A REASON FOR OUR HOPE

1 Pet. 3:15

Morning Meditation 5/19/16

I want to preface my meditation with a note to those of you who use AOL. This is the only server that I have problems in mailing e-mail. I if you haven’t gotten the meditations this week please let me know the days you missed. I will re-mail them. I have had problems mailing to those with aol addresses for a good while. It seems to be getting worse. I apologize. But they do need to fix their service. When I re-mail I do it exactly the way I did when it didn’t go through and most of the time it goes through the second go round..

Our text says, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”

Peter pens this verse in the context of suffering for Christ sake. He had just said in verse 14 “But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;” The words “suffer for righteousness sake” is equivalent to suffering for Christ sake. When a man is truly righteous, it is a fruit of the Spirit. It is the result of Christ operating in that man’s life. A godly life will make unsaved people uncomfortable. Why is this? It is the mystery of godliness and the mystery of iniquity. There is a struggle going on today and we are in the midst of it.

The words “happy are ye” (makarios) mean “blessed.” This is the same word that is used in the beatitudes.. The reason for this is that when one is persecuted for righteousness sake it is simply a testimony that there is a true difference in our lives as a result of becoming a Christian. God is at work in our lives and it is doing the job in this world that God wants it to. Jesus said, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid (Matt. 5:14). When Christ is shining through our lives, it gives those in darkness what I call “sun grins.” They have to squinch their eyes. Godliness actually hurts the man who lives in darkness. And he will do something to dim the lights if he can! But we must not let that happen. We do not want to furnish dimmer switches for the light we bear.

The words “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts” tell us the way to deal with the suffering mention in verse 14. The word “sanctify” (hagiazo) means “to make holy, to purify.” It is an aorist active indicative verb. First, lets look at what Job said in Job 14:4 “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.” Only God can give a new heart; Eze. 11:19 “And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:” This place God is telling us to “sanctify” is called the “heart.” I want to call this “heart” that Peter is speaking about here the staging area of what we do in life. We must keep the things off that stage that interfere with the work of God in our lives. The voice of this verb is active which means that we have the responsibility of making the decision to do this. It is the aorist tense which means we need to make a once for all decision to do this. Now when you make this once for all decision, that is not saying that Satan will not continue to challenge that decision. So there will be a continual struggle to maintain the ground you have claimed. He may leave you alone for a while and wait for some circumstance to arise that will give him an opportunity to tempt you once more to give up and break your fellowship with the Lord. Satan is always patiently waiting for the opportunity to attack the Christian.

The words “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts” is also imperative mood.. This means it is a command. The command aspect of this is important. John says in First John 5:3 “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” The word “grievous” (barus) means “heavy in weight.” I used to know a woman who would hear something she didn’t want to hear and her response was, “that makes me tired.” John is saying that what Jesus tells us to do does not weigh us down, it is not a grievous burden to bear. It is a joy to obey our Lord and Saviour. Now this would not be true of an unsaved man in the church. It would not even be true of a carnal Christian. But a person who is walking in the light (1:7) is never burdened when Jesus tells him what he wants him to do.

The imperative mood is not only a command but it also expresses urgency. It is urgent that we keep the staging area of our lives holy so that God has our immediate availability when he wants to speak or direct. Many things happen in our lives that do not give us time to “get right with God” so that we are in a position to pray or to obey God in some area.

Another thing to “sanctify the Lord God in our hearts” means to sanctify the place of his operation. This is just another way of saying what I have already been talking about. It also means to put him in charge. Who is in charge of our heart? Is the Lord God the director and the one who says what comes into the staging area of our lives? If he is in charge, there are many things he will not allow to stay in that staging area. It may be programs that we watch on TV. It may be foolish conversations. It may be any number of things that we do that are not beneficial to our Christian lives and are actually a hindrance. I believe it was Dr. Bob Jones who said, “The greatest ability is availability.” We need to be available. And if we put him in charge of our hearts, many of the things that we struggle with will be taken care of.

The words “and be ready always to give and answer to every man that asketh a reason for the hope that is in you” are the Lord’s instruction to us. Are we ready to give that answer? We need to be able to give a studied answer. Remember. Our testimony is important. But it needs to be a testimony that is filled with the Word of God. The Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit. Heb. 4:12 says, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The answer we are to give should be from the Word of God.

Another important thing about this verse is expressed in the words “that asketh you a reason..” God uses the Christian’s life to create an opportunity to witness. You never know who is watching the suffering and patience of the Christian. Millions of Christians died during the dark ages for their faith in Christ. And the amazing thing is that many of those who participated in their martyrdom were converted to Christ by hearing their testimony as they watched them die.

The words “with meekness and fear” tell how this is to be done. It is not with “resentment and anger.” That is the way the flesh responds to unfair treatment. But the Holy Spirit will enable us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us and despitefully use us.

May the Lord give each of us wisdom to apply this teaching to our lives.

In Christ

Bro. White