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Great. Thank you very much. Hannah, can I add my welcome to Ben's? Lovely to see you. Lovely to be together tonight.

If you've got a bible there, keep it open in one. Peter, chapter three and four. It's quite a long passage that we've had. We're not going to have time to look at it all tonight, but we're going to just try and skate over it fairly quickly. But I'm going to point out some landmarks on the way, so be helpful to have that open if you could.

I don't know if you've been to a foreign country which is very different from this country, but the first time you visit a foreign country, there's often lots that seems strange to you as you try and make sense of it. And at the same time, when you go to another country, there's lots about you that seem strange to the people there in that country, and they're trying to make sense of you. I don't know if you've had that experience. I was only in Asia for a year, living in China for a year. But I would go down to the wet market, as it was called, underneath the apartment block where I lived, to go shopping.

And I don't know about you, but when I go and buy a chicken, I quite like my chicken to be at least dead and preferably wrapped in cling fill and frozen, not running around. So I would go shopping, and while I tried to make sense of the baskets of snakes and insects that were moving around, people would follow me and give a running commentary on the stuff that I was buying and why on earth was he buying this and not that I was a strange to them? Which was stranger, the foreign country I was in or the foreigner in their country? It depends, doesn't it, whose shoes you're standing in? Depends what your perspective is.

And, you know, when you become a Christian, there's lots about the world that suddenly looks strange.

You see things differently now from the way you used to see things, but there's lots about you that now appear strange to people who thought that they knew you.

Maybe friends at school, maybe it's people at work, they thought you knew you, and you occupy the same space, but suddenly you're a stranger. Your world's apart. So this evening we're working our way through one. Peter. It's a letter to christians, people who are, as Peter says, strangers in the world.

They don't fit in. The world is strange to them, and they're strange to the world. And Peter is writing to christians who live in what we would now call Turkey, roman provinces of Turkey. And he calls them strangers, foreigners and exiles in the world. They're scattered.

They're on the margins. It's very much a letter to us increasingly living as christians on the margins of society. They don't feel at home. It's hard for them to follow Jesus. They don't fit in.

So Peter writes to them, and he says in chapter two and verse twelve, he says, live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. And this letter, one, Peter, is a letter to us because we might not be persecuted like these christians in Turkey, like these first readers, but we are strangers, too. Just because we follow Jesus, we don't fit in. You don't need me to tell you that. You know the situations that you're going to face tomorrow and this week where you don't fit in with everybody else.

So look, four scenarios that Peter's going to give us tonight. He says, here's the first one. When you're faced with evil, repay it with blessing. Peter's going to tell us how to live such good lives among people who aren't christians, that they'll see our living for Jesus and they'll glorify God one day. And the first thing he says is, when you're faced with evil, repay it with blessing.

What's the greatest weapon that a hostile world has against christians? What's the most painful thing that we can face? I think it probably is words at the moment. At least I think it's words. So Peter focuses on them in verse nine, he says, do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult.

It's easy, isn't it, to repay insult with insult. But there's a line, even though when we do that, there's usually a line that we won't cross. When I was at school, I'm not proud to say I had a reputation for being able to give the put down line. When someone said something cruel to me, I could snap back with something even worse and put them down. Peter says, no, don't do that.

Don't repay evil with evil or insult with insult. See, there's a line that most of us won't cross in conversation. But what about change the context of, think of social media. Don't repay insult with insult or evil with evil. If you find yourself on social media, on whatever platform, it's very easy to repay insult with insult as quick as your fingers can type and you feel better straight away for a while.

Problem isn't social media. Social media only shows what's going on in our hearts. But we have a calling as christians. It says, repay evil with blessing. Because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

Jesus said, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. And he didn't just say it, but he actually did it himself when he was being crucified. Do you remember? He said, father, forgive them. He prayed for them.

When we repay insult with insult, we're not living good lives, lives that glorify Jesus. We actually are spiralling down into quite a dark place. When we repay insult with blessing, though, when we respond with kindness and love, we find ourselves being drawn along the path that leads to life and leads to our inheritance. To this, you were called that you may inherit a blessing. So just before we move on, I'm just going to stop and say, do you need to pray about that tonight?

Is there somebody here who needs to ask the Lord to help them, to pray for those who persecute you, pray for those who are giving you a hard time. Pray for those who are insulting you and praying that you would respond with blessing. I find in my own experience that when somebody is against me, if I pray for them and ask God to bless them, it has an amazing effect. It changes my heart. It melts that anger and that hostility.

It warms my heart to them. Maybe there's somebody tonight, somebody here, and you need to pray. You want to pray for somebody else? You want to come forward for prayer, minister at the end or pray with somebody you're sitting with. Look, if the Lord's speaking to you, let's pray about that tonight before we go into a new week.

There's the first one. When faced with evil, repay it with blessing. Here's the second. When faced with fear, set apart Christ as Lord. This is verses ten to 16.

He says, when faced with fear, set apart Christ as Lord. Fear makes you lose perspective, doesn't it? Do you remember Covid? Do you remember Covid? And how we all lost perspective for a while?

Well, many of us did anyway. I think a lot of people, we lost perspective. We were very frightened. Some people thought that there was nothing going on. All.

And it was all a great conspiracy. But some people thought this was it. The world is going to end. We're all going to die. And in the flat block of flats where we lived in London.

I remember a couple who lived above us. We were walking down the high street. One day. And there they were in full biological warfare. Gas masks with their waitrose bags.

I mean, they really thought, this is it. They remember them saying, the world will never, never return to normal again. This is it. Well, fear can do that to you. Fear can make you lose perspective.

And we don't have time to look at all these verses, but we'll skip on to verse 14. And verse 14 is all about how to keep perspective. And Peter's talking specifically not about general fears, but about when people are against you because you follow Jesus. And in verse 14, he says, do not fear their threats. Do not be frightened.

He's quoting from the Old Testament, from Isaiah. Isaiah, chapter eight. And whenever the New Testament quotes from the Old Testament, it's always good to look it up and find the context. And the context in Isaiah, chapter eight is that the Old Testament Church of Judah, we might call it the old God's people, were being threatened by another nation, by the Assyrians. And Judah thought they were going to be invaded and they were terrified and they lost perspective.

Now, we're not facing anything like that, but being the only Christian in your class, or maybe at work, that can be intimidating. Maybe there's someone who makes your life difficult and at every opportunity has a go at you. Well, in Isaiah eight, God's people have given into their fears. And the Lord says to Isaiah, the prophet, and I think this is a great memory verse. I learned this during COVID actually, this memory verse, but here it is, Isaiah 812 to 14, do not call conspiracy.

Everything these people call conspiracy. The Lord says to Isaiah, do not fear what they fear. Do not dread it. The Lord almighty is the one you are to regard as holy. He is the one you are to fear.

He is the one you are to dread. And he will be to you a safe place. Isn't that good? See what the Lord is saying? Fear the right thing.

Don't feel what everybody else is fearing. Fear me. Fear the Lord. Now, that might not sound like good news. Fearing God, that's a good thing.

That's something we should do and be happy about. I love this book. I don't know if anybody has read it. The joy of fearing God. Ridiculous title, you might think.

The joy of fearing God by Jerry bridges. I really recommend it. And he says that fearing God is not about being terrified of God, being frightened of his judgement, that he's going to whack us for our sin, that he could fly off the handle at any moment. It's about loving him and trusting him and honouring him properly. Because he's God, we're his creatures, because he's our father and we're his children.

That's what it is to fear the Lord, to honour and respect and love him. And John Bunyan, who wrote pilgrim's progress, he said, godly fear comes from. And I wonder how you'd end that sentence. Godly fear comes from, he says, a sense of the love and kindness of God to us. So to fear the Lord is to love and to trust him.

And the book of proverbs says, if you want to be wise, if you want to live wisely, begin by fearing the Lord. So Peter says, the way to live without fear in life of any kind is to fear the Lord is to love and trust him, respect him.

And you probably know this, generally, more people become christians in the world. The church grows generally when it's being persecuted. That's the story of history. It's true in the roman empire, when Peter wrote, it's been true in China in the last decades, it was true in the Soviet Union, it's true in many parts of the Middle east. The church is growing.

One of the countries where the church is growing fastest of all today is Afghanistan. Church grows where it's being persecuted. And perhaps one of the reasons is that the unbelievers around see the christians suffering and they think, how do you do it? How can you keep going? So Peter tells us, be prepared.

Be prepared in your hearts. 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. When people look at you and they see that you're not giving into fear, they're going to be curious. So be prepared to explain why that is.

It's actually true, not just in terms of persecution and fear of that, but in fear generally, that we might face in life of all kinds of bad situations, that if we're trusting the Lord, we don't need to be afraid. And that raises questions for other people. I know one christian man, when he was in hospital facing an operation for cancer, they came to prepare him for his operation, came to get him ready and take him out. He wasn't in his bed because he was visiting all the other beds in the ward, praying with the other patients who were about to have the same operation set apart Christ as Lord. Fear the Lord, and you will then have nothing else to fear.

As the hymn says, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason. I wonder, are you prepared to give a reason to explain to somebody else why you're not afraid, why you follow Jesus, what he's done for.

Often, sometimes it's after the conversation that's finished, isn't it, that we think, oh, I wish I'd said that. It's afterwards we think of all the answers we could have given. Well, Peter said, don't be like that. Be prepared. Here's the challenge.

If you haven't done it before, get a bit of paper, get your phone and write out or type out your christian story. How did you become a Christian? Maybe if you've always been a Christian, what difference does it make to you? Day by day following Jesus, can you think of some experiences he's brought you through? You can testify to his faithfulness.

Be prepared. So when that opportunity comes and we've practised our answers, and it's not that we just trot them all out like on rote, but we don't have to flounder because we thought it through, we're prepared.

There we go. Faced with evil, Peter says, repay it with blessing. Faced with fear, set apart Christ as Lord. Here's our third. Faced with injustice, remember who you belong to.

This is verses 17 to 22. Chapter three, verses 17 to 22. Faced with injustice, remember who you belong to. Do you remember who Peter's writing to? He's writing to strangers, people who don't fit in because they're christians.

He's saying, if you are treated unfairly, if you don't get the justice you deserve because you're following me, keep living for Jesus and remember who you belong to. Have a look down at verse 16, chapter three, verse 16. Peter says, keep a clear conscience so that those who speak maliciously against your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. For it's better if it's 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.

He was put to death in the body, but made alive by the spirit. Now, we can't spend a lot of time here, but verses 19 and 20, I think, are honestly some of the hardest verses in the New Testament, maybe in the whole Bible.

Peter is deeply concerned about our present experience of evil in this world and how to live in the light of it. And in verse 19, he talks about some spirits. And these spirits, if you have a look down on it in verse 19, these are fallen beings who, although they're from the heavenly realms, the unseen realms, they chose to wreak havoc in this world. In almost unspeakable ways. And you can find out what happened in Genesis chapter six.

We're not going to. Haven't got time to look at it now. But it was something so depraved that it's never been repeated. And it happened in the days of Noah, just before the flood came in Genesis chapter six. And Peter's saying, they are now a defeated evil.

Jesus went and made a proclamation against them. He proclaimed his victory. Have a look down at verse 18. He says Jesus was put to death in the body on the cross, but made alive by the spirit in the spirit. Verse 19.

After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits, to those who were disobedient long ago in the time of Noah. Now, some people have thought that this is referring to a time when maybe Jesus had died on the cross and before he went to heaven, before he was resurrected, he did a sort of lap of honour. He went down to Hades, he went down to the realm of the dead and proclaimed his victory. And then he was resurrected and went up to heaven. And they would say, well, in the creed, we say he descended to the dead.

But just look at the order in which Peter says things happened. In verse 18, Peter says, jesus died, put to death in the body, he was raised to life, so the resurrection. And then he went and made proclamation. So where did he go? How did he declare he had defeated evil?

And what does it mean he descended to the dead? Well, he descends to the dead simply means he died. But where did he go? And how did he declare his defeat of evil? Well, the verb is picked up in verse 22.

At the end of the chapter he went. It's the same verb. He went into heaven and is seated at God's right hand with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him. He died, he rose again, he ascended above all spiritual powers. All powers and authorities.

He declared his victory by being over them all. Now, why does Peter tell us all that? What's the encouragement for suffering? Christians, we need to dive a little bit deeper. I'm afraid we're just going to dive deep once more and then we're going to come up for air.

But this, I hope, will explain it all. So if you're ready. Verse 20. It takes us back to Noah. Noah and the ark.

Noah suffered for doing good. The whole world rejected Noah. The Bible calls him a preacher of righteousness. But for a hundred years he built this ark under a clear blue sky and everybody thought he was nuts. Nobody listened to him.

For 100 years. He was warning people of the judgement, that judgement was coming. There was going to be a flood. Nobody listened. He was very much on the margins and on the edges, he was a stranger.

But anybody who wanted to be saved, all they had to do was go into the ark. That was the safe place from God's judgement. They just had to join God's people there. And Peter says that that water, the waters of the flood, symbolise the baptism that saves us. Because baptism is about being joined to Jesus, united to him.

Jesus is the safe place to be when judgement Day comes. He's the only place of safety on the day of judgement. So verse 21, Peter says that the power of baptism is not the water. It's not the water that it's important, that just points, that signifies something else. It points to the resurrection of Jesus, who's gone into heaven, who's above all these spiritual powers.

And if we're baptised, if we trust in Jesus, if we united to Jesus, and that's symbolised in our water baptism, then we are up there with him, in a sense, in heaven, above everything and everyone that is opposed to us. If you're a Christian, if you're united to Jesus by faith, then you are kept safe and secure. And even though everybody can be against you, ultimately nothing really can touch you. Peter is saying, because Jesus has defeated all his enemies and he rules the universe from top to bottom, nothing can change it.

So remember who you belong to. Faced with evil, repair it with blessing. Faced with fear, set apart Christ as Lord. Face with injustice, remember who you belong to. And here's our last one bit more briefly.

Faced with tomorrow, live it for God. Let's cash it all in. Faced with tomorrow, live it for God. I was reading an interview in a newspaper recently with somebody who used to be a vicar down in Hove, not so far away. And he was asked this question.

What lesson have you learned in your christian life that you wish you could pass on to a younger version of yourself? And I loved his answer. He said that he would tell his younger self, today is a great day to serve the Lord. Let today be my best day for him yet. I love that.

Isn't that good? I've been saying that to myself each morning as I've been getting up. Today is a great day to serve the Lord. Let today be your best day for him yet. That's what Peter's saying.

Face with it, live for him. Now you're united to Jesus. Peter says, you've got a new life. The old you died on the cross. You've been raised to new life.

You have the holy spirit living within you and life looks different. And you're a stranger in this world now, for sure. But now live for him. Live for the one you belong to. And friends at school in verse 4 may think that you're strange for not joining in with everything else they do.

Verse four. Unbelievers are surprised that you don't join in with them. That's what it says. And they heap abuse on you. Well, we know what that feels like.

But now you're a Christian. Peter says you're united to Jesus and you don't want to do those things anymore. Live for him. And you know something else? Verse five.

You know there's going to be a day of reckoning. And when there's a day of reckoning, and we know this in our everyday lives, when there's a day of reckoning, it changes what you do in the present, doesn't it? If you've got exams coming, that changes how you spend your time. Those of you who ran the half marathon last week, where there's a day of reckoning coming, you put in the miles, on the pavement, you run, you train. Because there's going to be an assessment, there's going to be a judgement, there's going to be a test.

Peter says there is a day of reckoning coming. There is a great assessment of our lives, there is a great upheaval. Jesus is coming again. And that means that even if other people judge you now, the most important thing is what God's judgement is going to be, then that actually is the only reckoning that really counts in eternity, his judgement. So face with tomorrow, live it for God.

Make it the best day yet to live for him. And if it all goes wrong, we'll do it again the next day. Today's going to be the best day for Jesus. Today's going to be the greatest day. And I'm going to live for him today.

And we'll do that one day at a time, day after day after day, for the rest of our lives.

So when you live in a foreign country, when you're a stranger, there's a lot about that country that seems strange to you, and there's a lot about you that seems strange to everybody else. And it's the same when you're a Christian. Today, in our culture, we are being driven to the margins more and more. And there are many places where christians have always been on the margins. But you know what?

On the margins is the place where the church does best. Throughout history, on the margins is where the church has grown the most. Where people have been forced to fear the Lord, to depend on him and live for him. Where other people have seen how we've lived and they've thought, how can you live like that? And then they've shared the gospel with them and they've become christians.

And the kingdom of God has grown. On the margins is where living as a Christian shines the brightest. So let's not be afraid face with evil, repay it with blessing faced with fear, set apart Christ as Lord. Fear him faced with injustice, remember who you belong to there above all things. Faced with tomorrow, let's live it for God.

Should we pray? Let me invite the band to come up and be ready to lead us in our next song. And I'll pray as they do. That's heavenly Father. We are here at the start of a new week as a church family and we want to pray for, not only for ourselves, but, Lord, for those around us, those sitting next to us, those in front of us, behind us, on either side of us.

Lord, we want to live for you tomorrow. We want tomorrow to be the best day. And, Lord, as we look back on the past, we think of all the things we've done wrong and all the failures and mistakes we've made, all the sins we've committed. We put those behind us. We want to live for you this week.

And we know that we're strangers in this world. And we know that people think we're od. We know that we're being pushed to the margins. But, Lord, we are your people. Help us to fear you and love you, and honour you, and look forward to the day when you come again and turn this world the right way up.

So, Lord, we ask these things in the name of our saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.