1 Peter 3:15-16 [Confirmation Sunday]
Pastor Ron Koehler
Grace—VAIL, AZ
May 19, 2019
In the name of our Loving Lord and Savior, dear friends, and especially you, Mackenzie and Anna,
“Semper Paratus”—that’s the motto of the United States Coast Guard. It’s Latin for “Always Prepared” or, as the Coast Guard prefers, “Always Ready”. It’s not exactly clear how Semper Paratus was chosen as their motto, but it has been associated with the Coast Guard since at least 1900. The motto encourages sailors and advertises to all that the Coast Guard is always prepared to respond when needed. Our Savior also calls on us to be semper paratus. As Christ’s people—people who, in their hearts, regard him as Lord—he commands us to BE PREPARED and he tells us how to respond to others and to him. Through the Apostle Peter he urges us to BE PREPARED! 1. TO GIVE AN ANSWER and 2. TO LIVE FOR CHRIST He does so with these words: But regard the Lord, the Christ, as holy in your hearts. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that is in you. But speak with gentleness and respect, while maintaining a clear conscience, so that those who attack your good way of life in Christ may be put to shame because they slandered you as evildoers. Part of Confirmation Sunday is making a confession of faith, letting the family of believers here at Grace know that you, in your hearts, have regarded, or set apart, Christ as Lord. Anna and Mackenzie, you prepared for this day, didn’t you? You put the finishing touches on your essays over the last week and went through your Confirmation vows that you will make in just a little bit. But it goes back farther than that—you spent the last couple years in Sunday morning Confirmation Class where you learned the basic teachings of the Bible and how to apply them to your life as a Christian. But it may go back farther than that—to Sunday worship when you were younger, even to when you were a baby and were baptized, receiving the gift of faith by the Holy Spirit. You might consider all of that preparation for this day! That’s true of most of us here today—God has been preparing us for years through sermons and Bible study and the encouragement of other Christians. God has gotten us ready. But ready for what? Ready to read an essay confessing your faith? Ready to promise faithfulness to your Savior? Ready to receive his true body and blood along with the bread and wine at Communion and find forgiveness and strength there? Is that all? Now, don’t get me wrong, that’s a lot of good stuff right there! But that’s NOT all God has prepared you for!
Peter encouraged early Christians in their faith by telling them to “regard the Lord, the Christ, as holy in your hearts.” He was really saying, “keep on regarding (him) as holy in your heart.” In other words, they were not to just look to Jesus as their Savior at the moment they read the words of his letter. That would be like you two only thinking about Christ during this Confirmation service! Our life of faith is an everyday thing—like every day waking up and remembering that we have a Savior who forgives us and loves us, which inspires and encourages us to live by his Word. We are able to consider Christ holy and set him apart as our Lord if we are in regular preparation so that we know what it is we have to share with other people. God tells us to BE PREPARED TO GIVE AN ANSWER, to give a reason for the hope that is in us. Our Lord wants us to be ready to answer people when they ask us why believe, why we have hope. Anna and Mackenzie, maybe that makes you think of the review we had where I pressed you for answers about Jesus and his Word! That was a friendly conversation about faith. But behind the words that Peter uses for the ‘asking’ that people might do is the idea of someone demanding an accounting from us. Those may or may not be friendly situations! God wants us to be ready to answer people when they press us for an answer regarding our faith in Jesus. When might that happen? Well, when things go horribly wrong in your family and yet your faith in Jesus keeps you steady, someone might wonder how you can do that. When you refuse to do something you know is wrong, a friend might want to know your reason for that. There are lots of situations where you might, on the spur of the moment, be asked about your faith. Are you prepared for that? And I’m not just asking the two of them! You may not like being put on the spot. You may not appreciate being asked questions because you’re afraid you’ll be judged or labeled. You may be unsure that you’ll know how to answer. At times our sinful nature gets in the way and because we’re afraid, we don’t answer or we avoid the conversation when we have a chance to share God and what he says with someone. And it can happen that our sinful nature has gotten in the way so badly that we haven’t looked at God’s Word much lately, so there’s a good reason we’re not prepared to answer! Please know that Jesus paid for those sins along with all others—we are forgiven. It’s also true that we won’t know the answer to every question we’re ever asked about God and the Bible and faith—it’s unfair to think anyone would know and remember everything! But you do know what you need to know! You do know how to simply say that all people are sinful, including me, that Jesus lived perfectly because we couldn’t and was willing to go to the cross to pay for the sins of all people, that he rose from death and promises if we trust in him as our Savior, we too will rise from death and live with him in heaven. See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?! You know that. You can say that. You are prepared to tell people the gospel.
And yet it’s also true that God has given us so much in the Bible to guide us in knowing him better and show us ways that we can live our lives in a way that thanks him for his love. So we are to listen to him and BE PREPARED TO LIVE FOR CHRIST. Three men were walking in the desert. One was carrying a loaf of bread. The second carried a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew. The third man carried a car door. They explained to each other why they had chosen to bring what they had: “If I get hungry,” the first said, “I can eat the bread.” The second man replied: “If I get thirsty, I can drink the soda.” The third man explained, “If I get hot, I can roll the window down.” Okay, that’s kind of being prepared…in a way…I guess. But it’s not being well prepared, is it? The guy with the car window had an idea, but not a lot of knowledge! We don’t just have an idea about God—we have knowledge that comes from him! Our confirmands have knowledge about what it means to LIVE FOR CHRIST because they’ve learned all about that over the last couple years. Mr. Prigge taught them how to see the Commandments as a guide for Christian living. And to think about their Baptism in order to give them confidence that they are forgiven children of God. They learned about Holy Communion and how we receive it for forgiveness and strength, but also that we take it to remember Jesus’ death regularly until he returns. They learned about witnessing their faith to other people. They learned about coming to worship their God—to have God speak to them and to offer their thanks and praise to him. I talked to each of them about using their spiritual gifts and using them to serve Jesus and his people. We also discussed the need to strengthen their faith, continuing to hear God’s Word in church…and reading their Bibles…and coming to Bible study. These are all very practical things that have to deal with being PREPARED TO LIVE FOR CHRIST! And each of you who are members of Grace and our church at-large have been similarly PREPARED. Can you see how knowing and doing those things regularly would prepare any of us to LIVE FOR CHRIST? It would mean that when we go to school, we make choices that would please Jesus. It would mean that when we are dating, our behavior would fit so well with God’s will. It would mean that when we work—our honesty and work ethic would satisfy our Savior. It would mean that when we deal with one another, love and encouragement and putting others before ourselves would be natural and God-pleasing. And if those kinds of things are happening in our lives, people will notice, won’t they?
Mackenzie and Anna—these are things you do already, but you’re not done growing in your Christian living. In many ways, you’re just beginning. Ask anyone here today and they will tell you that this learning and growing in Christian living is a lifelong process. And it is filled with many joys and blessings from God. Our lives of Christian witness and living are important to the Savior who died so that all might live. The number one reason we PREPARE to witness and live our faith is so that we can thank Jesus for saving us and giving us faith to trust him as the Savior. Along with that, God brings certain blessings to us when we witness and live for him. And he blesses those who hear and see us, because they may just ask why we are the way we are and why we do what we do. As an example of Christian living, Peter tells us that when we are PREPARED and do LIVE FOR CHRIST and GIVE AN ANSWER, we need to do that with gentleness and respect and with a clear conscience. Whether we are Confirmation age or a seasoned Christian veteran, we are to witness Christ’s love with gentleness and respect for whomever it is we’re talking to. Who wants to listen to a smart-aleck or a know-it-all or someone who is rude or brash? No one! No, we must BE PREPARED to share Jesus with gentleness and respect and good behavior. Mackenzie and Anna, as you are confirmed today, you are prepared to enter a new chapter in your life of faith here at Grace. As we discussed, you are not graduating from God’s Word, but you are beginning another part of your Christian life as you advance to older Bible studies and new ways to serve and the reception of the Lord’s Supper. You have prepared for this day and we all pray that you will continue to prepare, just as your brothers and sisters in faith here continue to do, so that you can give an answer to others for the hope you have and so that you live for Christ until the day arrives when no more preparation is necessary—the day our Lord Jesus returns to call all believers to be with him in heaven. May God grant that we all are semper paratus—“always prepared” to witness Christ’s love in this life and to be with our Lord in heaven. Amen. Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.