and all faults and all mistakes need to go into the blood. And we need to make every effort, brethren, to clear every single offence. Now, you might make an attempt to clear an offence and the person doesn't want to talk to you. You've made the effort. God knows you've made the effort, whether it's a phone call or a letter or a visit, whatever it may be, if it's an individual, it's between you and another person. And I met a person recently who is suffering a lot of sickness, and the husband shared with me there's some people she hasn't got things right with, and she needs to get those things right. And so that's a very sobering thing for all of us. Adam, his conscience, It's pretty guilty when God says, where are you? Joseph's brothers were probably the best example. You know, when Joseph revealed himself, when they were in trouble with Joseph, who they didn't know it was Joseph at the time, they thought back, I can't quote the verse, but they said, this is what we've done. God's dealing with us now because of what we did with our brother. Their conscience was guilty. It was soiled, it was seared. Now sometimes our conscience, we can let it go too long and our conscience becomes seared, it's like cauterized, and it becomes insensitive to the working of the Holy Spirit. There's a verse in the Bible, I can't tell you exactly where that is, but a guilty conscience will rob you of your joy, it'll rob you of your peace, it'll rob you of that fellowship. It could even rob you of your health. I mean, there's many, many people whose health has just deteriorated. And I'm not saying this is the only cause of problem, the lack of health, because old age is a cause of lack of health as well. But it can be ailments. And we talked before about many people seeking to quieten their conscience by different means. And I'm running right out of time. Okay. A consistent, holy, God-honouring life will in the end silence those who falsely accuse you. May not happen now, but it'll happen sometime in the future. We are on display. Christian, we're on display to a lost world. And don't give the devil an opportunity to blaspheme the name of the Lord. David was another good example when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and Nathan said, thou art the man. Thou art the man. His conscience troubled him. If you read Psalm 51, probably a psalm I've read more than any other psalm, you'll see how David truly repented, and was truly sorry, and was truly a godly repentance, not just because of the problems it's got him into, but he committed that against God, and he came to realise that. It took him about a year to come to that point. Our witness is of a great value. You know, we lived in a small country town, and you can live an exemplary life there all your life, and do one bad thing. You won't be known by the good things you've done, you'll be known by that one thing. And so that's a real challenge, it requires a lot of discipline. It's not a self-effort, it's relying on the Lord and His strength and His grace to help us through. Verse 17, it says, For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. Evil-doing will damage the cause of Christ. a Christian who does evil, and we saw how God's, just think back upon the tele-evangelists back there in America in those days, and who ended up in jail, some of them I believe, they're ripping people off, and give a great cause for the loss, the blaspheme, the name of the Lord. And we don't want to be accused of that. If we suffer, it should be because we suffer for the right cause, not the wrong. First Peter chapter five, just one or two pages over, I'll just read this one verse here. First Peter chapter five, I'll read it for you. but the God, this is towards the end of this epistle, but the God of all grace, verse 10, but the God of all grace who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you. That's what God wants. And he uses these trials, if we respond to them the right way, make them perfect, that means mature in the faith, establish, strengthen, settle you. He wants to mature us. He wants us to be more like Jesus Christ. And he'll use those sort of sufferings at time to do that. 2 Timothy 2.3 says, therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. We're all soldiers in the army. And we need to be prepared to endure hardness. And sometimes we're just chocolate soldiers. The heat comes on and we just melt. So we need to stand, stand strong. And in 2 Corinthians 4.17 it says, it calls it for our light affliction. Whatever we suffer, the Bible calls it a light affliction. Now I'm saying in persecution arena here. For our light affliction is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. That's a beautiful verse. Just remember that. Whatever you're suffering, even the general trials of life, they're light afflictions. in the light of eternity, a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Now, verse 18, For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that ye might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. We learn a couple of things here fairly quickly. We're running short of time. Firstly, you're never alone in your suffering. You're never alone, never alone. Jesus experienced it all and more than you'll ever imagine. And so he's there for you. We learn here that the suffering of Christ, the death of Christ, is unique. Once, never to be repeated, and there's never need for repetition. There's no need. It's final. The masterpiece of salvation has been completed. And it's like, my wife does painting at home, and she'll bring a painting to me, and she'll say, what do you think of this? And I said, oh, yeah, that shade's not quite right there in those trees, and so she goes back and she does a bit more, and then she'll come back, and what do you think of that? Oh, well, that's not, yeah, okay, so I go, the masterpiece of salvation, the final touch was put on there, and nothing can be added. Churches try and add to it every day. You know, the mass, the so-called sacrifice of Christ in the mass, in the Catholic mass each day, and Jesus still on a crucifix. It's all over. When are they going to get it? All sin was defeated on Calvary for all men for all time. For all time. And it's just for us to, it says in 2 Corinthians 5.5, he died for all. He died for all. It was vicarious, it was a substitute. Vicarious, long word, but it's substitute for another. He substituted himself for you. It says that the just for the unjust. Jesus was just, he died for you and I, the unjust, the sinners, the ones who had lived lives which were just, defiled, which were just an insult to him. And yet his love was so great, he reached down there in that horrible stench, that miry clay, and put our feet upon a rock, the Lord Jesus. What a wonderful saviour. As brother Chris Dagan brought out on Wednesday night, his purpose was reconciliation, to bring us to God, to bring us to God. That broken relationship where we were far, far from God, Through his death, burial and resurrection, he brings us back to God, one with God, in the family of God. Just amazing. Restore a broken relationship. He truly died, and it says the wonderful part there, but quickened by the Spirit. So when suffering, for righteousness' sake, the key is to keep your eyes on Jesus, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. He's the one who'll get you through. Remember your calling, you're going to inherit a blessing. And remember what he did, consider what he experienced in his life. Now, the next two verses, we have some interesting scripture, to say the very least. Peter said about Paul in 2 Peter 3.16, he says, Paul has written some things hard to be understood. Well, I think Peter need to have a look at himself as well. Because I think that he, I think he's got a couple here as well. And look, I don't I'm not seeking to expound on these two verses at this time. You might think I'm wussing out, and I probably am. But for every commentator you read, they've got a different opinion on these verses. And I'm not of a, of a position to know the exact understanding of these two verses. I'll be honest with you this morning. We do know a couple of things, though. We can eliminate some things here as some foundations. We can eliminate the fact that, I'll read the verses first, by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the archivists were preparing, wherein few of those eight souls were saved by water. Verse 21, the like figure where unto even doth also, baptism doth also now save us, in brackets, not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now a couple of things here we know straight away is that some commentators have believed, or very few I might add, that there's a second chance. that Jesus was giving some people in the Old Testament who died in disbelief that he'd gone in between his death and resurrection and gone and preached to them to give them a second chance. Well, there's verses in the Bible that deny that's a possibility. For as appointed unto man once to die, then the judgment. So that's not a possibility. The other interesting thing is the word preached in this verse is not the word for evangelism. It's a different word, it's declaring truth. My feeling is that the spirits in prison, which were sometimes disobedient, disobedient means they disbelieve, they're willfully perversely disobedient, they're unpersuadable, that these people may have been, and I'm only saying this, don't break fellowship with me if you don't agree with me, that he was vindicating or authenticating Noah's preaching for 120 years. But Noah had been preaching, a preacher of righteousness, and only eight people out of the whole world were saved. So maybe that was the case. I'm not sure. But God certainly was angry with those people and destroyed them because they rejected him. It says that God was long-suffering, and I'm sure He's long-suffering for you as well. The next verse creates even more issues, and of course, these verses, taken out of context, taken all by themselves, can create all sorts of false doctrine. The doctrine of baptismal regeneration probably has its birth in this verse. In the verse it says, the light figure where unto even baptism doth also now save us. Now if you just took that alone, you'd think, oh, well, there you go. Baptized babies are straight, guaranteed, born again, little believers. Well, we don't believe that. We don't believe in baptismal regeneration. It's only the blood that can wash away the sin. Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, Revelations 1.5. 1 Peter 1.18-19, redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Hebrews 9.22, without the shedding of blood there is no remission. And we sing a song, what can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. I'll just finish up this last verse, verse 22. Who has gone to heaven is the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him. Jesus experienced unbelievable, unimaginable suffering. We've only got it down here in Holy Script. We don't understand fully what he went through. And yet he is exalted to inexpressible glory. He has blazed the path. through the cross, despising the shame, and seated at the right hand of the Father. And our lives are hid with Him. You are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. And so we need to keep heaven focus. We are one with Him. We are co-heirs with Christ. He is the victor and the sovereign ruler over all the powers, over all evil. And He will have His way with them in time to come. It will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Be worth it all. Keep going on, brothers and sisters. Just keep going on, patiently enduring whatever you're going through. If it's persecution, if it's just a simple trial of your faith, it's much more precious than gold that perishes. I just hope that's been an encouragement to you this morning. It has been to my heart.