But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man who asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear. I Peter 3:15 NIV
The apostle Peter, now the Pastor of the first church, penned those words around 63 AD. This epistle, I Peter, was addressed to “strangers, scattered” or, literally, the “sojourners of the dispersion“(1:1). These were Christians who, like Israel of old, were scattered throughout the world, though the readers of this epistle were predominantly of Gentile rather than Jewish background (1:14, 2:9-10; 4:3-4). Their situation was one of suffering and trial (4:12), but not because of the empire-wide ban on Christianity, since that came later. The sufferings referred to are those that often come to Christians as they live faithfully in a pagan and hostile society. Persecution took the forms of slander, riots, local police action, and social ostracism. The readers are encouraged to rejoice and live above such reproach. Ryrie Study Bible, Introduction to The First Epistle of Peter.
Pastor Morgan recently concluded a Sermon Series on Our Doctrinal Statement of Faith. The four-part series focused on what we believe about the Bible, Christianity (Holy Spirit), Church and Salvation. I highly encourage you to visit fbbchome.org and listen to those messages again. I’ll take it a step further and suggest that you save them to your personal library for future reference.
Peter directs us to be ready always to give an answer to every man who asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you. How can we give an accurate answer without knowing what we believe and why we believe it?
Both Pastors (Peter & Morgan) and Scripture have emphasized how critical it is for the children of God to know the Word of God.
Now, just to wet your whistle as I’ve heard it said, feast on these opening statements from Pastor Morgan’s Sermon Series on Our Doctrinal Statement of Faith:
We Believe That the Bible: Is the God-inspired, infallible, indispensable, irrevocable Word of God. We accept the whole Bible (from Genesis to Revelation) as God’s Word…
We Believe That the Holy Spirit: Is God’s Spirit given to indwell every Christian at the moment of salvation. We believe that the ministries, gifts, and fruit of the Holy Spirit are active in the life of every believer…
We Believe That the Church: Is the collection of persons who have been called out of the darkness of sin and Satan into the light of Jesus Christ by accepting Him as their Savior and Lord by faith. This collection of persons makes up the church BY with Jesus Christ as its only, permanent Head…
We Believe That Salvation: Is the rescuing of the soul from eternal damnation to the reconciling of that soul to God. We believe that salvation was accomplished through the voluntary, atoning death of Jesus Christ at Calvary…
The epistle of I Peter and Pastor Morgan’s Sermon Series equips us as believers to answer those who may ask, how are we (sinful people) able to rejoice and find hope while living among sinful people in a sinful world. And the answer is we know what we believe. We believe that God has given us Grace – something that we do not deserve. Our sole mission in life now is to share what we know with those who don’t know.
The Apostle Peter provided the theme of his epistle in Chapter 5, verse 12. Through Silvanus, our faithful brother (for so I regard him), I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it!
Now that you know what you believe, Stand Firm in it!