A Reason for Our Hope

May 12, 1996
1 Peter 3: 13-22
John 14:15-22

1 Peter 3:15

The word I have been getting this Easter season has been fresh and new to me. It is two-part; (1) first, you and I are privileged to share in Christ's resurrection life. (2) Second, we are called to be people of hope, to tell this world that God is good, and that He loves them.

(I recall last week's text, 1 Peter 2:9. "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, God's own people— that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.")

Today, here it is again— Peter says "Be always ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you."

I. TELLING PEOPLE GOD IS GOOD

There is no question that God's people are supposed to tell the world that God is good. The code-word in the church is "witnessing." All my life I've been told I need to "witness." And usually I feel vaguely guilty about it because I know i don't do it very well. Right here I want to tell you I am not going to put guilt on you if you are not high pressuring people about spiritual things. But how do we tell others that God is good? Peter gives some clear directives for telling people about our hope. He says

Sanctify the Lord God in your heart. Make certain that Jesus is Lord.
Be ready where people are. Be prepared. If someone asked you who Jesus is to you, are you prepared to tell him or her?
Do it with extreme gentleness and courtesy, respect for the person to whom you are speaking. We will not win people to Jesus without the spirit of Jesus.

Our spirit must be congruent with the love of God. (Yes, Jesus got angry at times— but those people he drove OUT of the temple, not IN!)

Illustration: Verne Ward, missionary to Papua New Guinea, who was here with his wife Natalie a few years ago for "Say Yes!" worked for several years in some of the most primitive culture on earth. Every bush, rock, tree has "spirits" and the people were rules by what we would call "witch doctors."

One day Verne saw a witch doctor talking with one of his Christian people and it made him angry. He came up and bid the man be off in no uncertain tones. He was protecting his little flock. But then as he walked away along the trail it seemed that God spoke to him about the way he had spoken to the witch doctor.

Verne made his way back along the trail until he located the man. According to the custom of that culture, which Verne had learned, Verne sat down on the ground silently and waited for the man to recognize his presence. When finally the man spoke, Verne asked him, asked the witch doctor to forgive him for being rude. He made it clear that the God he served was not unkind, and that he loves everyone.

Then he went on his way.

The story of that witch doctor's conversion is too long to tell here. God spoke clearly to him, almost like he did to Saul of Tarsus on the Road to Damascus. But it began with simple gentleness and courtesy, and the humanness of an American missionary who was big enough to ask a New Guinea Witch doctor for pardon.

Our spirit must be in harmony with the words we speak. We cannot tell people about a God who loves them when we don't love them. We can't simply throw money at the world's problems. We can't simply buy the latest games and clothes for our children, and leave them for the television to educate and call that giving a reason for the hope that lies in us.

We cannot really LOVE by 'remote control.' We say our love with words— and that is important But we really say our love with our spirit— with our time and with our presence.

Illustration: There is an old country tear-jerker ballad called Roses for Mama that tells the story of a going into the florist to order flowers sent to his mother for Mother's Day— he is going elsewhere. A little boy comes in with just a little money to buy for his mother. I think the first man helps the little boy buy a few more flowers, but anyway the next verse takes our flower order-er past the cemetery where he see the boy laying flowers on his mother's grave— Whereupon he turns around and goes back to the florist— asks if the flowers have been delivered yet— and then delivers them himself.

Our spirits must say the same things that our words say. We may not even be able to say the absolutely correct thing— but if we care, and if we are there— God will help us get the word of HOPE where it belongs.

Peter's word is not the final one on this matter. Jesus himself says, "If you love me you will love each other, as I have commanded you." He tells us that if we will love him and love each other we will never be alone.

II. TELLING PEOPLE GOD IS GOOD ACTUALLY BRINGS GOD NEAR

It may have been my fault, the way I heard it. But I thought that witnessing was trying to persuade hostile people to become something they didn't really want to become. All Jesus asks us to do is to love Him, and love people, and then let them know we care and God cares. This is saying, "GOD IS GOOD!"

Illustration: The great Russian Count Leo Tolstoy wrote a short story called "Where Love Is, There is God," that actually is a beautiful picture of what Jesus was telling us when he said "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." It told of a humble cobbler, a shoemaker, named Martin Avdeich, a widower who worked in a basement shop that had but one window at street level. From that lowly position Martin could only see the boots of people passing by in the street outside his shop. After the loss of his wife and the tragic death of his only son, he became despondent and hopeless. He wished to die.

"How shall we live for God?" he asked a visiting countryman who had just returned from a eight years of pilgrimage. The old holy man reminded him "Christ has shown us how to live for God. Do you know how to read? If so, buy yourself a Gospel and read it, and you will learn from it how to live for God. It tells all about it."

So after the man departed, Martin did what he had been instructed to do: he began to study scripture. His heart was lifted. His life began to change. He was happy simply in the seeking. But one night as he was reading late into the night he put his head down on the table and not knowing if he was asleep or awake he heard a voice which he believed to be that of Christ: "Tomorrow I will come to the street!" And so, expecting a miraculous appearance, he began the next day to look for a visit from Jesus.

As he waited, expecting a knock at his door, he attended to the needs of those passing by his window an old man who had come to shovel the snow from his sidewalk whom he invited in for hot tea; a poor woman with her infant child, whom he fed and offered his cloak; and, finally, a young boy caught in the act of theft, whom he spared from a beating reconciled with his intended victim.

Finally, the cobbler realized that the day had drawn to a close, and he searched his mind to interpret the voice he had heard and make sense of the absence of his promised visitor. In the growing darkness, he heard a voice calling to him: "Martin, oh Martin, have you not recognized me?" One by one, those whom he had helped during the day appeared to him in a dream. After the last of them departed, he opened his Bible and his eyes fell upon the text from Matthew twenty five: "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of these, the least of mine, my brothers, you have done it done it unto me."

Tolstoy concludes: "And Martin Avdeich understood that his dream come true, that the Savior had really come to him on that day, and that he had received Him."

We think "To know Christ is to love Him." We think "If Jesus makes himself known to me then i will surely give him all my love." But the fact is we will see Jesus when we love Him; we will come to know Christ when we learn to serve one another in love. To love him is to know him.

III. TELLING PEOPLE 'GOD IS GOOD' IS REDEMPTIVE

(Finally) When we incarnate love to others— when we express to them the fact that God cares and we do, too— we may do more than save a soul— we may redeem a life. Every one of us has had a teacher or a Sunday School teacher or a camp counsellor along the way that has made a lasting impression on us. Sometimes that impression may be negative. Sometimes that word of hope goes far beyond what that person dreams of.

Illustration:

Bertha Munro prayed for me. (Hector Hawkins was mean to me!)

Charlie and Gladys Caldwell sponsored junior high kids years and years ago. Many of them are old enough to have their own kids in junior high now and more. But they still remember the love they got at church from their junior high sponsors!

R. C. Sproul is one of the leading evangelical Presbyterian theologian-writers. I have heard him tell in person about what it was that first gave him courage to become a scholar. A second grade teacher pinned one of his papers on the bulletin board at school and said, "R. C, you can write!"

Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts— and then gently, and with great respect— this week be ready to tell people that God is good. If we get ready to tell them, we'll certainly have a chance to say it: "GOD IS GOOD!" And if we have a chance, and if we tell them— who knows !!!

Prayer -

Hymn - (Prayer Chorus, actually) Open Our Eyes #459