How to Live Fearlessly
00:00:00.000 | (music)
00:00:04.000 | How do we live fearlessly?
00:00:06.000 | That's how our week begins.
00:00:08.000 | Happy Monday and thanks for joining us for another week on the podcast.
00:00:11.000 | The question today comes from a listener named David.
00:00:14.000 | Here's his email.
00:00:15.000 | Pastor John, hello.
00:00:16.000 | My question is about 1 Peter 3.15.
00:00:19.000 | Various translations say things like this.
00:00:22.000 | "In your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy."
00:00:27.000 | That's the ESV.
00:00:28.000 | And pretty much the same as the Holman Christian Standard Bible,
00:00:31.000 | which calls us to honor Christ with our hearts.
00:00:34.000 | But the King James Version translates it, "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts."
00:00:41.000 | The New Living Translation says, "Worship Christ as Lord of your life."
00:00:46.000 | The NIV says, "In your hearts, revere Christ as Lord."
00:00:51.000 | So honor, sanctify, worship, revere.
00:00:56.000 | What does this Greek lemma, haiazo, mean?
00:01:00.000 | And how would you apply it to our lives?
00:01:04.000 | This passage, 1 Peter 3.14-16, has a special place in my heart
00:01:11.000 | because I can remember preaching on it my very first months
00:01:19.000 | in the pastoral ministry at Bethlehem in 1980.
00:01:23.000 | And the insight that I got then when I was preparing for that message,
00:01:28.000 | I had never seen before.
00:01:31.000 | And it was so significant to me that when I saw this question,
00:01:35.000 | I said, "I want to do that.
00:01:38.000 | I want to go back there and retell this story, retell this exegesis,"
00:01:43.000 | because what I saw there, I've never forgotten.
00:01:46.000 | It relates directly to David's question about how to translate verse 15,
00:01:51.000 | which in the ESV goes, "But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy."
00:01:58.000 | And David wants to know what that phrase means in this context and then in our lives.
00:02:04.000 | So let's put the text in front of us.
00:02:07.000 | I'll start with verse, maybe in the middle of verse 14.
00:02:10.000 | "Even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake," even if you should,
00:02:15.000 | "you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled.
00:02:21.000 | But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy,
00:02:26.000 | always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you
00:02:31.000 | for a reason for the hope that is in you."
00:02:34.000 | So three kinds of observations bring clarity to the meaning of verse 15,
00:02:43.000 | the first part that David is asking about.
00:02:45.000 | "In your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy."
00:02:49.000 | And the first observation is the words themselves and how to translate them.
00:02:55.000 | Here's the most literal rendering I can give.
00:02:58.000 | "The Lord Christ sanctify in your hearts."
00:03:04.000 | So, "Sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts."
00:03:07.000 | And the word "sanctify" is the word that's behind all these translations.
00:03:12.000 | "Worship Christ, revere Christ, honor Christ as holy."
00:03:16.000 | And all of them are trying to avoid the word "sanctify" in English,
00:03:22.000 | probably, and probably wisely, because we usually think of "sanctify"
00:03:28.000 | as overcoming sin and becoming more Christ-like, and that won't work.
00:03:33.000 | When we're talking about sanctifying God, this is an odd sound,
00:03:36.000 | and so other words are chosen to try to make it more clear.
00:03:39.000 | But the word "sanctify" at root means set apart for some sacred purpose or consecrate.
00:03:47.000 | And in God's case, it certainly involves revering and honoring and worshiping,
00:03:54.000 | recognizing His holiness, His transcendent purity,
00:04:00.000 | and feeling the beauty and greatness and preciousness of that holiness,
00:04:05.000 | that transcendent purity.
00:04:07.000 | So, all of these translations have elements of truth in them,
00:04:12.000 | and I think "honor Christ as holy" comes as close as we can get to sanctifying Christ.
00:04:20.000 | That is, recognize God as supremely, transcendently pure and beautiful and valuable,
00:04:29.000 | and we're going to see, dreadful in a good way.
00:04:34.000 | I'll come back to that in a minute.
00:04:36.000 | Here's the second way we get clarity with this phrase in verse 15,
00:04:43.000 | "Honor Christ the Lord as holy."
00:04:46.000 | Let's see what's on either side of it, what comes just before in front
00:04:50.000 | and what comes just after it behind.
00:04:54.000 | So, just before these words, in front, are these words,
00:05:00.000 | "Have no fear of them," referring to persecutors.
00:05:05.000 | "Have no fear of them," then comes, "But honor the Lord Christ as holy."
00:05:10.000 | So, "Honor the Lord Christ as holy" is somehow an alternative to being afraid,
00:05:16.000 | having fear of those who persecute.
00:05:21.000 | Then, behind the words, after them, in verse 16,
00:05:28.000 | after the words, "Honor the Lord Christ as holy," come these words,
00:05:34.000 | "Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks a reason for the hope that is in you."
00:05:42.000 | So, it seems that in Peter's mind, the instruction to honor Christ the Lord as holy
00:05:48.000 | would be a means to helping you be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in you.
00:05:55.000 | So, in front of the words, he says, "Have no fear of your persecutors."
00:06:00.000 | Behind the words, he says, "Be ready to tell why you are hopeful."
00:06:05.000 | And in between, he says, "Honor Christ the Lord as holy."
00:06:10.000 | So, now, let's hold on to that, and you'll see why that fearlessness in front
00:06:17.000 | and hopefulness in the back are significant.
00:06:20.000 | So, here's the third, and this was what, in 1980, was new to me.
00:06:26.000 | I had never made these connections, and they've stuck with me ever since.
00:06:31.000 | The key that I had never seen before when I was reading this text was that it's a quotation from Isaiah 8, 12, and 13.
00:06:45.000 | So, here's what Peter read in Isaiah that was so relevant to his situation that he adapted it in this context.
00:06:56.000 | Here's what Isaiah 8, 12 says.
00:06:59.000 | "Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread."
00:07:11.000 | In the Septuagint, in the Greek Old Testament, those last words are the exact words that Peter uses for not to be afraid or troubled by your persecutors.
00:07:23.000 | That's a direct quote there.
00:07:25.000 | In verse 13 in Isaiah 8, "But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy."
00:07:32.000 | Same word, hagiosate, in the Greek Old Testament, sanctify.
00:07:37.000 | Sanctify the Lord, Yahweh, not Jesus, but Yahweh, which he's going to apply to Jesus.
00:07:44.000 | Let him be your fear, let him be your dread, and he will become a sanctuary for you.
00:07:53.000 | Now, Peter takes these words, "Do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread," and he quotes them in verse 14.
00:08:01.000 | "Have no fear of these vaunted persecutors around you."
00:08:07.000 | And then he sees that the solution that Isaiah gives to fearing man is a holy fear of God.
00:08:16.000 | Honor the Lord as holy, let him be your fear, let him be your dread.
00:08:23.000 | And in place of honoring the Lord Yahweh as holy, Peter says, "Honor the Lord Christ as holy."
00:08:32.000 | This is what the New Testament writers do repeatedly.
00:08:36.000 | Christ becomes the fulfillment, the incarnation of Yahweh, and what was true of Yahweh then is true of Christ now.
00:08:45.000 | And by implication, let him be, let Christ be your fear, and let Christ be your dread as you regard him as holy.
00:08:55.000 | Now, that may seem a very odd way to combat the fear of man, replace it with the fear of God.
00:09:03.000 | But the next phrase in Isaiah 8:14 just blew me away then, still does, it explains how this works.
00:09:12.000 | It says, "Let him be your fear, let him be your dread, and he will become a sanctuary."
00:09:21.000 | Amazing. That's amazing. God becomes a safe, hope-filled sanctuary from his own wrath, from our enemies, when he becomes our dread.
00:09:37.000 | Now, how does that work? I think it works like this.
00:09:40.000 | When it becomes more fearful, more dreadful to us to dishonor God by trusting, by failing to trust his promises,
00:09:54.000 | when that's more dreadful to us than being persecuted by our enemies, then those very promises of God become a sanctuary for us.
00:10:05.000 | They become our hope.
00:10:07.000 | So now the words, "In your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy," include the meaning, "Let him be your fear, let him be your dread, not your persecutors,
00:10:19.000 | and he will become your sanctuary, your solid place of hope."
00:10:26.000 | So both the words "in front" then, of verse 15, and "afterwards," behind, get their meaning from the meat in the middle of the sandwich.
00:10:38.000 | The bread on top, the words "in front," say, "Don't be afraid of your persecutors," and the meat in the middle explains,
00:10:48.000 | "Because when you honor Christ as holy," that is, when you dread distrusting Christ more than you dread your enemies,
00:10:57.000 | "he will be a hope-filled sanctuary for you, and you don't need to be afraid."
00:11:02.000 | And then the bread, the slice of bread that's on the bottom of the sandwich, the words "following," that say,
00:11:08.000 | "Always be ready to give a reason for your hope," is explained again by the meat in the middle of the sandwich.
00:11:16.000 | When we honor Christ as holy, when we dread distrusting him more than we dread our adversaries,
00:11:24.000 | he is a reason for our hope that we can give to anybody.
00:11:29.000 | I've never forgotten, Tony, I've never forgotten that key from Isaiah 8, 12, "Don't let men be your dread, let God be your dread,"
00:11:42.000 | which at first sounds, "Well, that's not a happy solution."
00:11:46.000 | Oh, but it is. Dreading, distrusting God. Dreading, distrusting God turns into a sanctuary.
00:11:57.000 | He becomes a sanctuary. He will become your reason for hope, and he will become the ground of your fearlessness before your adversaries.
00:12:06.000 | Amazing. And of course, we have access to that very sermon from October 19, 1980, preached by 34-year-old John Piper, 42 years ago.
00:12:16.000 | I'll pull a clip from it, and as we ask the question, "What's the big deal with fearing man anyways?"
00:12:22.000 | That's next time. We'll revisit that sermon. Thank you for joining us today.
00:12:26.000 | You can ask a question of your own, search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast.
00:12:30.000 | All at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:12:36.000 | I'm Tony Reinke. We'll see you on Wednesday.
00:12:39.000 | (Silence)
00:12:42.000 | (Silence)
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