Honoring and sharing Christ
“..but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect…”
—
You don’t honor someone you don’t value. Honoring and valuing go together. And when we value someone, people know. It’s obvious based on how we talk about them, how we treat them, or even how we think about them. Honoring them shows others that we think they are worthy. And more than anyone else, who deserves this more than Jesus? We can’t even wrap our minds around how worthy he is. But are we honoring him in a way that’s obvious to others, that if someone asks us, it’s natural to talk about how much we love him? That’s what 1 Peter 3:15 is saying. So let’s break it down.
Honoring someone starts deep inside of us, and then it shows in what we do. So, if honoring starts within us, our minds, our hearts, and everything in us needs to agree that this person is worthy-- which might be why God said to love him with all our hearts, souls, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). And then naturally, our actions show whether we are honoring God or not.
It’s a pretty stark contrast when you look at one person who honors what the world thinks and the other person who honors and follows Jesus. When Jesus’s name is taken in vain, one person will appear indifferent while the other looks hurt by the casual way name is tossed around. When someone is being mistreated, one will look the other way while the other steps out of any comfort zone to be Jesus to them. The one who doesn’t honor Jesus is unstable and the world swoops in to gain their allegiance instead. But the other holds steadfast in honoring the King. It will not go unnoticed.
We don’t want to be those who honor God with our lips while our hearts are far from him (Isaiah 29:13, Matthew 15:8). We want to be those who daily honor God in our hearts and in our lives.
Preparation is something we do all the time, for work, for school, for a competition. But are we prepared for the biggest challenges that could come our way anytime? We don’t usually like to think about having to defend why we follow Jesus. It seems scary. What if we don’t have the right answers? And while that makes sense (we don’t want to mess up on something so important!), we also tend to forget that we’re not alone. As Christians, God is not only with us, but within us (2 Timothy 1:14).
Moreover, being prepared isn’t about trying to get a perfect score on a quiz about Jesus. It’s about knowing why we wouldn’t want to follow anyone else but Jesus! 1 Peter 3 says we should always be prepared when anyone asks us why we have this hope in us. When others see that we have hope when the rest of the world doesn’t, it’s intriguing. Why would we have joy and hope and fulfillment, even when we’re sad or having an off-day, in comparison with someone who doesn’t follow Jesus would feel completely hopeless?
This is why we are always prepared. We are like a Bride, waiting for someone to ask us about our Beloved because we can’t wait to share how amazing he is!
And because we honor Christ, we respect others, just as he did. When we make a defense and share our hope in Christ with others, it’s not a debate. The world will goad us, trying to rile us up and make us feel like we need to lash out with the reason that we follow God. But that’s not how we act as Christ-followers.
We follow his example in gently and respectfully giving the answer that stands true, no matter what others think about it. If we share our faith like we’re swinging a sword around and looking down on those asking about Jesus, it completely goes against the message of Jesus! He is kind, caring, compassionate, loving, generous, and gentle.
So if we’re Christ-followers, shouldn’t we be the same? Yes, we are fighting against the evil powers of this world (Ephesians 6:12), but we are trying to save those who Satan is harassing and leading astray (just like we once were, Titus 3:3) by bringing them to Jesus. And that requires gentleness and respect.
So before we do anything we need to be sure we are honoring Christ in our hearts. Otherwise, we have no reason to be prepared and share what we ourselves don’t truly believe. But when we do honor God, our actions naturally change to be Christ-like. Then when others notice, we are prepared with God’s Spirit within us to share the reason why we have hope no matter what comes, not because of who we are, but because of who he is. And that is the hope that we share with others, with gentleness and respect, just like Jesus would.
