SHARING YOUR HOPE
Living
God's Way -- Part 7
I
Peter 3:15-20 05-27-12
Sermon
The first
Christians who ever lived didn't have some of things we have. They didn't have bumpers, so that
couldn't very well have bumper stickers.
They didn't have dove or fish logos. They didn't have any Witness Wear, no Christian T-shirts, no
J.C. hats or WWJD bracelets. They
didn't have any super pastors with T.V., radio, and tape ministries. They didn't have any celebrity pitch
men making Christianity the vogue religion of the day. They didn't even have gospel tracts, 4
Spiritual Law books, motel room Bibles, a big white tent to bring all their
friends to for an evangelistic or healing crusade. Yet amazingly, we read in the Bible, that not every week,
but every single day people were giving their lives to God and being added to
their number.
How did
they do that? They did it with the
same kind of advertising that we still do everywhere today. Simple testimonials from satisfied
customers. Just Joe and Jane
Average Christian saying "This faith
that I have, I've tried this and it's working for me. It'll work for you." A simple testimonial of their faith in God.
If you're a Christian and you've felt inadequate to share
your faith with others, if you've ever felt that pang of guilt that comes over
you because the Lord dropped a primo opportunity to share your faith and you
blew it, you didn't take it -- if you've ever felt that way.
I Peter 3
is for you. It's in this passage,
Peter gives us four essentials for sharing our faith -- Essential Equipment for
Effective Evangelism. Four things
that we need to have to witness in ways that work.
1. WE NEED HOPE PROPERLY FOCUSED.
I Peter
3:15 "But in your hearts set apart
Christ as Lord. Always be prepared
to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that
you have."
Normally
we talk about sharing our faith.
Today we're going to talk about sharing our hope and there's a
difference. When we share our
faith, typically, we're looking back.
We look back and say, "God
created the world, so I believe in God.
Jesus Christ came, and lived, and died and was resurrected, so I believe
in Jesus." Or, There was a time in my past when I hit rock
bottom and I looked up to God and He reached down to me and He saved me. So I believe in God. When we share our faith we're looking
back on those critical events that gave us faith in the first place.
But when
we share our hope we're looking ahead. We're saying to a lost and dying world,
"Here's why I'm confident. Here's why I'm optimistic in a world
who's future tends to look bleak." When we share our hope we're looking ahead.
Everybody
has hopes. We hope the economy is
going to turn around. We hope that
maybe someday we'll get a better job.
We hope our kids will turn out OK.
We hope that maybe we won't have a disaster this month. We hope we're going to meet Mr. or Miss
Right. We hope that somehow our
lives are going to get better and not always be riddled with the problems that
we have now.
The
problem with the world's hopes, is that they are pretty foundationless. As we have watched the news we have
seen floods and forest fires, and snow in the Rockies, and tornadoes. What guarantee is there that the next
tornado isn’t going to hit Joelton?
What guarantee is there that your kids are going to turn out right? That your life really is going to get
better? The world's hopes really
don't amount to much more than wishful thinking.
But for us
Christians, our hope is very different.
Here's a definition of a Christian's hope: Hope is an optimistic outlook based on
powerful promises. The
world's definition of hope is an optimistic outlook. Our definition of hope is an optimistic outlook based on
powerful promises.
This is what the Bible says about a Christian's hope: it is living, it's secure, it's sure,
it's firm, it's certain. The
object of our hope as Christians is Jesus Christ. The reason that we hope in Him is because of the powerful
promises that He gives us, about how He's orchestrating all the events of our
lives for our good, about how God has a plan for us, He plans to give us a
future and a hope. He plans to do
good for us. Jesus Christ right
now, today, is in Heaven and He's preparing a place for us. God gives us all kinds of great
promises and that's why we hope in Him.
It's a very different kind of hope that the rest of the world tends to
have.
Obviously,
if we're going to share that hope, we've got to have that hope and we've got to
have it in proper focus, sharp focus.
How do I know that I've got my
hope sharply and properly focused?
What makes
me confident in new and difficult situations? The answer to that question will tell you whether or not
your hope is sharply focused. It's
pretty easy for us as Christians to have our hopes divided. What is it that gives you hope in a new
and difficult situation? Sometimes
it's the strength of your resume.
Sometimes it's just the car that you pull up in, or the fact that you're
having a good hair day. There are
a lot of reasons why we have hope.
Peter says "In your hearts
set apart Christ as Lord."
Before we
can ever share our hope we've got to have it sharply focused. It begins by us taking some time with
the Lord and saying, "Jesus, I've
got to admit to You, I've had You right down here in the pool of all the other
hopes that I have -- just one of many.
But today I want to set You apart.
I want to set You on a pedestal as my One and Only hope." When
you make Jesus your one and only hope, then you've got your hope sharply
and properly focused and you can share it.
2. WE NEED REASONS INDIVIDUALLY PREPARED.
Peter
says, "Always be prepared to give an
answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you
have."
For a lot
of us this is the sticking point.
I can have the hope, but share the hope? I just don't know the Bible that
well. I'm not that quick on my
feet; I don't think that fast. If
I go out there and try to share my hope some skeptic is going to tie me in
knots with some philosophical problem that I can't answer. Having the hope is one thing but share
the hope? I don't think so.
This is
the beauty of sharing your hope.
It's your hope. It's your reasons. Peter's
not saying, "Have a snappy rebuttal
for every philosophical argument that can be tossed at you." No, he just saying "Have a reason for your hope. It's your hope; it's your reason. It's your reason you individually
prepare."
How do you prepare reasons to share your hope? Go back to our definition of hope --
hope is an optimistic outlook based on powerful promises. Just
memorize a couple of promises that have worked for you, tuck them inside your
memory, have them there and apply them to your life and your situation right
now and you'll be ready to share them with somebody else.
Example: One single mom talking to another
single mom. First mom: "I
don't know what I'm going to do.
My kid is out of control. He's never home.
When he's not home I have no idea what he's doing, but I don't like the
crowd he's running around with.
When the kid is home I can't get him to lift a finger or give me the
time of day. He just locks himself
in his room. He just brought home
a terrible report card and it looks like he's going down the tubes there. I don't know what I'm going to do. I think my kid misses a father figure
in his life. I can't be all for my
kid that I'm supposed to be. Am I
the only one that ever feels this way?"
Second
mom: "Are you kidding? I
know right where you're at. Nobody
was meant to be a full time part of the work force, and a full time solo parent
at the same time. I know what
you're going through. I couldn't
spend the time my kid needs for me even if I wanted to,I don't have that kind
of time. But God tells me He'll be
a Father to the fatherless. So I'm
just counting on God to somehow compensate for what my ex isn't doing. God tells me if I'm just faithful and
I'm doing my best and I'm trying to raise up this kid in the way he should
live, God tells me when he's old he's going to be there. It might look like for now that he's
straying, but I'm hanging on to that promises that he's going to turn out.”
It might be one laid off worker talking to another. Share your hope with this guy: "I
don't know what I'm going to do.
I'm in the exact same boat as you.
I've got no job and I'm not sure what my future holds. But God tells me that He knows my needs
before I ever even ask Him about them.
He tells me `Don't worry about what you're going to eat or what you're
going to wear or where you're going to live. Just focus on Me and live for Me and I'll see to it that
your needs are met.' I'd much
rather meet my own needs right now, but while I'm out of a job, I'm holding on
to God and counting on Him to meet them."
There are
no fancy philosophical arguments here.
None of these people have theology degrees. They don't even quote the Scripture passages specifically
with chapter and verse and book.
If you "Habakkuk" to a non-Christian, they say
"Godsundheit"; they have no idea what you're talking about. These people just have a simple promise
that they're holding onto in their life.
They've taken a promise of God and applied it to their situation and
it's given them hope. Now they're
ready to share the reason for their hopefulness with somebody else that needs
it. It's that simple.
How do I
get prepared? Tuck a few promises
in your heart that apply to you right now. When your circumstances change you'll find a couple of other
promises that fit you're at then.
And you're always ready to share your hope.
If you
feel like you don't have the personality type be encouraged by this, the third
piece of essential equipment --
3. GENTLENESS SINCERELY EXPRESSED.
I love the
fact that nowhere in Peter's letter is it found that you need an outgoing
personality to share your hope. We
need gentleness sincerely expressed.
He said "But do this with
gentleness and respect keeping a clear conscience [don't fake it -- that
should be who you are all the time]"
Gentleness and respect -- I can do that. I can share my hope in a way that's kind of soft spoken and
meek, not pushy and know it all. I
can be respectful. I can put aside
my agenda for a time and listen to another person's hurts, listen to their
feelings, empathize with them.
That's doable. I can share
my hope that way.
That's what we need.
If I can think of anything that is overrated in the Christian world
today it's a dynamic personality.
We all love to hover around those people and try to project that
ourselves. "I'm big. I'm
important. I'm the smartest,
shrewdest, sharpest, wittiest, funniest, coolest, prettiest." We love to project that. If that's you or me the only
"est" we are is the "farthest" from the heart of God. God opposes the proud but gives grace
to the humble. If you're so into
promoting yourself how are you ever going to promote God? If you come across so self-confident
how are you going to convince somebody that your confidence is really in the
Lord? If you're so self-assured how are you ever going to
show somebody that you're God assured. We think we need a special personality
to share our faith -- alive, active, sharp as a tack. But that's the job of the Word of God, the promises you
share. The Bible says that "the Word of God is living and active and
sharp as a two edged sword."
It cleaves a person in two and cuts right to the core of their
spirit. It shows them who they are
and shows them their need for God.
How do you know you have the right attitude? How do I know my attitude is right?
When God's word is more prominent than we are. When people come away from an encounter
with us and they say, "That
Christian's a little different.
That's the first guy I think I've ever met that didn't try to force feed
me his religion." When
people kind of get ambushed by you and they don't even know it. They get away from an encounter with
you and say "Wait a second! I just got witnessed to! I think that guy was trying to convert
me and I didn't even notice!"
That's the path and that's the power in sharing your hope. But it's so hard to walk that
path.
Two things
happen when we have our hope properly focused and when we have our promises and
we share them gently. First, I
Peter 3:16 says people will be ashamed of themselves. They'll be ashamed of the fact that they ever thought
something bad about you. They'll
come away from an encounter with you and say "Maybe some of the
stereotypes I've had about these Christians aren't really valid."
A second
thing that happens when you share your hope gently, people are actually drawn
to God. You can read back in I
Peter 2, Peter says "Live such good
lives, such gentle, respectful lives among people that even though they might
insult you at first they're going to turn around and they're going to praise
God and glorify God on the day He visits." They're going to be drawn to God. Not because of your dynamic personality, but by your
gentleness.
What's it
going to take for those of you who are believers this week to find that perfect
middle ground not mediocrity, but that third position that says, "I'm going to share in a way that's
me. I'm going to share in a way
that's gentle." There's
going to be people looking to you this week for hope. They're going to be in your office, your neighborhood, your
classroom. What's it going to
take?
4. WE NEED CONFIDENCE COURAGEOUSLY
MAINTAINED.
No matter
how easy you make it sound there's always going to be some people that say
"Yes, but..." Peter
says, "Yes, but look at Noah."
"[Jesus] went and proclaimed
God's salvation to earlier generations who ended up in the prison of God's
judgment because they wouldn't listen.
You know, even though God waited patiently all the days that Noah built
his ship, only a few were saved, eight to be exact."
The
illustration of Noah is the illustration to your "Yes, but..." For 120 years, the Bible tells us, Noah
lived and he didn't just build a ship.
Peter says in his second letter that Noah was a preacher of
righteousness. For 120 years it
was Noah -- his shipyard and petting zoo.
Noah always had to be prepared to give the reason why there were
giraffes in his backyard. For 120
years he did that. Amazingly,
nobody got saved. There were 8
people on that ship but they were just Noah's family.
Even more
amazingly, Jesus was there.
Obviously, not physically, since Noah lived before Jesus. He was still in heaven as the Eternal
Son of God. But it says, Jesus
went in Spirit and was there with Noah and preached through Noah. Yet nobody got saved. That's not discouraging. It's incredibly encouraging for three
reasons:
a) If Noah had Christ with him, so do we.
In Noah's
day, the eternal Son of God was there, alongside of Noah in sort of a
subliminal way working with him.
As Christians, Christ is with you quite literally. God's Spirit is living inside of you. When you become a Christian, the pilot
light is lit in your life -- the Holy Spirit of God and the pipeline goes
straight to Heaven so the gas will never be shut off. When you start to live the Christian life, you turn a burner
on. Now you're cooking! When you share the Christian life,
you've got all four burners on high blast with gasoline being poured on
top. God's Spirit is huge in
you. God's Spirit is speaking
right through you. Not
subliminally, but literally, He's there.
So if Noah had Christ with him, be encouraged, be confident; you have
Christ with you even more so.
b) If Noah didn't have to produce results,
neither do we.
For 120
years nobody ever believed. Christ
was there. Was Noah a
failure? No way! Noah was one of the greatest men of
faith who ever lived. And he
didn't produce any results. We
just need to remember, as Christians, it's my job to speak, it's God's job to save. It's my job to do the possible, it's God's job to do the impossible. I can't save anybody, but I can share my hope and leave the
results to God. If Noah didn't
have to produce results to be approved by God, and is held up as one of the
great people of faith, then neither do I.
c) If Noah could handle the insults and the
persecution, so can we.
Peter says
earlier on in this passage, if you're eager to do good, then who's really going
to oppose you. If you're out living
a good life and sharing your hope, then who's going to oppose you. The answer is, only the real
jerks. Most people will appreciate
it. If they don't accept it,
they'll at least appreciate that you're trying to do good. Only the real jerks will oppose
you. In Noah's day, everybody was
a real jerk. The bible says, that
the thoughts and intentions of every person's heart was only evil all the time. For 120 years that's the environment
that Noah lived in. Can you
imagine the insults that that guy had to endure? But if he could endure it, so can we.
Chances
are it's not going to go nearly as poorly with us as it did with Noah. Do you know any people who are
hopeless, looking for a hope?
People are going to be more receptive.
You're
going to go out in a world this week that's hopeless. They need your hope and they need it in a bad way. People are looking for anything that we
can give them. People have got
their hopes set on all kinds of crazy things that can't deliver.
I'd like
to share the illustration of one high school student who made a presentation in
class of his hope. Here's how
baseless it was. The biggest
presentation of the day comes from Mickey. His real name is Steve, but he won't let anyone call him
that. For as long as kids can
remember he's always wanted to be known by the name of his hero, Mickey
Mouse. This is not a joke. Mickey has a sense of humor about it,
but underneath he is dead serious.
He shows the others his Mickey Mouse harmonica, his Mickey Mouse cap,
his Mickey Mouse doll and his Mickey Mouse toothbrush container and his Mickey
Mouse earring. He said he would
have brought his Mickey Mouse underwear, but he didn't think anybody would want
to see that. "Anything and everything Mickey Mouse, I've got it" he says. He shows them a clipping from a
newspaper, a photo of a cow with spots naturally shaped like Mickey Mouse's
head. According to Mickey the
people who owned the cow have already sold it to Disney. They got about a million bucks for that
cow. The other kids are stunned by
the sheer number and diversity of the souvenirs, especially the Mickey Mouse
fishing bobber. "No way!" says another kid, "where did you get that?" "I don't reveal my sources,"
says Mickey. Mrs. O'Donnell, the
teacher, asks him how his fascination began. And this is the sad part of a true story. "It
started awhile back, when I had quit school for a time and was at home by
myself. I was depressed,
lonely. I felt like a failure. I couldn't make friends. Then I found Mickey Mouse."
There are
people taking on a lot of things as their source of hope. We don't need to take on the name
Mickey or anything else, we know that.
What they need is to take on the name Christ. They need to
take on the name Christian. They need to set apart Christ as Lord
in their life as their sole source of hope.
How are you ever going to know if you're ready to do
it? You're
probably never going to feel it.
You might never feel perfectly prepared. You'll know you're ready when you do this: You'll take a little time today and
say, "What are the promises of God
that mean the most to me in my situation right now? Is Christ really set apart as Lord in my heart? Is He my sole source of hope?" And you pray "God I don't know if I know
all how to do it, but would you give me an opportunity this week to share my
hope with somebody that needs it?"
God would love to do that. When you're willing
to pray that prayer and ask God to give you that chance, you're ready. You're as ready as you need to be. Ask God to give you a chance this week.
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