In Meekness and Fear
By Michael Klikas
01 October 2006
Adult Education Hour
1 Peter 3:15
Although I didn’t teach Sunday School last week, we had a great class that went along with our study in apologetics. But because I don’t have Brother Jones’ notes and power point presentation I will have to pick up where I left off two weeks ago. So just to help us remember what we cover two weeks ago, let’s have a short recap of the last we met. As we went over the previous weeks study we stated that we need to be praying as we make a verbal defense and gave the example Nehemiah and how he prayed while talking to the king. Then we moved into the personal realm of apologetics and preparedness. We did that by saying this: Being ready means that you could be called on at any moment to give a defense for the truth, you and not the person next to you may be called on to defend the truth.
We then followed that up with this statement: If you are not ready to fight your own sin first then you will never be ready to fight for the truth that is contained in the word of God because truth will mean little or nothing to you! We talked a lot about the word ready and just what it means. The three definitions that we covered were to be ready, opportune, and to do something. We said that “There are so many opportunities each day that we pass by because we are looking for that perfect opportunity.” How come meals do not have to be perfect for us to be ready to eat? How come the work place doesn’t have to be perfect for us to be ready to go to work? How come the bed doesn’t have to be perfect for us to go to sleep? All we are doing is making an excuse on why we will not obey. What a shame that we use these excuses on why we will not enter into apologetical debate for the defense of the Scriptures if the “Situation” isn’t perfect but anything else that doesn’t involve us sharing our faith is okay even if it’s not perfect.
Then we looked at the word always which goes hand in hand with ready. Always, we said, means perpetually or incessantly. That means there should never be a time where we are not ready to give an answer to every man. Always means that our feelings have nothing to do with defending the truth because there should never be a time when we are not ready to defend the truth from the word of God. But we must remember that we are called to defend the truth and not to be someone’s Holy Spirit. We also said that as apologist there is something that you must do. You must open your mouth and let words come out. Apologetics is not just a defense but a verbal defense.
Then we talked about identifying our audience. In order to know how to give a verbal defense you must first identify your audience or to whom it is that you will speaking to in defense of the truth. This doesn’t mean that the truth changes from audience to audience but rather knowing what type of defense you are going to have begin with in order to point that person or group of people to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let pickup where we left off. I can’t guarantee that we will finish this first part in 1 Peter chapter three in the nest two weeks but we are going to try. We are now going to look at why we have hope and why we should defend this hope.
The word hope has to do with expecting something. The reason why so many religious people have no hope is because they do not expect anything because God is in some far off place that doesn’t seem real to them. And if God is far off then so is his word and everything about him. But before we can look at the word hope we have to look at the reason that we have hope.
This word reason is an interesting word and it actually set me back on my heals when I looked at what it was in the Greek. The word reason in Greek is the same word for word.
ëïãïò Strongs No: 3056
Transliterated: logos; Pronounced: log'-os
1. of speech
a. a word, uttered by a living voice, embodies a conception or idea
b. what someone has said
1. a word
2. the sayings of God
3. decree, mandate or order
4. of the moral precepts given by God
5. Old Testament prophecy given by the prophets
6. what is declared, a thought, declaration, aphorism, a weighty saying, a dictum, a maxim
c. discourse
1. the act of speaking, speech
2. the faculty of speech, skill and practice in speaking
3. a kind or style of speaking
4. a continuous speaking discourse-instruction
d. doctrine, teaching
e. anything reported in speech; a narration, narrative
f. matter under discussion, thing spoken of, affair, a matter in dispute, case, suit at law
g. the thing spoken of or talked about; event, deed
2. its use as respect to the MIND alone
a. reason, the mental faculty of thinking, meditating, reasoning, calculating
b. account, i.e. regard, consideration
c. account, i.e. reckoning, score
d. account, i.e. answer or explanation in reference to judgment
e. relation, i.e. with whom as judge we stand in relation
1. reason would
f. reason, cause, ground
3. In John, denotes the essential Word of God, Jesus Christ, the personal wisdom and power in union with God, his minister in creation and government of the universe, the cause of all the world's life both physical and ethical, which for the procurement of man's salvation put on human nature in the person of Jesus the Messiah, the second person in the Godhead, and shone forth conspicuously from His words and deeds.
++++
This term was familiar to the Jews and in their writings long before a Greek philosopher named Heraclitus used the term Logos around 600 B.C. to designate the divine reason or plan which coordinates a changing universe. This word was well suited to John's purpose in John 1
This makes perfect sense when you sit down and think about it because what other reason could we have hope for anything then to have hope in the Lord Jesus Christ? He is the reason we are alive and he is the reason that we have hope. If we fail to point people to the reason they need to repent and fail to point people to the reason that they too can have hope, then we have done nothing more then point them to a false gospel that offers no hope.
Galatians 1:6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
Galatians 1:7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
Galatians 1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
Galatians 1:9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
Galatians 1:10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
Life is hard enough to live as a Christian but as a lost person life is even harder, in fact it is actually impossible if it were not for God’s grace given to the sinner. We know that chapter three of 1 Peter deals with trials and the many things that can and will happen to us as Christians so why would we not want to tell others that they can not only be forgiven for offending God with their sin but that as a result of the Lord saving them they can also endure the hardships and trials of life. The reason we have hope is not because God has promised us a great life but because he has promised that he will be glorified in the trials that we go through. If you truly love the Lord then you will not only want him to be glorified in every part of your life, including the trials, but you will look to make sure that your life glorifies the Lord even in the hardest of times.
So if we offer up as defense another gospel we should tremble at the thought that we will be accursed. That is what Paul said. He said that if we preach any other gospel we should be accursed. The same principle is true if we try to offer anyone hope outside the word of God. Let him be accursed that tries to offer hope to someone and gives a reason of their hope aside from the word of God. When you try to offer hope, and your reason for hope to someone is outside the word of God, then you have offered them a false sense of security that will fail. But when you tell them in a gospel presentation of their condition as result of their sin and then point them to Christ, then you have given true hope. The reason we have hope is because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us and we need to tell others who are either lost or are struggling in their faith. We can only offer hope from the word of God. And what is the definition of hope.
The Greek for hope is this:
åëðéò Strongs No: 1680
Transliterated: elpis; Pronounced: el-pece'
1. expectation of evil, fear
2. expectation of good, hope
a. in the Christian sense
1. joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation
3. on hope, in hope, having hope
a. the author of hope, or he who is its foundation
b. the thing hoped for
Notice the difference between this definition of hope and what the world considers hope to be. It is an expectation of evil or good. Now there is no evil in the Lord, but there is righteousness and judgment in the Lord and if you are living a life that is filled with sin you can expect that God will get your attention. The reason that God will get your attention is because you are to tell everyone that asks of you the reason that you have hope in this life. If you are living a life that isn’t pleasing to the Lord you are not going to be concerned about telling others of the immanent danger that they are facing at every moment. This definition also has to do with joyful confidence. If you are living in the flesh your confidence will be in the flesh and you will be anything but joyful. When we try to do things that we believe are spiritual and they do not work out we will try and figure out every reason why it didn’t work yet we will never consider that we were doing those things in the strength of the flesh. The flesh fails and there is no strength in it, yet we depend on it all too often.
Now think about this. You are in the midst of some very difficult trials and then it happens. A person who is not saved knows that you are going through these difficult times and yet they also know that you are always happy and cheerful and say something to the effect of, “I just don’t get why you are always so happy. If I had to go through what you are going through I don’t think I could be as happy as you are. Why are you so happy? What is it that helps you stay so happy despite what is happening?” You now have an open invitation to share the gospel with this person and let them see first hand the reason that you have hope.
Another passage of scripture that comes to mind is in Jeremiah 17.
Turn to Jeremiah 17:5 – 8.
Jeremiah 17:5 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
Jeremiah 17:6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
Jeremiah 17:7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
Jeremiah 17:8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
Despite what is happening in your life, you can trust in the Lord and see the Lord working in your life. This means that even during the hardest of trials you can defend why you believe what you believe and share your faith with others because it is not the flesh that has to do this but the Spirit that will. One of the reasons that we fail to defend what we believe or defend the word of God is that we try to do this in the flesh and we do not understand that the flesh is incapable of defending anything spiritual.
So the question that I have to ask to both you and me is what type of hope have we given to those who are lost or to those who saved but struggling? Have we given them the hope of flesh that really is no hope, but it’s all that we have because that is where we are living our life? Or have we given them true hope that only comes from the Lord by giving them the truth of the scriptures and if necessary confronting them about their sin?
Then the last thing that have to look at in 1 Peter 3:15 is how we present the hope that we have to those who ask us the reason. This is an important part of this verse because even though we may say the right things, if we say it in the wrong way then have sinned because God has told us specifically how we should present this hope to others. There are two ways in which we must present our defense of the truth and that is in meekness and in fear. Now why is it so important that we defend the truth in meekness in and in fear? I don’t know about you but when I think about defending someone or something I think about going at it with everything I have and showing no mercy. In the military we are taught to do everything necessary to defend the country. In martial arts I was taught to fight with everything I had and show no mercy. Men especially are aggressive by nature. Ask a man to sit down at a television and chose between a show that teaches how to knit and sew or a football game. I wonder which TV program he will choose? Why do men shake hands with such a tight strong grip? Meekness and fear are not unknown to us. Now I am speaking to men for the most part because we love nothing better then a good argument. Too many times we want to prove the other person wrong and direct them to the truth of the gospel by stuffing it down their throat. We get a kick out of winning an argument, and we dare not show humility because that’s a sign of weakness. However, I found that women like to argue too and they also like to win an argument. Do you know why that is? Because women have the same problem that men do and that problem is known as pride. No one likes to admit that they are wrong, and no one likes to lose, especially when they think they are right! We can’t appear vulnerable to someone and that is what we think being full of meekness and fear will do. What we have to remember is that it’s not about winning or losing, but about presenting the truth and letting the Holy Spirit do his work.
The problem that we run into is that we think we have to be strong, and proud not wimps or pushovers, especially us men. If we have anything less then that macho image then what will others think of us? That’s the problem right there and that is why we do not have that meek and fearful spirit because we are too worried about what others will think about us, and we certainly can’t admit defeat. How come we are not as concerned about what the Lord thinks about us as we are about what men think about us? How come we think that we have to convince men everywhere to be saved when we have no power to save? If I had that type of power no one in my family, that I loved, would perish. But thank the Lord that none of us have that kind of power. All power is given to the Lord and because of that, only he can save. What we are required to do is not argue with others but defend the truth in a way that pleases the Lord. That way is by being meek and fearful because we know the terror of the Lord. Now that is just one reason that we need to defend the truth with meekness and fear. Another reason which if any of you have relatives that are not saved, can relate to this and that is frustration.
Have you ever given a family member the gospel or talked with a family member who believed something that wasn’t biblical and tried to show them the truth from the word of God and they just didn’t get it? So you try to come at them at a different angle so they can finally see the truth. No matter what you say they just don’t get it. Meekness and fear start to leave as frustration sets in. The more the frustration grows the less meek and fearful you become. Now it gets to the point where you have gone from defending the truth to arguing with the family member. I would get so frustrated with my mom because she would say that you can’t know that you are saved because that’s usurping the authority of God. That is what’s taught in the Catholic Church and that is what she believed. I would get so mad at her for not seeing the truth that I would just have to walk away. Now obviously we can’t make anyone see the truth. Only the Lord can open their eyes for them to see the truth. That is what we have to remember or else we will drive ourselves crazy when we witness and we defend the truth against those who believe another gospel. Part of this frustration comes from wanting to see them get saved and turn their life over to the Lord Jesus Christ. But again, all we can do is give them the truth and let the Holy Spirit do his work.
There is a third way we fail to be meek and fearful when we defend the truth and that again has to do with pride but in a slightly different way then what we just mentioned. This type of pride is a pharisaical type where we think we are better then someone else because we know more Bible then they do or because we are saved and they are not, so we can make their heads spin by all the Bible knowledge that we have. We do not defend the truth to please the Lord but to “Prove that we are better” or to “SHOW OFF” what we know about the Bible. What good is knowledge if all we ever do is use it to puff ourselves up? We are no better then the Pharisee’s when we present the truth for anything other then the defense of the gospel. What has happened is we have used the scriptures for our own use by memorizing verses and passages so that we can prove that we are worthy of taking on the enemies of God. But all we have done is memorized verses for the purpose of proving someone else wrong and not for the purpose of becoming more like the Lord Jesus Christ and to bring glory to his name. If we have “defended the Scriptures” for any one of these three reasons then we have violated the scriptures and are guilty of not defending the truth in meekness and in fear.
So how and why do we defend the truth with meekness and fear? Well in order to answer that question we have to look at what we were and we have become as a result of the Lord saving us from our sin. Now within the context of this chapter we are told that we are going to go through trials and tribulations. Some of us may even suffer for our faith, but I doubt that it will be to the extent of those that were martyred for our faith. It is not the trials that we must focus on or the tribulations. The sufferings that we go through are for but a short period of time compared to eternity. But someone who is cast into hell is there for all eternity and if it were not for the irresistible grace of God, we would be on that same path as well. When we think about that, it should drive us to our knees in thankfulness and cause us to see that we have nothing to boast or glory of aside from the Lord himself. It should also cause to approach every person with meekness and fear because we realize that without Christ we are nothing.
People are going to mock us, make fun of us, call us names and do many other things to us for our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That should only cause to become more meek and fearful because of God’s impending judgment. So we are called names, or mocked or whatever else. So what! Have you ever noticed how our children would come up to us and say that so and so called them a name. What do we tell our children? First we ask them if what they said is true and secondly we ask if they have been physically hurt in any way from the name they were called. When they think about what we said to them and how they have not been affected by what another child said to them they run off and play some more. Yet we act in the very same way. Pastor, they called me a Bible thumper. Pastor they called me a holy roller. If that is all that we suffer then we are doing quite well. Paul said this in Romans 8:18.
.
Romans 8:18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
So when we realize what we are with Christ and what we are without Christ how could we boast about anything other then the Lord himself. Now notice that I said that we should boast about the Lord and not about ourselves. We have nothing to boast or glory in, in and of ourselves. But we have everything to boast about in the Lord and we can do that in a meek and fearful spirit. We have talked about why we should be meek and fearful when defending the truth but now let's find out how to do that. First we need see what the word meekness means and how we can apply it to what we learning.
Meekness:
ðñáõôçò Strongs No: 4240
Transliterated: prautes; Pronounced: prah-oo'-tace
1. mildness of disposition, gentleness of spirit, meekness
Remember how I said that one of the things that can happen is that we get frustrated when either witnessing of defending the truth. What happens when we get frustrated? We have a tendency to raise our voice a little and our speech can get a little more intense. Sometimes our facial features change and people can see that we are straining to keep this holy look about us. All of that or even any of that does not equal mildness of disposition or gentleness of spirit. If God doesn’t open their eyes then there is nothing that we can say or do that will open their eyes. We can’t make anyone understand and we certainly can’t save anyone.
One year for Christmas we had guests at our home from China. They spoke no English and in fact had never been outside of their own country. They were the parents of my mother in law and the only language they knew was Chinese. My brother in law and my mother in law have learned English so it is easier to communicate with them. My father-in-law was yelling the Christmas menu to them and telling them about the different types of foods that we had for dinner. At one point my brother looked at my father in law and told him they were Chinese, not deaf. But how often do we have a tendency to do the same thing?. When someone doesn’t speak the same language that we do, we speak louder as if that will help. When someone doesn’t understand the Bible we speak louder and get a little more aggressive as if that will help. The only one that can make them understand is God. Now I understand that a certain frustration sets in because we want to see the Lord save them, but that is up to God and not us. So no matter what, we need to be gentle and mild.