1 Peter 3:17-22 - How to Know if You Were Baptized With the Holy Spirit

Jenn Kokal (0:02)

Life Audio.

Hi, faithful listeners. Welcome to the Bible Explained Podcast. You'll never guess what I'm doing right now.

I have my heated blanket on.

It's not even fall yet, and it's so cold outside that I have to use my heated blanket. I'm so sad that summer feels like it's already over. Hoping for a few more warm days before we get into the brutal winters of my area.

But still, today's a beautiful day. It's kind of one of those like nice, crisp, rainy days, you know, where it feels like you want to curl up with a good book or the good book, which is what we're going to talk about today. 1 Peter chapter 3, and we're finally going to finish up this chapter. We've been in this chapter for two weeks now. So yeah, today is the last day in 1 Peter 3 So we will get into this, but first, you guys know the drill. I'm going to play a sponsored ad for you guys, and I'll be back right after that.

As that advertisement was playing, hopefully you guys got a chance to grab your Bible out of the version that you prefer, and also your cup of water or a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, whatever you're drinking this morning. Go ahead and share that with me. Let's go ahead and read 1 Peter 3, 17-22, and finish up this chapter. In fact, today's portion is talking about kind of a perplexing topic, which is Jesus going and preaching to the spirits while they were in prison. So let's read 1 Peter 3, 17-22 together.

For it is better, if it is God's will, that you suffer for doing what is right than for doing evil. Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit, in whom he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, who before were disobedient when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ship was being built. In it, few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. This is a symbol of baptism, which now saves you. Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him.

Now, this is a really interesting conclusion to everything we've been talking about over the past couple of weeks. Because we've been discussing the idea of putting our personal comfort almost to the side in order to potentially bring somebody to Jesus. So our personal comfort does not matter as much as somebody else's soul. So Peter was giving a list of everybody we should be submitting to, depending on what area of life we're in. So for example, if we're a wife, we should be submitting to our husband, and in doing so, you submit to God. If you're a servant, you should submit to your master. If you're a husband, you should submit to God by being respectful and honorable towards your wife. And if you're just a normal citizen, you should be respectful to the governing authorities. And then Peter kind of wraps it up by saying, just be respectful to everybody, essentially. As a Christian, we should be showing respect, not just to our fellow Christians, but essentially to everybody, but especially to our fellow Christians. Because if we can't love one of our brothers and sisters in Christ, how are we ever going to love somebody that isn't a brother or sister in Christ? So we should just be respectful to all people. And so now we move in to our portion for today, Verse 17

For it is better if it is God's will that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing evil. So notice here, it says, if it is God's will, you will suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing evil. So this doesn't mean that, you know, Christians have to go out and look for ways to suffer, because I don't think that it's always in God's will for us to just needlessly suffer. But sometimes God will use suffering in order to discipline us in some way. And when I say discipline, by the way, a lot of times that word has negative connotations, as if you did something wrong, but that's not always the case. I mean, think about the word disciple. You know, Jesus' 12 disciples, they were being disciplined by Jesus. They were following Jesus and he was discipling them. So when we go through discipline of God, it's not necessarily that we're doing something wrong per se. It could be, but it could also just be that he is training us to be more like him. So for example, you know, I was just with my sister and my niece recently, and I was just watching my sister correct a thank you note that my niece was writing. And it was a really cute and well-done thank you note. But there are certain things that maybe could have been done better. Could the person who received the thank you note have understood what it was saying? Even with a few misspellings? Absolutely. And did my niece purposely make those mistakes because she was in rebellion? No, it was her innocence. She didn't know how to spell certain words. So my sister was not disciplining her in anger, but she was encouraging her to do the work over again. She was disciplining her so that the thank you notes could be even better and benefit both the receiver of the note and my niece as she learns to spell even more words. So God sometimes disciplines us and he'll do it through various means, but it's not always his will for us to suffer needlessly. Hence why Peter says right here, if it is God's will for you to suffer, then suffer to the best of your ability, but only suffer for doing something good. Don't suffer for doing something evil. That's what he says right here. It is better if it is God's will that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing evil. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Christians out there who do a lot of very silly and stupid things and then gets humiliated or punished for those things, and then they claim persecution.