How to Live Fearlessly | Desiring God

Audio Transcript

How do we live fearlessly? Which is how our 7 days commences. The issue today will come from a listener named David. Here’s his electronic mail: “Pastor John, hello. My question is about 1 Peter 3:15. Different translations say factors like this: ‘In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy.’ Which is the ESV, and it’s rather a great deal the exact as the HCSB, which calls us to honor Christ with our hearts. But the KJV interprets it, ‘Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.’ The NLT claims, ‘Worship Christ as Lord of your lifestyle.’ The NIV, ‘In your hearts revere Christ as Lord.’ So, honor, sanctify, worship, revere. What does this Greek lemma, hagiázō, mean? And how would you implement it to our life?”

This passage, 1 Peter 3:14–16, has a unique location in my heart simply because I can try to remember preaching on it all through my quite very first months in the pastoral ministry at Bethlehem in 1980. And the perception that I acquired then, when I was planning for that information, I had never viewed before. It was so substantial to me that when I saw this concern, I mentioned, “I want to do that. I want to go back again there and retell this tale — retell this exegesis,” since what I saw there I’ve in no way neglected. It relates specifically to David’s question about how to translate verse 15, which in the ESV goes, “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy.” And David needs to know what that phrase implies in this context and then in our lives.

So, let’s set the text in front of us. I’ll start with verse 14.

But even if you should really endure for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no concern of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, constantly getting prepared to make a protection to everyone who asks you for a explanation for the hope that is in you.

A few kinds of observations carry clarity to the meaning of verse 15 — the first element, which David is inquiring about: “In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy.”

Sanctify Christ?

The very first observation is about the text on their own and how to translate them. Here’s the most literal rendering I can give: “The Lord Christ sanctify in your hearts.” So, sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts.

The term sanctify is the term which is guiding all these translations — worship Christ, revere Christ, honor Christ as holy — and all of them are hoping to avoid the word sanctify in English, possibly for the reason that we generally believe of sanctify as overcoming sin and getting a lot more Christlike. That will not work when we’re conversing about sanctifying God. It’s just an odd sound, and so other words and phrases are decided on to attempt to make it additional very clear.

But the phrase sanctify, at root, signifies “set apart for some sacred purpose” or “consecrate.” And in God’s case, it certainly involves revering, honoring, worshiping, recognizing his holiness — his transcendent purity — and experience the attractiveness and greatness and preciousness of that holiness. So all of these translations have aspects of fact in them. And I feel “honor Christ as holy” arrives as near as we can get to sanctifying Christ — that is, recognizing God as supremely, transcendently pure and gorgeous and worthwhile and (we’re heading to see) dreadful in a great way. I’ll occur back again to that in a moment.

Fearless and Hopeful

Here’s the second way we get clarity with this phrase in verse 15, “honor Christ the Lord as holy.” Let’s see what’s on both aspect of it: what comes just in advance of, in front, and what comes just immediately after it, at the rear of. So, just before are these terms: “Have no concern of them,” referring to persecutors. Have no worry of them. Then arrives, “but honor the Lord Christ as holy.” So, “honor the Lord Christ as holy” is someway an different to remaining fearful, owning worry of those people who persecute.

Then after them, in verse 16, come these phrases: “. . . often being organized to make a protection to anybody who asks you for a motive for the hope that is in you.” So, it appears that in Peter’s intellect the instruction to honor Christ the Lord as holy would be a indicates to serving to you be well prepared to give a purpose for the hope that is in you.

So in entrance of the words and phrases, he claims, “Have no fear of your persecutors,” powering the text, he states, “Be completely ready to convey to why you are hopeful.” And in concerning, he suggests, “Honor Christ the Lord as holy.” So now, let us hold on to that, and you will see why that fearlessness in the front and hopefulness in the back again are major.

Isaiah’s Vital

So, here’s the third observation. And this was what in 1980 was new to me. I’d under no circumstances designed these connections, and they’ve trapped with me at any time considering the fact that. The critical that I experienced in no way witnessed ahead of when I was studying this text was that it’s a quotation from Isaiah 8:12–13. So, here’s what Peter browse in Isaiah that was so pertinent to his situation that he adapted it in this context. Here’s what Isaiah 8:12 states: “Do not get in touch with conspiracy all that this persons calls conspiracy, and do not anxiety what they panic, nor be in dread.”

Now in the Septuagint, in the Greek Aged Testament, these final text are the precise text that Peter works by using to tell his viewers not to be worried or troubled by your persecutors. So that is a immediate estimate there. In verse 13 in Isaiah 8, “But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy,” we see the similar word hagiasate in the Greek Outdated Testomony. “Sanctify the Lord, Yahweh” — not Jesus, but Yahweh, which he’s going to implement to Jesus. “Let him be your fear, and allow him be your dread. And he will turn into a sanctuary.”

Now, Peter requires these text, “do not concern what they dread, nor be in dread,” and he quotes them in verse 14. “Have no worry of these vaunted persecutors all-around you.” And then he sees that the answer that Isaiah provides to fearing man is a holy panic of God: “The Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Allow him be your panic, and enable him be your dread.” And in location of honoring the Lord Yahweh as holy, Peter claims to honor the Lord Christ as holy.

“When you dread distrusting Christ extra than you dread your enemies, he will be a hope-loaded sanctuary for you.”

This is what the New Testament writers do regularly. Christ results in being the success, the incarnation of Yahweh, and what was real of Yahweh then is true of Christ now. And by implication, let Christ be your dread, and enable Christ be your dread, as you regard him as holy.

Our Dread and Sanctuary

Now, that could seem to be a very odd way to beat the dread of guy — swap it with the anxiety of God. But the next phrase, in Isaiah 8:14, just blew me away then, and it even now does. It explains how this operates. It suggests, “Let him be your worry, and permit him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary.” Amazing. It’s wonderful. God becomes a harmless, hope-stuffed sanctuary from his very own wrath and from our enemies when he gets our dread. Now, how does that perform? I feel it is effective like this.

When it turns into more fearful, additional dreadful to us to dishonor God by failing to belief his guarantees — when which is more dreadful to us than becoming persecuted by our enemies — then these pretty guarantees of God grow to be a sanctuary for us. They turn into our hope. So now the words “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy” incorporate the that means, “Let him be your concern. Allow him be your dread” — not your persecutors — “and he will turn out to be your sanctuary,” your good place of hope.

“Don’t let men be your dread enable God be your dread.”

So, both the words in entrance of verse 15 and afterward get their this means from the meat in the center of the sandwich. The bread on top, the words in entrance, say, “Don’t be afraid of your persecutors,” and the meat in the middle describes, due to the fact when you honor Christ as holy — that is, when you dread distrusting Christ a lot more than you dread your enemies — he will be a hope-loaded sanctuary for you. And you really do not require to be worried. And then the slice of bread that’s on the base of the sandwich — the phrases following, which say, “Always be completely ready to give a cause for your hope” — is spelled out once more by the meat in the center of the sandwich. When we honor Christ as holy, when we dread distrusting him far more than we dread our adversaries, he is a reason for our hope that we can give to any individual.

I’ve in no way overlooked that crucial from Isaiah 8:12: do not allow gentlemen be your dread enable God be your dread — which at first does not sound like a delighted answer. Oh, but it is! Dreading distrusting God turns God into a sanctuary. He gets to be a sanctuary. He will come to be your explanation for hope, and he will become the ground of your fearlessness right before your adversaries.