Holiness, Hope, and Fear
Peter was in prison. He had been together with all the believers, as, “More than ever,” multitudes of men and women were hearing the good news, believing it, and being added to their number. The sick, the demon-possessed, and countless other messed up and broken lives were being made new and Peter was in the very thick of it. And, then, Peter found himself in prison.
He was there, in prison, on account of his preaching the good news about Jesus — who, not long before this, had been killed by the very same group who now held Peter behind bars. Would he also be tortured, as his Savior had? Would he also be killed, as his savior had?
No, or at least, not this time. For, that very night, an angel of the Lord would stand before Peter, lift him up onto his feet, lead him out of that prison, and say, “Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.” Or, to paraphrase, “Peter, you have been freed from prison, now go into thee most public arena of your day and speak thee exact same message for which you had just been imprisoned. “Peter, You have been faithful to preach about the Lord Jesus. You have been freed from torture and death you would have likely faced because of it. Now, go, do it all over again.” …And he did.
The authorities would go that very morning, pick him up all over again. They’d ask him, say to him with looks of disbelief in their eyes, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching.” Peter would look back into those eyes and say, “We must obey God rather than men.”
He’d be beaten for those words. They’d send him out bloodied and bruised. They’d charge him, again, “Do not speak anymore of this Jesus.”
That’s the story of Acts chapter 5. A story conveying not one hint of hesitation on behalf of Peter. Not a single sign of wavering. Instead, what we see here, is a man who, down to his very core, deep within his very bones, knows who he is, where he’s going, and who has promised to take him there. And, because he knows all that at such a deep level, he reasons that he has no reason to keep the words about Jesus from spilling out of his lips.
So, he wouldn’t. He would not stop speaking. He would not close his mouth. No matter how many enemies were listening, no matter what kind of weaponry they were wielding, no matter what form of punishment they were threatening. He’d go on speaking, speaking, speaking, about Jesus.
And my question, our question, is what prepares a man, or a woman, to be able to be so ready to speak of Jesus no matter the cost? To literally be arrested for one’s faith, then miraculously freed from prison, only to go right back into the very activity that got him or her arrested in the first place? What prepares a person to be so ready to speak of Jesus no matter the cost?
You could try and say, that’s just Peter. He’s different, he’s naturally bold, he’ naturally courageous, he’s been made, by Jesus, to be an apostle…not so fast! This is the same man who, not long before this event grew so frightened of a servant girl, who merely believed him to be a follower of Jesus, that he’d say to her “I do not know the man.”
No, the man Peter has changed. He has gone from being a man who turned tail and ran to a man who stood his ground in the shadow of a prison. And I want to know, we want to know, what prepared Peter for such a different response in Acts 5 compared to earlier, with the servant girl, in Matthew 26. What prepared him, and what will prepare us, to be so ready to speak of Jesus no matter the cost?
That, brothers and sisters, is our question for this morning, and Peter himself, who wrote the very book we’re looking at today, is going to answer it. But before we go there…
Let’s Pray for grace.
What prepares a man, or a woman, to be so ready to speak of Jesus? Two Things — both found in verse 15 of today’s text: A vivid and unrelenting awareness of the Holiness of Christ, and a deep, insatiable longing for the Hope he has guaranteed for his People (2x). Those two things surround the call to be prepared to speak, and those two things will form our outline for the rest of this sermon: The Holiness of Christ, and the Hope of His People.
THE HOLINESS OF CHRIST
First, the Holiness of Christ, we’ll read verse 15, “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” We see right away here that the “holiness of Christ” is the big deal here. Yes, our eyes naturally drift toward the more outward action in this verse “being prepared to make a defense.” That’s the action that gets the headline. That’s the action that gets us interested. But it is the holiness of Christ that is the biggest deal in this verse, because, the action of “making a defense no matter the cost” makes no sense if Christ is not honored as holy in your heart.
Don’t get me wrong, you can make a defense about someone who is not holy. We see this all the time with sports fans. They get together and talk about who is the greatest of all time — Is it this athlete or this athlete? People take sides, and they bring out the argument, they go back and forth. We see this all the time, and sometimes these situations can get a bit heated, a bit uncomfortable. But what we don’t see is someone stepping into the argument, and saying, listen, I have been hearing you go on and on about this athlete, and I will hear no more of it. You open your mouth one more time and you will lose your life.
We don’t see that because while we might have some skin in the game when it comes to our favorite athlete, we are most certainly not willing to die for our belief about that athlete. We’ll defend, we’ll perhaps get angry about it, but we will not die for it. But what Peter is saying, here, is to make a defense about someone knowing full well that your words about that someone might well get you killed.
That makes no sense if Christ is not holy. But He is.
Which begs the question, what on earth does it mean for Christ to be holy?
Unique
It just so happens, Pastor Joe, in his sermon a few weeks back, gave us a description about what it means for Christ, our God, to be holy. First, Christ is holy because he is utterly unique, meaning, “There is no one like him. Everything else is made. He was not made. Everything else is dependent. He is completely independent. Everything else has needs. He has no needs. He is utterly and totally unique.”
So, we may say, that “To honor Christ as this Holy One” as verse 15 exhorts us to, is to have toward him a heart posture that says, “Jesus, yes, you are fully man, but you are also fully God, therefore, you are other. I am not in your category, they are not in your category, no one who’d seek to dissolve my hope in you, or prevent me from speaking about my hope you, are in your category. Jesus, I cannot give you something you need, no one can give you something you need, for you have no needs — for you possess all.
Your love is surpassing
Your grace is overwhelming
Your justice is unequaled
Your authority is unrivaled
Your throne is unending,
Your glory is most satisfying.
Therefore, you are the Ruler and I am your citizen,
You are the Lord, and I am your servant,
You are my shepherd, and I am your sheep.
And for all these reasons, I delight to be with you, and I long to be with you more, for you, my God, are holy. This kind of heart posture towards Christ is what honors Christ as holy for it recognizes the infinite chasm between the “all caps” greatness of Christ and the “lowercase” greatness of man.
Perfect
A second description about what it means for Christ, our God, to be holy relates to “his moral perfection.” As Pastor Joe said, “Our Lord loves what is lovable. He values what is valuable. has a complete unity of purpose and will and always acts with the utmost integrity and purity of heart.”
So we may say that “To honor Christ as this Holy One” is to have toward him a heart posture that also says, “Jesus, you, alone, have authority to declare what is good. You, alone, have the wisdom to deem what is valuable. You alone have the knowledge to deem what is worthy of esteem.
Your judgment has no error for you are the standard against which we judge error.
Your purpose has no fault for you are the standard against which we judge fault.
“Our thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are our ways your ways, for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are your ways higher than our own.”
You, my God, are holy. This kind of heart posture towards him is what honors him as holy. May our understanding of the chasm between the greatness of Christ and the greatness of man grow ever wider
Now, something very interesting here that Peter will show us in just a moment, is that the honoring of Christ as holy (unique, perfect) runs counter to another heart posture that many of us know all too well. Fear of man. Being afraid of, and troubled by, man. Peter makes it absolutely clear in this text that honoring Christ as holy, and the fearing man, stand opposed to one another within our hearts.
Therefore, Do Not Fear
We can see it right here in this text, for, as we look at verse 15, we see it begins “BUT, In your hearts honor Christ as Holy.” I remember being in college, a fairly young believer, and I had decided I really wanted to put a Bible verse on my laptop. I got a plain nametag, because I didn’t actually want to write on the laptop, put the nametag on there and then scoured my mind for what was, at that time, a fairly limited amount of memory verses. Then it clicked, 1 Peter 3:15, “Always be prepared to make a defense for the hope that is in you.” I wanted to make sure I got it right, so I pulled out my Bible and thought about how I’d right the verse down on the tag. But there was a problem. It began with the word “but.” And I thought, that just won’t make sense if written on my laptop. People will see it and say, “but what?”
And people would say that because they’d understand, even if I didn’t at that time, that verse 15 is smack-dab in the middle of a “Not this, but this” argument. Like, not “football, but baseball.” “Not summer, but fall.” Not “cake, but ice cream.” — a “Not this, but this” argument. We know this kind of an argument so well that if I were to write the words of verse 15 on my laptop the people who would have looked at it would have inevitably thought, “BUT, In your hearts honor Christ as Holy?” What’s standing as opposite to “honoring Christ as Holy?” What’s standing as contrary to “honoring Christ as holy.” What’s standing as impeding “honoring Christ as holy.” Not ________, but, honor Christ as holy. What’s the blank?
Fear of man. Verse 14, “Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but, in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy.” Peter is saying that your fear of them will impede, hamper, obstruct your honoring of Christ as holy.
Think about it, we fear people when we believe them to be powerful. And Christ is uniquely, and perfectly powerful. His is a holy power. But if, in practice, we’re quaking in our boots because of a certain person’s power, what are we saying about how we view man compared to Christ?
We fear people when we believe them to be of great worth and fear losing their approval. And Christ is uniquely and perfectly worthy. His is a holy greatness and worthiness. But if, in practice we’re willing to forfeit his approval in exchange for the approval of man then what are we saying about how we view man compared to Christ?
We can go on and on with this, but the end result is this truth: If we are to honor Christ, and Christ alone, in our hearts as holy — we must, in theory, and in practice, force all others to take the back seat.
And they will, they will, if we know Christ to be holy, and, we know one more thing — the hope to which he has called us. It isn’t hope in a generic sense, like a mere feeling of hope. It’s a hope that has a specific content, one, that Christ has specifically called us to. It’s a hope that can have alarming consequences if we get wrong.
We know this because the one writing these words had formerly gotten it wrong. Remember when we asked, “What prepared Peter to be so ready to speak of Jesus no matter the cost? Turn the question around. What left Peter so unprepared to speak of Jesus no matter the cost? What left him so unprepared that, in Matthew 26, he would say, to a servant girl, while his Lord, the holy one, was being struck, spit upon, and declared a blasphemer, “I don’t know the man.”
The Hope of His People:
Could it have been that Peter failed to recognize Jesus’ holiness? He had seen it! He had been on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured so that his face shone like the morning sun. He had seen with his own eyes when Jesus’ clothes radiate with glorious white light. He had watched the cloud come down, and heard as the voice ring out, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” And he was terrified by it! He saw the holiness of Christ! So, where’d he go wrong? Peter had seen the holiness of Christ, but he had the wrong hope attached to Him.
Matthew 16, Jesus had said to Peter, “I am going to go to Jerusalem. I am going to suffer many things there from the elders and chief priests and scribes. And I will be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Brothers and sisters, that’s the resurrection Jesus is talking about. That’s the event, which, Paul says, without it, “Our faith is in vain, we are still in our sin, and we are, of most people, to be pitied (1 Cor. 15:12-19). The reason he says that is because the resurrection is our hope! The resurrection is the very hope to which Christ calls us. New life with Christ. Eternity with Christ. That’s the hope of the Christian, so much so that Paul says, without it, we are of most people to be pitied. And yet, when Peter hears Jesus speak about this hope, this event, the resurrection, he says “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (Mt. 16). You don’t say that about something you are hoping in!
No, whatever Peter was hoping in in that moment, it was not the resurrection. This explains Jesus’ words to him in response, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Peter your mind and hope are not on the things of God, but the things of man. Maybe money. Maybe power. Maybe esteem. His mind, and his hope, was attached to the things of man, not the things of God. His hopes were not in the next life, following the resurrection, but in this life, which in his mind did not require a resurrection. So, when he heard of it, he said, “No!” And when a servant girl, who could alert an authority, who could declare a verdict that would take his life, asked him, “Are you one of them?” He said, No I’m not. “I do not know the man.”
And that is exactly the same thing that will happen to us if we fail to connect our belief in the holiness of Christ with a right understanding of the hope he promises his people.
Look at the other verses in this section and it all clicks together. We are told not to revile when people revile us. But what if our hope is in our worldly reputation, and what if their reviling begins to tarnish that reputation, will we be able to “bless” them? Not likely. More likely we’d revile them back or spit in their face saying, “How dare you ruin my hope!”
We are told not to do harm when others do us harm. But what if our hope is in our worldly ease and physical comfort, and their harming us begins to ruin both of those for us? Will we be able to seek peace and pursue it with them? Not likely. More likely to inflict an eye-for eye, tooth-for-tooth type suffering on them.
We are told to “have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” That’s referencing our relationship with those within the church — our blood-bough brothers and sisters in the faith. But what if our hope is in making a name for ourselves within the church, and those same blood-bought brothers and sisters havre a knowledge of the Bible which overshadows ours? A level of importance in the church that seems to dwarf ours? Will we be able to possess a shared unity, sympathy, love, a tender heart, and a humble mind with them? Not likely. More likely to display the same kind of factions and one-upmanship that is so common to the world outside these walls.
But, if our vivid and unrelenting awareness of the Holiness of Christ, is attached to a deep, insatiable longing for the Hope of what Jesus has promised his people, namely, the resurrection, then we can bless in return for evil. We can pursue peace, rather than war. We can possess a shared unity, sympathy, love, a tender heart, and a humble mind, while demonstrating gentleness, communicating with respect, and suffering, as Christ did, for doing good, for our hope ever remains intact.
Peter would learn this. It would become so real to him, so weighty for him that he’d describe it in the first chapter of this book, as, verse 3: “A living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” And the learning of that is what would change him from being a man who said, “I don’t know that man” to being a man who said, “We must obey God rather than men.”
CLOSING:
We are called here, all of us called here, to be prepared to speak of Jesus and the hope he has promised us, his people. We may encounter social unease or even harm because of it. Some, potentially, who knows, in the future could encounter more drastic forms of persecution because of it. We’re not to be seeking this out. We’re not to be looking for opposition, looking to pick a fight, for that would not fit with a gentle, respectful tone. But we are called to be prepared to speak, and we will, if we find ourselves to be so captivated by the unique, perfect, holiness of our Savior and the heaven-centric hope that he has promised us.
“From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” He was talking about the resurrection. He was talking about our hope. And it’s at this table we acknowledge that Jesus was true to his word. He did go to Jerusalem, he did suffer, he died die, and then he did rise from the grave. He did it to purchase our hope, and it’s this hope we remember, now, together. Let’s pray.