Good morning, church. It's good to see you this morning. Would you turn with me to 1 Peter chapter
3, verses 18 through 22. We'll have it on the screen as I read it in just a minute, but let
me encourage you to have it open as we walk through this text together. It's on page 955
in the Pew Bible, if you'd like to follow along there. If you're new to reading the Bible,
the big numbers are the chapters and the small numbers are the verses. So 1 Peter chapter 3,
verses 18 through 22. Actually, let me start reading in verse 17 so we can kind of catch the
flow of Peter's thought. All right, let me read this for us, starting in verse 17.
For it's better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might
bring us to God. Being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit, in which he went and
proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited
in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight persons,
were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal
of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers
having been subjected to him. All right, let's pray. Father, help us to understand what on a first reading
feels like a challenging text to understand, and help us not just to understand it, but to apply it to our
lives today. Through your Holy Spirit, and in the name of Jesus, we ask this. Amen. Amen. So, I want to
begin with a quote from Maya Angelou. Maya Angelou said, courage is the most important of all the virtues,
because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently. Courage is the most
important of all the virtues, because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.
This made me think of going to the climbing gym. If you've ever been climbing or gone to a climbing gym,
you know that it takes kind of a fair number of skills, a fair number of virtues, as it were, to kind of work
your way up the wall. But what can happen is that when you get pretty high up on the wall, is that you can get
afraid. You're high up, you're stuck, and then your courage runs away. And then in the midst of the fear,
it's like everything you knew, all the skills that you worked on, all the virtues just go out the window
and you freeze. And maybe, maybe you even fall. And I think life can be like that. You know, we want to
live a certain way. We want to be truthful, loving, honest, compassionate, bold. But when pressures or
trials come, we get afraid. And then we freeze. And maybe we don't live the way that we set out to live.
We struggle to keep our grip on the wall. And maybe we even fall.
And so, we need courage. Courage could just be one of the most important of all the virtues,
because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.
But, where does courage come from? How do we get it? Where do we get the confidence, the resolve,
the grit to live how we know we should live? In particular, Peter, remember, is writing to
Christians who are facing trials and suffering in their Christian life. More and more, they find
themselves on the margins of society. Where do they get the courage to keep on following Christ,
even and especially when it's hard, when it's against the grain, when it seems like you've got
a lot to lose? Where do we get the courage to keep following Christ in the midst of suffering?
Well, that's what 1 Peter chapter 3, verses 18 to 22, are all about. We're going to face trials and
opposition and even suffering for our allegiance to Christ. And Peter says, here's where the courage
comes from. Here's why and how you can stick with it, even when the fears and hardships come,
even when you feel beleaguered and battered by a hostile world around you, when it feels like
suffering and evil might have the last word. Peter says, take heart, Christian, in your suffering,
have courage. Why? Have courage because Christ suffered for you and rose in victory.
Now, there are a lot of exegetical and interpretive tangles in the text before us, and we'll do our
best to try to comb some of those tangles out as we go. But we don't want to miss the big idea of
what Peter's saying here, and that big idea is clear. Christ died and rose again. He ascended in victory.
He's seated at the Father's right hand with angels and authorities and power subjected to him.
In other words, Christ has triumphed over evil. And if Christ has triumphed through suffering,
then all those who are united to Christ, even though they suffer, will share his victory too.
His victory is our courage. So let's look a little closer at how Peter unpacks the victory of Christ in
this passage so that we too might grow in courage. So first, Peter shows us Christ's victory over sin.
Christ's victory over sin. This is verse 18. We see this right off the bat. Look again at verse 18.
He says, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring
us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. Now, as we saw, the immediate
context of this verse is the suffering that Christians will face for their allegiance to Christ.
And Peter wants us to not give up in the face of that suffering, but to keep bearing witness to Christ
in gentleness and respect. But here in verse 18, he shows us how. He says, Christian, don't be afraid to
suffer for doing good. Have courage. Why? Because Christ also suffered, he says. But Peter is saying
more here than simply that Christ can sympathize with us in our suffering, although that is a great
truth, right? But what Peter is saying here is something more. He's saying that Jesus came and did
what no one else can do. He defeated our sin. Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the
unrighteous. Now, how is it that Christ's death can be effective to take away our sins?
That's what four sins means, after all, that Christ's death is a sin offering, paying the penalty for
our sins. How can that be? How can the death of Jesus so long ago take away your sin and my sin?
Well, because it's as Peter says, it's because Christ is truly the righteous one. He was without sin,
and therefore he had no guilt of his own to pay for. And so he could be the substitute for us,
the unrighteous ones. On the cross, Jesus was enacting the great exchange. He, the righteous one,
was standing in the place of the unrighteous ones, dying the death their sins deserved,
so that we, the unrighteous ones, could come and stand in the place of the righteous one. Do you see?
The righteous for the unrighteous. Look at what Jesus's death accomplished. Christ also suffered
once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.
I wonder if you've ever been invited to a party or an event of some kind, and you've just felt really
out of place. You just, you look around at what the people are wearing or what they're talking about,
and you just think, oh my goodness, I do not belong here. I am so out of place.
Well, friends, the reality is, is that in the presence of a holy God,
we don't belong there. None of us belong there. Not with all of our sin, not in the presence of God.
Psalm 15 talks about who, who can come into God's presence. David writes in Psalm 15, he says,
O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? And then David says,
he who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart, and who does not
slander with his tongue, and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his
friend, in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord, who swears to
his own hurt and does not change, who does not put out his money at interest, and does not take a bribe
against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved. That's who gets to go to the party with God.
And you think, oh goodness, how can I possibly meet those standards? Not me, not you, but Christ can.
Christ is a righteous one, and he puts his arm around us, and he says, what's true of me is true of you now.
Your sins have been paid for by my death, and your moral record has been filled out by my life,
so now you do belong at the party. When the host of the party comes and says, no, no, no, you're with me.
You belong here now. Changes everything.
Because of what Christ has done, you belong in the presence of God. He says, you're with me now.
Once we were far off, but now we've been brought near by the blood of Christ.
And then Peter says, did you notice this little word? Peter says, Christ died once. Once. Now we could
preach a whole sermon on that word, because when Peter says once, he means that the death of Christ
was so sufficient, so complete to cover all the sins of everyone who would ever repent and believe in him,
that nothing ever, ever needs to be added or repeated to the work of Christ, to the death of Christ.
Christ died once for all time, and it's done.
And what a great comfort that is when we face suffering and we need courage.
Because when we suffer, we can start to believe the lies that maybe we're suffering because God is angry at us.
Or maybe we're suffering because we've done something wrong.
Or maybe we're suffering because God just doesn't care.
But Peter speaks to our troubled hearts so in need of courage,
he speaks this powerful word once.
Once.
For all time, all your sins, past, present, and future,
Christ suffered once.
The righteous one for you, the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
So if you are facing trials, Christian,
know this and have courage.
Christ has won the victory over your sin once and for all.
In your suffering, God is not angry at you.
You haven't done something wrong as you face opposition and trial.
No, Christ died for your sins.
He's brought you to God.
Have courage.
But Christ's victory doesn't stop there.
After all, our trials and our suffering come, right, so often,
because we live in a world that is so often hostile to God and God's people.
So we need courage to face,
we need courage in the face of this very real hostility.
And the longer you live in the world,
the more you realize, as the Apostle Paul says,
that our struggle isn't against flesh and blood,
but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
In other words, there's a very real spiritual battle going on.
Evil, you see, is, according to the Bible,
evil sort of compounded in the world, right?
Evil in the world isn't just sort of the individual moral choices of people,
or what the Bible will call at times the flesh or our sinful nature.
And evil in the world isn't just the structural or ingrained evil of cultures and societies,
what the Bible sometimes calls the world.
Those two are very real,
our individual choices and structural evil,
both very real, both talked about in Scripture.
But there's also a very real spiritual component to the evil that we experience.
That along with the world and along with the flesh,
our sinful nature,
along with corporate structural sin and personal individual sin,
there's also cosmic hostility to God.
Satan and his evil forces waging war against God and God's creation.
Now, I get it.
A belief in demons can strike us modern people sometimes as a bit primitive, right?
Are we really going back there?
But, you know, when you think about it,
is it really so hard to believe
when you square up to the horrendous evil in the world,
is it really so hard to believe that something like a force or a power
exploits human sinfulness like a fan on the flame
to make it all the more sinful and evil?
How can we witness genocide or sex trafficking
or how can we read the history of lynching in our own country
and find it so hard to believe
that evil is much deeper and greater and cosmic
than the sum of its merely human parts?
It turns out the Bible isn't primitive or irrational in its account of evil,
but actually more robust and more brutally honest
than we moderns often ever dare to be.
But what Peter tells us here in our passage
gives us courage.
Gives us courage even in the face of evil spiritual forces.
Why?
Have courage, he says,
because Christ has won the victory
not just over sin,
but over the spiritual forces of evil as well.
Let's pick up at the end of verse 18
and then read verse 19.
Christ, Peter says,
was put to death in the flesh
but made alive in the spirit
in which he went and proclaimed
to the spirits in prison
because they formerly did not obey.
Okay, now,
verse 19 is perhaps
one of the most difficult verses
in the whole New Testament
to interpret.
The usually quite confident
Martin Luther wrote
when he was commenting on 1 Peter,
he said,
this is a strange text
and certainly a more obscure passage
than any other in the New Testament.
I still don't know for sure
what the apostle meant.
There's Martin Luther on verse 19.
Now, okay,
we don't have time to dissect
all the different interpretations
of verse 19,
but I want to briefly point out
kind of the three most common approaches
and then show you the one
I think kind of makes the most sense
within the context
of the whole passage
and we'll go from there.
But it is worth noting,
you know,
it's worth noting
as we come to a tricky passage
like this one
that these hard-to-interpret passages
in the New Testament
are a good reminder to us
to be humble before God's word
and with one another.
I think sometimes
God inspired passages like this
to remind us
that we don't know everything
and there are some things
that we simply won't figure out
in this life.
Ultimately, God is God
and only He has perfect knowledge.
But, you know,
I think these unclear passages
also give us
a richer appreciation
of the fact
that so much of the Bible
is clear,
that the main message
of the Bible
is something
that all of us
can hear and understand.
You know,
so these handful
of tricky passages
like verse 19,
they don't just keep us humble,
they also remind us
that God is so often
so abundantly gracious
to give us
of a revelation of Himself
that is much,
much more often than not
accessible
and knowable.
God isn't hiding from us.
He wants us to know Him
and love Him
and trust Him
through His word.
So, anyway,
so we're going to stay humble
as we come to verse 19.
And like I said,
there are three main lines
of interpretation.
None of them
are without their difficulties.
One, however,
I think is pretty unlikely
to be right.
And the other two,
I think,
are more plausible.
And I'll tell you
which one of those two
I think fits best
with the details
of the passage.
So, okay.
So, the first interpretation
of verse 19
that I think is pretty unlikely
is that after Christ's death
and before His resurrection,
Jesus descends into hell
and preaches to the spirits
of those sinners
who perished in the flood
during the time of Noah.
Okay, that's kind of
the first view.
And that view was made popular
by origin in the third century.
Now, why do I think
this view is the most unlikely one?
Well, I think it's unlikely first
because at the end
of verse 18,
Peter says that Jesus
was put to death in the flesh
and made alive in the Spirit.
Or a better translation
would be that He was made alive
by the Spirit.
Christ was made alive
by the power of the Holy Spirit.
And that verb,
made alive,
in the New Testament
almost always refers
to bodily resurrection.
Okay?
So, if verse 18
is talking about
the bodily resurrection of Jesus,
how after His death
He was made alive
by the Spirit,
then verse 19
can't be talking about
some activity
that Jesus did
between His death
and resurrection,
like descending to the dead.
Verse 19 is something
Jesus does
after His bodily resurrection,
not before.
Now, the other reason
why I think verse 19
isn't talking about
Jesus descending
to sort of dead humans
is because the phrase
spirits in prison
is a phrase
that the New Testament
never uses anywhere else
to talk about
deceased human souls
in the afterlife
or in hell.
Rather,
the only spirits
that are talked about
as being bound in chains
or thrown in prison
are evil spirits
awaiting God's judgment.
Okay,
so I think that first view
that Jesus sort of descends
to dead humans
I think is pretty unlikely.
Two other views, though.
And the second view
I think is a bit more plausible.
And this was put forward
by Augustine,
and then Aquinas
kind of picked it up
in the Middle Ages.
And this view says
that what Peter's talking
about here
is that Christ,
through the Spirit,
preached to the people
who were alive
in Noah's day,
but who now,
in Peter's day,
are dead and in prison.
Right?
So this view
would take the end
of verse 18 and 19
to say something
essentially like
Christ was made alive
by the Spirit,
and by that same Spirit,
Christ went back
in Noah's day
to preach to the people
who are now,
in our day,
spirits in prison.
Okay?
Now, like I said,
that view's actually
pretty plausible.
After all,
Peter says back
in chapter 1,
verse 11,
that the Spirit of Christ
was the one
working through the prophets.
And in 2 Peter,
Peter's second letter,
chapter 2, verse 5,
he calls Noah
a preacher of righteousness.
So it's not implausible
to think that what Peter's
doing here is saying
Christ,
through the Spirit,
back in Noah's day,
was preaching
to those who are now dead.
Okay.
That second view
could work.
But I think
a third view
is a bit simpler,
and it makes
a bit more sense
of the overall flow
of the passage.
And this third view
is the one
that most New Testament
scholars actually
take today.
And that view says this,
after Christ's bodily
resurrection by the Spirit,
as he ascended on high,
he proclaimed his victory
over the evil spirits
that God had been
restraining in judgment.
2 Peter 2, verse 4,
and Jude 6
talk about fallen angels
being kept in chains
until the final judgment.
And I think that's
the sort of thing
Peter has in mind here,
that Christ,
after his resurrection,
ascending on high,
proclaims his victory
over even the cosmic forces
in the world.
Now, one question
to ask of this view
is that,
is,
in what way
are these evil spirits
that Jesus is apparently
proclaiming his victory to
connected to Noah's flood?
Peter makes that connection
in verse 20.
And what most commentators
would point out
is that,
that many texts
in Jewish,
many Jewish texts
in Peter's day
would have read
the Genesis account
of the flood
and the evil
leading up to the flood
as sort of involving
the actions
of evil spirits
or fallen angels.
So that's why
in Peter's mind
there's this connection
between Christ's triumph
over the evil powers
connecting that back
to this particular episode
of particular evil
in human history
in the flood.
Now, like I said,
none of these three readings
is perfect.
You can be a member
at Trinity
and you can hold
any of them if you want.
That's totally fine,
right?
But, you know,
no matter what we make
of verse 19,
when we look at the end
of our passage
at verse 22,
we can be sure
that no matter
what verse 19 means,
Peter's very sure
that Christ
in his ascension
certainly triumphed
over the evil forces
of the world
and put them
in subjection.
Angels,
authorities,
powers,
all of those things
are describing
that sort of cosmic rebellion
that Christ has now
put under his feet
in his triumph,
in his ascension.
Now,
do you see what this means
for Christians
who are facing suffering?
It means that no matter
what this world throws
at Christians,
no matter what the forces
of evil might conspire
against the church,
they cannot
and will not have
the final word.
Christ has already
proclaimed his victory
over them
when he ascended
to the right hand of God.
Yes,
evil might still be active,
evil might still be
putting up a fight,
but they're ultimately
a defeated foe.
So this means
that we need not shrink back
from suffering
when it comes.
We can meet it
with courage
because we know
that our enemy
is a defeated foe.
I mean,
isn't it our tendency
to kind of avoid
suffering at all costs?
This is especially true
for our culture
and our time in history
because our happiness
so often is so wrapped up
in the things of this life,
right?
Our happiness is kind of
wrapped up in material comforts
or in physical
or earthly pleasure.
So suffering is something
that we just try to avoid
at all costs.
But if we don't have
the courage
to face suffering,
as Maya Angelou said,
without courage,
we can't do any
of the other virtues
consistently.
We can't live
with integrity
or compassion
or truthfulness
or justice
if we avoid suffering
at all costs,
right?
I mean, look,
if you're going to be
someone who speaks
the truth,
if you're going to tell
the truth,
it's going to cost you
at times
in this world,
isn't it?
If you're going to act
with compassion,
it's going to cost you
at times
in a fallen world.
If you're going
to do justice,
it's going to cost you
at times
in a fallen world.
Any virtue,
any act of Christlikeness
is going to bring on
trial,
suffering,
hardship,
so you have to be able
to face it with courage
and not just run away.
And if you see
what Peter is saying here,
that Christ has won
the victory
even over the evil powers
in the universe,
and through him
we will share
in that victory one day,
well,
then you've got it.
Because if that's true
of Christ,
and if that's true
of you in Christ,
then ultimately
suffering cannot
take from you
what is most important.
Whatever evil
might befall you,
Christ has conquered it
and promised
to make all things new,
to restore 100-fold
what you've lost.
After all,
what is loss
of earthly reputation
when the glory
of heaven awaits?
What is the loss
of earthly wealth
or comfort
when the new creation
beckons?
What even is the loss
of our life
when God promises
to raise us up again
with Christ,
imperishable,
incorruptible in glory?
You see,
even death
has lost its sting
in the victory
of Christ's resurrection
and ascension.
You know the song
we sing often
at Trinity here,
no guilt in life,
no fear in death.
This is the power
of Christ in me.
From life's first
cry to final breath,
Jesus commands
my destiny.
No power of hell,
no scheme of man
can ever pluck me
from his hand
till he returns
or calls me home.
Here in the power
of Christ I'll stand.
That's what Peter
is saying here.
So we have courage.
We have courage
in Christ's victory,
in his victory
over sin
and in his victory
over evil.
But lastly,
Peter is going to show us
how we can have courage
because of Christ's victory
over judgment.
Let's pick up
where we loft off
in verse 20
and read through verse 21.
God's patience
waited in the days of Noah
while the ark
was being prepared
in which a few,
that is eight persons,
were brought safely
through water.
Baptism,
which corresponds
to this,
now saves you,
not as a removal
of dirt from the body,
but as an appeal
to God
for a good conscience
through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
Okay,
so after Peter
proclaims Christ's victory
over evil forces,
he remembers Noah
saved through the waters
of God's judgment.
Now consider how similar
Noah's story
so often feels
to the church's experience.
Think about it.
Noah and his family
were sort of a minority
surrounded by a hostile world.
Well man,
that must have resonated
a lot with Peter's audience.
They felt like a minority
in a hostile world.
Noah was righteous
in the midst of a world
that was kind of
going its own way.
And Peter exhorts us
to be righteous
in the midst of unbelievers.
Noah witnessed boldly
to those around him
by believing in God
and building an ark,
right?
And Peter's encouraging us
to be bold witnesses
for Christ.
Noah realized
that judgment
was soon to come
upon the world
and Peter's been reminding us,
right,
that the day of the Lord
is coming.
God's judgment
is also coming.
At the time of Noah,
God patiently waited
for unbelievers
to repent
before his judgment came
and so also now
God patiently waits,
holding out the forgiveness
of sins
to all who believe.
Noah was finally saved
with a few others
and Peter encourages us
that though perhaps few,
we too will certainly
be saved.
Now,
what is it
that assures us
of this rescue,
of this salvation?
Noah and his family
entered the ark
and God rescued them
through the waters
of judgment.
But Peter says
that was just a prefiguring.
That was just a type
of the greater rescue
from judgment.
Christ would go down
into the judgment
of death itself
and would rise again victorious.
But how do we
participate
in this great rescue
from judgment?
How do we get into
this even greater ark,
as it were,
of Christ's resurrection
so that we might
be carried safely
through the waters
of judgment?
Peter says,
here's how.
Baptism.
Now,
what does Peter mean
when he says
baptism saves you?
Is Peter denying
that we're saved
by faith alone?
Well,
no.
He's not denying
that we're saved
by faith alone.
Clearly,
in 1 Peter,
we've read again
and again and again
that we are saved
by obeying the gospel.
That is,
by repenting
of our sins
and by trusting
in Christ alone
as our Savior
and as our Lord.
But,
for Peter
and for all
the early Christians,
conversion
and baptism
always went
hand in hand.
Let me give you
an illustration.
In the church
that I grew up in,
there would be
an invitation
at the end
of every service
to receive Christ.
Christ.
So,
anyone who wanted
to become a Christian
would be invited
to walk down the aisle
to the front
of the sanctuary
and the pastor
would explain
the gospel to them
and they would be led
through a prayer
to receive Christ.
Now,
this act of
walking the aisle
in some churches
became so closely
associated
with conversion
that
when you ask someone
if they had
walked the aisle,
right,
what you were really
asking them was
had they come
to faith in Christ?
Were they converted?
Were they born again?
Right?
So,
walking the aisle
became a way
of talking about conversion
because they were
so closely associated,
right?
Walking the aisle
was part of that
conversion experience
so the part
was being used
to refer to the whole.
Now,
of course,
walking the aisle
in and of itself
didn't literally
save someone,
right?
But,
if you had experienced
conversion in that church
and that church tradition,
if you were indeed saved,
you had most likely
walked the aisle.
You see what I'm saying?
Because the two
went hand in hand.
Now,
I think
something similar
is going on
in 1 Peter here.
When Peter says
baptism saves you,
he's using
baptism
as a part
to refer to
the whole
experience of conversion.
Because in the New Testament,
conversion
and baptism
went hand in hand.
If someone
had placed
their faith
in Christ,
they subsequently
got baptized.
A non-baptized
Christian
was practically
an oxymoron,
right?
It's a bit
like a wedding ring
if you think
about it that way.
In our culture,
a couple says
vows to each other,
they exchange rings,
the pastor pronounces
them husband and wife.
Now,
do the rings
make someone
married?
No,
right?
It's your public
vows that make
you married.
But,
wouldn't it be
odd,
in our culture
anyway,
if married people
were walking
around without
wearing wedding
rings?
Right?
That would be
kind of strange.
Like,
you're married,
right?
Yeah.
Where's your ring?
I left it at home.
Why?
Right?
The two just
always go together.
That's my point.
And it was the same
for conversion
and baptism
in the New Testament.
The two
always went
together.
Now,
I think we can
know that we're
on the right
track here
because of how
Peter clarifies
what he means
in verse 21.
He says,
baptism doesn't
save you
because it
washes dirt
off of your
body.
That is,
baptism by its
mere physical
act isn't
some magical
thing that
makes you a
Christian.
Rather,
baptism involves
an appeal to
God for a
clean conscience.
Baptism,
in other words,
is the outward
symbol of the
inward
reality,
the inward
prayer of the
heart to God
asking God
for the
forgiveness of
sins and a
new heart,
a clean
conscience.
In other words,
baptism is the
visible,
physical expression
of saving faith
in the heart.
And why is
this faith
expressed in
baptism
effective to
save us?
because it
is faith in
the risen
Lord Jesus.
That's why.
As Peter says,
an appeal to
God for a
clean conscience
through the
resurrection of
Jesus Christ.
So then,
baptism is the
sort of visible,
physical sign of
our union with
Christ through
faith.
And think about
that.
Just as through
faith we have
died and risen
with Christ,
so in
baptism we
go down
into the
water,
symbolizing our
death with
Christ,
and then we
come up again,
symbolizing our
rising with
Christ,
out of judgment
and death and
into the new
creation of his
resurrection life.
So baptism
then is for
our comfort
and strength
and encouragement.
It marks us
as belonging
to Christ
visibly,
publicly,
It's like an
ancient seal
sort of stamping
on us in a
physical way
saying all the
promises that
are ours through
faith are true.
So friend,
let me just say,
if you've placed
your faith in
Christ and you've
not been baptized,
don't delay.
Don't you see
what comfort and
what strength and
what joy God
holds out to you
in this physical
expression?
Jesus commands
you to be baptized,
yes, but it's
for your good
so that you can
experience this
deep assurance
that comes through
having your
union with Christ
displayed in this
beautiful way.
So if you'd like
to be baptized,
come talk to me
right after the
service and we'll
discuss what the
next steps are.
You know, don't let
the fear of getting
up in front of
people stop you.
You know, that's
what a lot of people
think when they're
like, I don't want
to get baptized,
I've got to get up
there and give a
speech, right?
But Jesus is going
to be with you
every step of the
way.
Now, if you have
been baptized, what
Peter's saying here
is, look upon your
baptism and all that
it means and have
courage.
Have courage even in
suffering.
Why?
Because no matter what
suffering comes our
way, we've already
been through the worst
judgment and come out
clean on the other
side.
right?
The world can throw
its worst at us, but
we've already died and
come to life again in
Christ.
Just like Noah came
through the flood and
landed in a new
creation.
Our baptism proclaims
that we've entered a
new world, the new
creation where Christ is
king.
Let the storms rage,
Peter says.
What can they do to
us?
Can they take our
lives?
But our lives have
already, our lives are
already in the hands of
another.
We've already laid it
down and Christ has
taken it up again.
The waters of baptism,
the going down, and the
coming up again have
shown it to be true.
We are united to Christ,
the victor.
There's a great old
Easter hymn that goes,
Jesus lives and so
shall I.
Death thy sting is gone
forever.
He who deigned for me to
die lives the bands of
death to sever.
He shall raise me with
the just.
Jesus is my hope and
trust.
Jesus lives and reigns
supreme and his kingdom
still remaining.
I shall also be with
him ever living, ever
reigning.
God has promised, be it
must.
Jesus is my hope and
trust.
Jesus lives and death is
now, but my entrance into
glory.
Courage then, my soul, for
thou hast a crown of life
before thee.
Thou shalt find thy hopes
were just.
Jesus is the Christian's
trust.
Here's where we find
courage, friends.
Courage when sin and
evil and judgment are
looming.
Courage when trials and
suffering mount.
Jesus lives and so shall
I.
God's word promises it.
God's spirit seals it.
Our baptism proclaims it.
Jesus' suffering has led
to victory.
And so too shall ours.
Let's pray together.
Father in heaven, we take
a moment now to just pause
and be quiet before you and
pray that your spirit would
come and impress again upon
our minds and upon our
hearts the great reality of
Christ risen and reigning.
O Father, by your spirit, fill
our hearts with the courage
that comes from knowing that
we are united to a risen
Savior.
We pray this in his name.
Amen.