PASTOR'S MESSAGE

 

God's Pledge To Us

1 Peter 3:15-22 

            A mother and her daughter, who were slightly overweight, decided to go on a diet together.  They figured that working on it simultaneously would make it easier for them both.  That night, the mother called her daughter with good news.  She had been to K-Mart that day and gotten two cartons of vanilla diet drink mix, for the price of one.  Her daughter was a little surprised.  “That’s wonderful, mom,” she said.  “But I thought you hated vanilla.”  “I do,” replied her mother.  “But I just add chocolate syrup to it and it tastes great!”

            Now that’s my idea of dieting!  But you know, I have a sneaking suspicion that that woman’s approach to dieting, is similar to many believers’ approach to temptation.  Instead of avoiding temptation altogether, we give the appearance of avoiding, while at the same time secretly indulging in hidden sins.  Maybe it’s a lustful or unkind thought we don’t express but still dwell on.   Perhaps it’s a selfish or arrogant attitude that we don’t let on about.  It might even be a sinful action that we do in private, so that no one is any the wiser.  But whatever it is, we all have our struggles with temptation.

            St. Peter addressed that same issue in our text for today.  In verse 15 he reminds us:  “BUT IN YOUR HEARTS SET APART CHRIST AS LORD.”  In simple language that means we should let Jesus be the only Lord and Master of our lives.   He should have control of our every thought, word and deed.  In other words, everything we think, say and do as Christians should be above reproach.  For that is how we make a good witness to the world.  In all our speaking and acting we should spread God’s Word, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And Peter says we should do it with gentleness and respect. It’s interesting to note that the Greek word gentleness, is actually the word for a tame animal.  The idea is, that we need to tame the beast of sin within us.  And as Peter points out, the reason that is so important, is because then we will have a clear conscience, so that the unbelieving world cannot slander our Christian faith.

            But can you and I actually say that we do that?  Do we have a clean conscience?  Or are there mean remarks and dirty deeds we’ve done that keep nagging us with guilt?  In short, do we always set apart Christ as Lord, with gentleness and respect?  If we face ourselves honestly, we all have to say that we don’t have a clean conscience.  Even if we could do everything right in our lives, we still would not be clean, because of our original sin.  The inborn sinful nature that stubbornly clings to us is what condemns us before God.  And that’s why our conscience constantly nags us.  It nags us not only with our guilt.  It also nags us with the threat of our punishment, which is hell.

            The French philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre, once wrote a play entitled No Exit.  The play is about two women named Estelle and Inez, and a man named Garcin, all of whom have just died.  After their death they find themselves in a nice, cozy living room with plush furniture and all the comforts of home.  Since everything is so wonderful, they all assume that they have died and gone to heaven.  But they soon realize that they’re wrong, that they’re actually in hell.  The thing that brings this to their attention is the fact that they are all experiencing rejection.  You see, each one of them likes someone else in the room.  But the person whom they like, hates and despises them.  And to make matters worse, there is no way to escape this rejection, because the room they’re in has no door.  There is no exit.  They are trapped.  Sartre’s point is that hell is a place of total rejection from which you cannot escape.

            Now although Jean Paul Sartre was by no means a Christian, still he gives us a very accurate picture of the Biblical viewpoint of hell.  According to the Bible, hell is rejection.  However, it’s not rejection by other people.  Rather, it’s rejection by God.  Hell is total separation from God and His love.  It’s the condition of being absolutely abandoned by the Lord.  In short, hell is that place where there is no mercy, no peace and NO EXIT!  And my friends, that is the punishment we all should receive for our dirty conscience.

            Thankfully, though, God has remedy for that.  A way to reassure us that He has removed our guilty coscience and given us a clean conscience so that we can escape the consequences of hell.  St. Peter spoke of it in our text, when he talked about Jesus’ descent into hell.  The descent into hell is the first step in Jesus’ State of Exaltation, the beginning of His victory march over Satan the forces of darkness.  In other words, it is one of the signs God have given us to prove that He has conquered our enemies. 

            Many people mistakenly think that Jesus went down into hell to suffer for us.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  Jesus had already suffered all the pangs of hell, when He hung on the cross.  And we know that, because before He died, He said:  “IT IS FINISHED!”  Meaning that all His suffering was done, our salvation was secured, and our debt of iniquity was paid in full. 

            Peter himself said the same thing in verse 18, when he declared:  “CHRIST DIED FOR SINS ONCE FOR ALL, THE RIGHTEOUS FOR THE UNRIGHTEOUS, TO BRING YOU TO GOD!”  Peter’s point is that what happened on the cross never needs to happen again, for in that one saving event sin was defeated forever.  On the cross God dealt with man’s sin in a way which is sufficient for all sin, for all men, for all time.  In order, as our text says, to bring us to God.  The word for that in Greek is prosagogeus.  It was the term for the court official, known as the Introducer, whose function was to determine who would be admitted into the King’s presence and who would be kept out.  In a word, he held the keys of access into the kingdom.  So it is with Jesus Christ.  By His saving death He has given you and me access into God’s heavenly kingdom.  Nothing more needs to be done.

            Therefore, Jesus’ descent into hell was not for the purpose of completing further suffering.  Rather, it was for the purpose of showing us that He has already done everything necessary to gain us access into God’s grace.  It is proof positive of His victory over sin, death and hell.  I tell my confirmands, it’s like what we would do if we were in a war with Russia.  If the United States won that war, where would we go to proclaim our victory?  Naturally, we would go to the middle of Red Square in Moscow, the headquarters of the enemy.  For if we could stand up in Red Square and proclaim our victory and they could do nothing to stop us, it would prove that we had really won.  So also Jesus went to the headquarters of the enemy, the very heart of hell, to prove to all the world that He has really won for us forgiveness, eternal life and salvation.

            And how do you know that that gift is personally yours?  Very simply, because of your faith in Christ, the gift of faith that was given you in your Baptism.  In our text, St. Peter tells us that our Baptism is one of the greatest gifts that God has given us.  For in Holy Baptism, God not only washes away all our sin and saves our soul, He also give us His pledge that we now have a clean conscience before Him.  In fact, the word pledge  in our text is the technical term for a business contract.  In Peter’s day and age, every business contract had a specific question and an answer which made the contract binding.  The question was:  “Do you accept the terms of this contract and bind yourself to observe them.”  And the answer had to be “Yes,” or the deal was no good. 

            My friends, that’s the thought Peter was getting at in our text when he said that Baptism is the pledge of a good conscience toward God.  In Baptism, it is God Himself who is making the pledge, promising that He will bind Himself to us in love, guaranteeing that He will not break His covenant of salvation with us.   And by faith in that promise of God you and I do now have a clean conscience.  We do have access into the King’s presence!

            The fable is told of a turtle who wanted to spend the winter in Florida, but he knew he could never walk that far.  He convinced a couple of geese to help him, each taking one end of a piece of rope, while he clamped his vise-like jaws in the center.  The flight went fine until someone on the ground looked up in admiration and asked, “Who in the world thought of that?”  Unable to resist the chance to take credit, the turtle opened his mouth to shout, “I did!”

            Dear friends, God help us not to be like that turtle, not to open our mouth to take credit for our life.  But rather to give praise to Jesus and witness His word to all the world.  For He is the One who not only thought up our plan of salvation, but also carried it out for us.  He hung on the cross and suffered the pangs of hell to save us, and leter descended into hell to prove that He had won.  There is no question about it.  We are saved, we are forgiven, we do have a clean conscience thanks to Jesus Christ.  May that Good News strengthen us to live our lives then to His glory as His faithful witnesses.  Amen.

           

                   

                              

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