1 Peter 3:13-22
April 10, 2016
preached by Doug Cooper
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“While other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life’s joys, foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world’s sorrows, tasting the coming joy.”

“While Christianity was able to agree with pagan writers that inordinate attachment to earthly goods can lead to unnecessary pain and grief, it also taught that the answer to this was not to love things less but to love God more than anything else. Only when our greatest love is God, a love that we cannot lose even in death, can we face all things with peace. Grief was not to be eliminated but seasoned and buoyed up with love and hope.”

~Tim Keller (1950-present), American pastor, theologian and Christian apologist

“The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.”

~Thomas Merton (1915-1968), Trappist monk, writer, poet and social activist

“Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

~Harper Lee (1926-2016), American novelist

“We are certainly in a common class with the beasts; every action of animal life is concerned with seeking bodily pleasure and avoiding pain.”

~Augustine (354-430), North African bishop

“Imagine doing evangelism in a context where you could not make any promises to people that things would go better for them on earth, but that if they believed what you offered, they would be risking their lives. Does that say anything to us about our evangelistic message and methods?”

~ John Piper (1946-present), author, teacher and pastor

“Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than those who are most content.”

~Bob Dylan (1941-present), American singer-songwriter, artist and writer

“If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

~C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), British writer, lay theologian and Christian apologist

“The will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be. It may seem to be much worse, but in the end it’s going to be a lot better and a lot bigger.”

~Elisabeth Elliot (1926-2015), Christian missionary, author and speaker

“My barn having burned to the ground, I can now see the moon.”

~Mizuta Masahide (1657-1723), Japanese poet and samurai

Sermon Passage

1 Peter 3:13-22 (NASB)

¹³ Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? ¹⁴ But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, ¹⁵ but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; ¹⁶ and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. ¹⁷ For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong. ¹⁸ For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; ¹⁹ in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, ²⁰ who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. ²¹ Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, ²² who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.