Good morning, Mendum Hill, how you doing? Good morning, yes, good, you learned, you learned. My name is Mike, I'm youth pastor, I'm a team here, I serve on the team, and it's so good to be with you. If you came out to Easter last weekend, it's probably my favorite, I know John's is Christmas, mine is Easter, I love wearing a bow tie, that's my one excuse to wear bow tie, it's fun, it's great.
I have the job to follow up Easter Sunday, ha-zah, great. It's, I hope and I pray that the message I feel like the Lord put in my heart this morning is a gentle reminder that your hearts would be open to receive, your eyes would be willing to look into this text with me, your ears would be willing to listen. It's a tough one, I'm not gonna lie. So let's, to do that, to follow up the job, I want you to think about your middle school and high school years, yeah, yeah, some of you are like, oh those are the best times of my life, others of you, some awkward moments there, yeah, and maybe some of you are like, please, I need to forget that, you don't want to like know, like you see pictures, right, of, I don't have a picture of my middle school self, I should have, that would have been fun for you to see, and my humiliation.
But, wherever you're at with that, think about that for a second, what were you known for in middle school and or high school? Or what are you known for for my middle school and high school students? What were you known for? What was your reputation?
Did you have any nicknames? I had a couple nicknames, I'm gonna tell you some of them and you're not allowed to use them for me ever, ever, ever, ever, I'm gonna tell you them anyway, with the last name, Deluca, there's a lot of fun ways to throw that one around, and one of them was, dude, Luca, it's yeah, dude, Luca, like wow, okay, other one was Mikey D, only one person on the planet is allowed to use that, that was my best man, my wedding, no one else. And then there was Duca for me, that was my baseball nickname, why? Baseball players are lazy, so they just took out some syllables and said, Duca.
One that when I think of my middle school in high school years is not a fun one, one that I tried to forget, one that I tried to shake off a race from me, but I brought my Bible to lunch one time, public middle school, and that was all it took to get this nickname, one time, brought my Bible to lunch, Bible boy, yo, man. Now, that stuck with me through high school, and it wouldn't come up all the time, but it would come up occasionally when either my friends or my enemies would try to zing me, and it was a good zing, right, I was embarrassed, I didn't want that name Bible boy, I was just trying to read my Bible at lunch, leave me alone, right, that kind of thing, and Bible boy stuck with me, I still remember that, I can see that dude's face, I don't know if I wanna like, or get my hug now, I don't know, but I can see his face, I can hear his voice, but I was embarrassed, that name was used to tease me, and I did anything to get rid of that name, I wanted to fit in, I wanted to be accepted, I wanted to be welcomed, I didn't wanna be the end of every joke, so I was trying to get rid of that name, so I stopped bringing my Bible to lunch, I stopped right talking about God with my friends at school, Sunday mornings, I was that kid jumping with the music, youth groups, I was the one, you know, leading worship in high school, but at school, I wanted to know nothing to do with, I wanted to disassociate myself with that name, in fact, my mom couldn't get me to go to youth group until halfway through 10th grade year, so mom's out there, it's okay, keep pushing them if you're in 10th grade, go to youth group, okay, but I made a bunch of dumb decisions to again, to shed that name, I was just trying to get rid of that name, and when I inevitably messed up, because that's what you do when you're in high school, you mess up a lot, right, and especially when people know that you're Christian, they go, ha, see, oh, Christians weren't supposed to do that, you know, Bible boy, okay, yeah, you got me, so it was embarrassing, it was awkward, so you can see, and I think I like hanging out with students, I understand, I get that tension, the pressure, the awkwardness, I understand it, so I compromised my convictions and my words and my beliefs, they no longer matched my actions, as you can imagine. Now that's a little, I call it those little mic stories, I still have parts of little mic moving inside of me, just like I think you all have little versions of you that get nudged and wounds and scars that remind you of things in the past, you better forget. When John asked me to speak this morning, I asked him, hey, so what were you talking, this was a couple months ago, about two months ago, hey, what are you speaking on on good Friday and Easter Sunday, so that way I can know how to bridge that gap, you know, because I'm like, yeah, Easter, now like here's my, okay, what are you gonna talk about, and he said, we're gonna go through the denials of Jesus, of Denials of Peter of Jesus on Friday, and then we're gonna talk about the redemption of Peter on Easter Sunday, and I thought to myself, great, perfect, he didn't know, but at the time, what I've been reading in my personal time was first Peter, the letter that Peter wrote, I've just been one chapter day, that's just my thing, and I go back, it's only five chapters, so I've been like camped out in this letter for a couple months now, and he didn't know that, so when he said this was what I'm talking about, I was like, oh, it's perfectly, great, let's hear from Peter, and Peter's message is complicated and difficult, so we're not gonna stop with Easter for Peter, the redemption of Peter is not the end of his story, he was redeemed by Jesus, but then what?
You can read if you were to read in Acts that Peter, he gave one of the first gospel invitations, and thousands were saved, they were accepted Jesus as a Lord and Savior, and then they were baptized, Peter was present at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon the people that Jesus promised about, the helper came, literally Peter was there to witness that, and he spent many years spreading news of Jesus, what had happened, building the church, good old Pete, little Rocky, he started, it was part of that, to start of the church, and then if you fast forward a couple of years, into the early 40s AD, so it's like 10 or so years after Christ rose, he was on the run from King Herod, who wanted to arrest and kill Peter, right, Christians were being persecuted at the time, they were a threat to the culture, they were a threat to the nation, so they wanted to arrest Christians, and Peter, especially one of them, being one of the main guys, and here's one of the last things we hear of Peter, when he's on the run in Acts chapter 12, Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison, tell James and the other brothers and sisters about this, he said, and then he left for another place. That's like the last thing that Peter says in Acts, and then we don't really hear of Peter, he just like, I'm gonna go tell him about it, okay, see ya, and like, what happened, what, what, that's it, where'd he go, the only other time that we hear about good old Pete is when you pass the Paul, pass the confront him later in Galatians, because Pete started to live in old covenant ways, and then Paul writes, hey, I have to go confront Peter, face to face, remind him of this, and then we don't hear Peter again, so I'm just like, what? So you were redeemed, and now you're on the run, and then you were confronted, but then what? So I think it's perfect timing that we talk about Peter and his message, the next time we hear from him is when he writes a letter, so I'll quickly fill in the gaps of the letter, because we're gonna jump in towards the middle and end of the letter, so I'm gonna fill in some gaps, he wrote this letter around 64 AD, so 30 or so years after Easter.
What would compel Peter to write a letter, why wait so long to write a letter? Interesting, he writes to fellow Christians, so that's his audience are Christians like you and me, they've been scattered throughout modern day Turkey because they were being persecuted, they were being thrown in jail, they were being executed, they were Bible boy situations going on, for their faith in Jesus Christ. We're about to read portions of his letter, on how to persevere through suffering. Happy Easter, let's talk about persevering through suffering, because that's Peter's message.
It's incredibly interesting to me that Peter, the very one who did not want to suffer, who denied Jesus because he didn't want to go and follow Jesus literally to his death, and all the ways we talked about on Good Friday, he was very anti-suffering for Jesus, he wanted, let's rule, let's take control of these streets, the last thing that you'd expect, the Ix would expect. From Peter is a letter encouraging people to endure hardships, to endure trials, to endure suffering, and persevere through the oppression and keep on suffering. But that's what the letter is, and I'm just gonna stay true to the text, that's what it is. Let's hop into the end of chapter three, and then we'll walk through chapter four.
Peter reminds the group of the Easter story, starting in verse 15, but in your heart to revere 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. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander, for it's better if it is God's will to suffer for doing good than for doing evil, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. Speaking to fellow Christians, hey, remember who it is, he's reminding them, who it is you're giving your life to, when you say you're Christians, who it is, you're saying that you're following, what he did for you, that you could be brought to God. Again, ironic coming from Peter, I can imagine being on the receiving end, hey, Peter wrote a letter, if we're being persecuted, and Peter's like, the guy, right, he's famous, and he writes to you, he'll let him, like, whoa, Peter write me, let's open up.
Did you do it, like, hey, yo, get a load of this guy, right? Peter, yeah, that Peter the one, yeah, do you wanna say it? Suffer well, Peter, yeah, like you did a good job, Bible boy, right, you can like, I can just imagine. And I can also imagine Peter as he's writing this, right?
Going, I know how this is gonna sound, you know? Like, I can, I can like, imagine, as he's writing this, going, I know, this is ironic coming from me, but he wants to remind them, hey, I need you to not be like me and how I was. His point in verse 17 is that it might be, it might be, God's will for you to suffer. Wait, time out, time out, time out.
Whoa, that doesn't sound like the thing that I wanna sign up for, that you might want to sign up for. You tell me I might suffer? Well, Jesus did warn us. Jesus said that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the world as a testimony to all nations.
In that same context, in Matthew 24, he says, then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, you will be hated by all nations because of me. Jesus warns us. Jesus has given us a fair warning. I am here building a new kingdom and I'm here on a rescue operation with you at the forefront.
I wanna be part of that operation. I like that operation. That's what I signed up for. And if you're a fellow follower believer in Jesus, I believe that you do too.
And that's why the book of 1 Peter is relevant to us today. Even immediately after Easter, it is to help us with the reality of suffering and how to endure it and to continue to choose to follow Jesus. Peter then continues in chapter four, with an encouragement on why to choose suffering for the sake of an authentic Christian testimony. In verse one, therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.
I read that and I go, why did Peter, right? As I'm reading this, over and over and over and over again, like you start to like pick apart each word and just kind of like try to learn more. Why did Peter use the word arm? Why did he say arm yourselves?
Like, hey, no, why arm yourselves? Well, people that arm themselves, I think of like military, the police force, they don't do it in response to something, they do it in preparation so that they're not surprised. They are ready, they arm themselves, they're not caught off guard, they know what's coming or the potential for what's coming. So arm yourselves, prepare yourselves, don't be surprised with that attitude of Christ.
Okay, pause again. What's that attitude? What is the attitude of Christ that Peter's referring to? That's what we talked about last week, right after Easter.
Christ's willingness to suffer for doing good and not doing any wrong, he chose the unjust suffering. He knew what was about to happen and stepped into it anyway. And Peter is telling those people, those Christians, have that attitude, have that attitude, willingness to step into it anyway, even though it might come for you one day. I know you're doing nothing wrong and I want you to have the same posture Christ had.
Bear it, bet it yet before it happens, you can expect it. Why, that seems a bit unfair. Peter says, he addresses it, we choose that attitude because Christ chose the attitude. I choose this posture because that's Christ's posture.
Here are Jesus's words when it comes to choosing it. No one takes it from me, these are the words of Jesus. I lay it down on my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again, this command I received from my father, my father.
Hard to argue with this one, with the one who just rose from the grave, he chose this posture. Whoa, that's the couple of, only two verses in, couple verses in. In his book, 100 Prison Meditations, Richard Wormbrand, who spent 14 years as a Romanian pastor in prison. He wrote this, I have accepted this proposal.
Christians are meant to have the same vocation as their king. That of cross-bearers. It is this conscience of a high calling and a partnership with Jesus which brings gladness and tribulations which makes Christians enter prisons for their faith with the joy of a bridegroom entering the bridal room. The same vocation as their king on a rescue operation.
Being willing to suffer for doing nothing wrong. No one really leads with that for new believers. No one really leads with that. Or people who are just trying to understand God.
Happy Easter, hey, part of being Christian means you might. Suffered, there's potential that you're going to suffer in some capacity one day. And Easter, it's a celebration. It absolutely should be.
It's my favorite Sunday, but you need to know what the point of your life is or part of it. Jesus, the creator of the universe, the sustainer of all things, the savior of the world, the perfectly innocent one, the son of God chose suffering as his vocation and called us to take up our cross and follow him. And in doing so, find real and everlasting life. I just want to make sure you know that as followers of Jesus, if that's what you say you are.
If you believe that Jesus says to us, that's my, our potential lot in this world. It's in light of Easter if you believe now, as Peter's about to say, that we are dead to sin. We are dead to it. We don't keep on doing it.
Peter explains what he means. As a result of the Easter story, as a result of choosing this attitude and posture, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil, human desires, rather for the will of God. When I read this, I go, oh, that wasn't me last week. Right?
It wasn't like, you know, I didn't like tape that to my steering wheel. I was like, ah, forgive me, Lord. For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans do. You've spent enough time in the past doing what you used to do.
Enough time. Either if you've been like living to your own human desires for a little bit or for a lot of it, that's enough time. That's enough. Those who are, those who do so are done from sin, not meaning that you've attained perfection, that's not what this is, but you've decisively, you've decisively broken from your sin and your former ways, decided.
And you've resolved, as action words, yes, to embrace the will of God rather than to give into your fleshly desires. You can like sense, Peter's like, this is his Peter, right? Like he's very decisive, like, go. You've resolved.
You've embraced. We make a decisive break with our sin. Such as, he gives some examples, because he's writing to his people, so he probably knows what's going on. Not you or me, right?
He's writing to other stuff, such as living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry, idolatry, making, worshiping anything that's not God, making that your focus. Peter writes, be done with this. Be done with this, as he's writing to persecute Christians. Be done with this.
Such suffering that Peter's talking about enables them to straighten out their priorities and desires. Sometimes when you suffer, your priorities become focused. A Christian ought to no longer live the rest of their time according to their flesh. If we wear, if we arm ourselves with the attitude of Christ, willingly choose suffering, then we automatically, this will happen.
You automatically posture yourself to be done with sin. Those two can't go together. They're done, separate. The sinful desires and practices that once seemed important to you now seem insignificant if you choose the attitude of Christ.
Your sinful desires will become insignificant, or at least they should. That's why when you start following Jesus, if you start following Jesus, whether it's day two or three or four for you or day, 1,000, whatever for you, when you are following Jesus, your priorities change. Your desires change. Your practices change.
That's why scripture references this as new life in Christ. It's hard to be dead to sin if you're not alive in Christ. Otherwise, sin will still reign in our mortal bodies. So if you're alive in Christ, don't be surprised.
If you're alive in Christ, and you're starting to believe that Jesus says, don't be surprised when your desires change, when your practices change, when your priorities shift, even if you get teased, made fun of, or your coworkers, your friends think you're crazy, don't be surprised. They should change. They should shift. They have to.
And if they do, you'll probably hear about it. Verse four, they, the pagans, the ones who don't believe in God, they think it's strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. When we start to believe that Jesus is, as he is, and put our hope in him and see him as Lord of our life, then we will start to look different.
Because as Pastor John spoke about a couple of weeks ago, we will be born again, the new life in Christ, meaning our heart is transformed. My mind is renewed. And so the things of our heart and mind care and what we care about and delight in, they shift. They're going to.
They have to. It's OK if they do. Your friends, your coworkers might think you're silly or weird. They might make fun of you.
Maybe not. Maybe they think it's impressive and encouraging. I hope so. They might call you religious.
They might call you too spiritual for them now. They might judge you for changing. They might assume that you're judging them for not joining him on the fun. But Peter addresses this with his audience because he gets it.
He can see the train derailing up ahead. And that's why he writes to this group of people. He writes to people that are probably tired of doing the right thing, of doing good and for suffering for it. They're tired of being ridiculed.
Oh, so you're another one of those. Jesus freaks. Come on. You really believe in that stuff?
Come on, Bible, boy. Let's continue what Peter writes. For this reason, this is the reason of the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to their body, but live according to God, in regard to the spirit, the end of all things is near. Peter, he's just directly addressing it.
They will give an account face to face with Jesus one day. It's OK. Keep going. Live according to God.
And then Peter continues. Therefore, Peter writes and tells them how to deal with the pressures of this. If you believe in Jesus, and you start to change, and you feel some tension in your life because of it, be clear-minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. That's it?
What? Not so that you can get back at them or deal with the suffering. Like, that's it? It's to be clear-minded and self-controlled so you can pray.
Not be clear-minded and self-controlled so you can counter. You're clear-minded, self-controlled so you can pray. We don't do well at that in New Jersey. So Peter's versus vice is to stay calm and pray.
Thanks, Pete. It's not gear up and fight, which again, Peter's pointing you to the example of Christ and exactly opposite ironic again. Excuse me, Peter. You just cut someone's ear off.
I remember that story. You were the counter. And now you're telling me like, come on. I can feel the tension of the people reading this letter.
Above all, Peter says, love each other deeply. He's talking to this as community now. And the mills. Love each other deeply because love covers a multitude of sins.
You offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking of the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides so that in all things, God may be praised through Jesus Christ, to him be the glory and power forever and ever in men.
Peter is advising them on how to suffer. Here's how you do it. First he tells them you're going to, you might. Here's what's going to happen, potentially.
And here's how I want you to do it. First he straight up tells them, and now it's how to manage it. When you're dealing with people who don't understand, when you're dealing with people who ridicule you, who make fun of you for your faith or who throw you in a jail, have a clear mind, be self-controlled. Are you clear minded?
Does self-control describe you? Besides, on a Sunday morning, when you're at work and your coworkers frustrate you, your self-control, but defines you, sometimes it doesn't define me. Sometimes I don't have good self-control. To be honest, sometimes I'm bad at it.
I wear my heart and my sleeve, my bloody eyes that he knows when I'm upset. Are you clear minded and self-controlled when you feel attacked? Not just when people ignore you, but when you feel attacked and it come after you, they come after your family, they come after your character. Or do you tend to bite back?
Which of those things is the attitude that we're arming ourselves with or supposed to? It's tough. Peter gives reference to Jesus. I'm sure.
I'm sure, right? As Peter's writing this, he walked with Jesus. He heard the sermon on the mount. He was there.
He can hear Jesus' words in his head. As he's writing this, I'm sure. Like I'm sure it echoes in his brain. He tells them, love them.
Then you offer hospitality without grumbling. One thing that New Jersey's are not known for? We're good at grumbling. I'm a good grumbler.
If you're honest with yourselves, if you were to self-reflect, where do you grumble the most? Here's a gentle love suggestion. Stop it. Stop grumbling.
It doesn't point other people to Jesus. It just points people to you. We use our gifting to serve others, and we do so empowered by the spirit of God that he's given us so that God may be praised, so that people look at you and they see God, and they go, oh. And that's what they see you and go, oh.
So that people can see how you absorb the offense, and they choose to love through it. And that attracts them to know Jesus. He gets the glory for you and I reflecting his attitude. And Peter doesn't suggest a time here.
He just says to do it. He's not like, I want you to suffer for a little bit. Stop grumbling. Have this good attitude for a little bit.
And then, oh, well then, how long have you been? Oh, OK. It's fine. Now you can.
Now you can grumble about it. Now you can have it for I do. Now Peter's just like, just do it. I had a friend once, a couple years ago, who, something tragic happened to his family.
And I saw how he walked through it. And man, I didn't go, wow, he's awesome. Isn't he so cool? Like, wow, I want to be like, I said, no.
He loves Jesus. And that encouraged me. That was like a supercharged boost. I want to know God like he does.
Because he still said he stood in front of people. And he said, God is still good. And I said, whoa. He was suffering through it.
And he said, God is still good. That supercharged me forward. Let's continue. Peter writes in his letter, dear friends.
He goes, dear friends. He's very directly, bam, bam, bam, bam. And he goes, dear friends. Like, hey, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange are happening to you.
But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. Again, that's hard. Happy Easter. Rejoice.
So Peter is compassionately direct. He's compassionately direct. He comforts them. But then he gets to the point quickly.
He's saying focus. I don't even go like, oh, come on. What, complaining? He's just like, come on.
Focus. Remember what the mission is here. Remember is Christ's mission is our mission. We're going to follow him, even if it means walking through some really tough things.
To not be surprised if you're suffering for the sake of Christ, that's something to rejoice over, even. To find strength and even. Because the mission is for his glory to be revealed to the world. That's the mission.
It's for him to be praised throughout the world, throughout all nations, throughout Mendum, throughout Chester, throughout Long Valley, throughout Rainbow, Roxbury, wherever. It's for Christ's glory to be revealed. That's the mission that we're on. Let's pause there for a second.
It would not be fair for me to just have this tie up your bootstraps and get over it, type of tone, and attitude. That's not at all how I want to address you. And I hope that you hear my heart and this. I know some of your stories.
I don't know all of them, but I know some of them. And I know that some of you have gone through really tough, hard things. And some of you are going through really tough and hard things. Some of you will go through tough and hard things.
God's heart breaks for those things with you. And I know this is hard to hear, but when you walk through those things, whatever they are, and you still hold on to your faith, and you still say, God is still good, who gets the glory for that? He does. His glory is revealed through you.
You're part of the operation, even in the midst of suffering. Praise God for people like you, Mendum Hill is super severe. Let's jump to verse 14. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed.
For the spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murder or thief or any other kind of criminal or even as a mother. However, if you suffer as a Christian, don't be ashamed. But praise God that you bear that name.
Peter considers it an honor to be persecuted. He equates suffering and blessing. He equates those two things. The idea of bearing his name relates to arming yourselves with his attitude.
It's his name I wear on the front of my jersey. So as believers in particular, we are called potentially to suffer for his namesake, for the right reason, to bring us closer to Christ and to help us minister to people who are suffering as well, to make us powerful tools. Peter is like, hey, remember what the mission is, the point of your life. Potentially, it's not to figure out what God can give us.
We have a new focus now. It's how can I be used for Christ? How can you be used for the kingdom of God? Even if it means going through hardship, after hardship, after you go, come on, God, after hardship, that you will be used for the kingdom.
And through that, his glory is revealed. It reminds me, rummaging around for some of my favorite tools. I like to fix things. I don't know if you like to fix things, I sure do.
I brought some of my favorite tools when I'm demoing, when I'm fixing. These are the tools that I always have nearby. You've got the power tools. It's fun.
I always have these pliers. They fit my hand well. I just know exactly how to use it. This thing, if you've never done demo, this is your best friend.
And I'm always looking to cut something silly. These are my favorite tools. I love them. What makes those tools great?
Some of those have been passed down from my grandfather. Some of them have passed down from my dad. Remember working on cars with them growing up. Some of them have been from friends.
I'm like, hey, owning a new house. You don't have this tool here you go. I have been gifts for Christmas or birthdays. The best tool I own.
Well, I can tell you what the best tool is not like. I can tell you which one it's not. It's not the one that I haven't opened up the packaging. This is from Christmas 2015 or something like that.
I have no idea. It was just sitting on my workbench. I know. They're just sitting there.
I just don't use them. They're still in the packaging. This is not my best tool. I never use it.
The tool is not fulfilling its purpose by hanging out in the plastic. My favorite tool is the one I use all the time. It's beat up because I use it so much. What makes a great tool?
The ones that can withstand a lot of pressure. The ones that can take a beating. The ones that don't get rusty. You don't have to worry about cleaning them every single time.
The best tool is the one that does its job well. The best kind of tool is the one that fits the job it was designed for. It's not falsely advertised. It's not cheap plastic.
It's good. Do you see where I'm going with this? The most effective Christian is not the one hiding in the packaging. It's not the one who has gone through.
It is the one who has gone through some stuff, has lived to tell it no day of how themselves got through it, but how God got them through it. They endured and bore his name while taking any and all offense. Any and all suffering. That's the most effective kind of Christian.
It's true that the tool that stays in the packaging doesn't get dinged up. But also it's not doing what it was designed to do, what was made for. The most effective Christian doesn't accumulate rust. It doesn't get bitter.
It doesn't hold on to offense. It doesn't get easily offended. They're not frustrating to the wielder. I have a couple of tools that I just gave away because they don't fit my hands well.
I have a tool that's frustrating to use. I don't use it. It's just collecting dust or giving away. The most effective Christian is the one who does the job they're designed for and they do it well.
So I'm going to end with two questions for you. Again, I hope that I'm with you. I hope that you hear me. I could be sitting right here with you hearing this.
I need this too. Two questions. I gently submit to you for you to ponder and think about this week. First one is are you doing the job you were designed for well?
Not your occupation if you're a doctor or whatever. Are you doing the job, the mission that you were designed for? Are you doing it well? Or are we like an unused tool left in the packaging or rusting in a drawer?
That's the first question. The second one. Are you bearing his name well? Right?
On this drill, I don't know how I say Bosch, whatever. There's a name here. When people ask me, oh, I love that jungle. Yeah, this is the brand again.
This one. Or do you bear Christ's name well? Or are we a church that is known for bearing his name? What does Menom Hill is known for?
You would ask a friend. Or they would say, oh, yeah, Menom Hill. What do you think of it? What have you heard?
What have we known for? Is it the person who regularly stands here? Is it the excellence? Is it the music?
Is it the format? Is it the different ministries? The youth, the kids, the young adults, the grief share, the Thursday nights? What is it we're known for?
I think it would be a beautiful thing if we were a church, a group of people known for that we long, that we long for the glory of Christ to be revealed in us. To shine through us. Not our excellence or put togetherness. It's not what I want to be known for.
I want to be known for his glory. That's what Peter's getting at when he writes to these people. What are you known for? To be true to the passage here is what Peter says we should be known for and why that's important going back to chapter 3, explaining to those who ask about our hope.
But do this, right? With gentleness and respect keeping a clear conscience so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed by their slander. Good questions is are we known for our good behavior in the community? So well that despite a counter, this is a counter cultural message.
Christianity is counter cultural now more than ever that they still couldn't slander us. The point here is that, which I think is big ones, that sometimes Christians suffer in the community because we act like jerks. We don't respond with gentleness. We judge people really fast.
And we have little or no good works in the community which we are trying to redeem our jerkiness in the community. That's how you behave here. How do you behave there? Monday, tomorrow morning.
How do you exemplify walking through life following Jesus to your kids? How do you do it to your coworkers? How do you do it to your boss? You could.
Absolutely you can. You should. Let's make it more personal than that. How are you?
How are we? How am I individually doing this? What are we known for? What are you known for?
What am I known for? Not that we should overly care about what people think of us, but that's the question I want to wrestle with. Am I known for my faith or am I known for something else? Am I known for my job title?
The car I drive? How well spoken for? Charisma? Success?
What school you get into? What job you have? Students, what are you known for? How popular you are?
How well liked you are? If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend? Parents, are you known for how awesome your kids are? Is that what you're known for?
Is that what you're most proud of? Is that your kids are doing? Yeah, be proud of your kids. Absolutely.
But that's what you're staking your identity and knownness of. We're off. How well they're doing this work? What prestigious school they get into?
Parents, I love you. I know you care and you should get it. When they come to me and tell me they get into awesome schools. I go, that's great.
Your value is not based on your performance. I don't care what school you get into really. Let's talk about Jesus and your character and your heart. Young adults, what do you long to be known for?
Now or more than ever, let's make that decision and go. All of that's great. But not what I want to be known for. I don't think that's Peter's point.
The whole point of his letter is to let you know you will likely suffer at some point in some way, shape or form. This whole Christian way of living makes it kind of inevitable. If you are following Christ with your life, then that's what's going to happen. Be prepared.
Peter says, praise God even. You bear his name. Praise God for that. You and I, may we not be ashamed.
May we praise God because we bear, we own his name. Not my name, not your name, we own, we bear, we arm the attitude of Christ, his name. And then Peter concludes the section of the letter with HR, and he's very like, yeah, let's go. He says, so then those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful creator and continue to do good.
I echo to you what Peter wrote to his friends and his fellow believers. Arm yourselves with the attitude of Christ be willing to bear his name. Be done with sin. Be done with it.
You can do it. Do the power of the Holy Spirit and you can be done with sin. Allow God to reorient your priorities or desires or practices so that the glory of Christ is revealed in and through you. It might mean that you suffer for living godly lives.
Live them anyway. Suffer well. In fact, live them out so radically. Love others so wildly that even if they try to make fun of you, call you Bible boy.
Even if they hate or punish you, they would know what you were known for. That in spite of any type of suffering, you believed in God. You not only believed it, you lived it. You showed it through how you suffered.
Amen. Let's stand as we close.