Not that you’d buy anything from a salesman who had no confidence. Can you imagine that? You go in to buy a car, and the salesman says "Well this is a pretty good car. At least some people think so. You can probably get a better one. I’m not sure. Well, anyway, the price is kind of OK. I don’t know. It’s up to you." Would you buy from that kind of a person? I doubt it.

Of course, Peter isn’t talking about "selling" anything in our text. He’s talking about giving away the Gospel. He’s talking about witnessing to our faith in Jesus as the Savior of the world. God wants us to be absolutely confident that our Christian faith is 100%, incontrovertibly true. He wants us to exude that confidence not only in our speech, but in our whole lives. But at the same time he wants us to be gentle and respectful as we share our faith—not at all like the pushy salesman we all dislike. Call it quiet confidence. God’s message to us today through Saint Peter is to "Live Your Whole Life As a Confident Witness" But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord [and] always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.

Salesmen can learn to sound confident, even when they’re not. They can tell you that the Ford Taurus is the best car ever built, and then drive home at night in their Pontiac Bonneville. God doesn’t want us to merely sound confident, he wants us to be confident. He wants us to be absolutely sure and certain, that what we believe is the truth. In fact, Peter comes right out and says in his second epistle "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." (2 Pe 1:16)

Peter wants us to first of all be absolutely certain that our sins were paid for when Jesus died on the cross. He wrote, For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. If there’s one thing that’s certain in this life, it’s that our consciences bother us. Sometimes that’s good. When we sin, if we don’t repent, we want our consciences to bother us until we do. Otherwise, we’d all fall away from the faith. Not one of us is without sin. Not one of us lives one day, or even an hour without breaking God’s commandments, whether in our deeds and words, or in our minds. No, we need our consciences.

But we don’t need our consciences to tell us that we can never be sure our sins are forgiven. We don’t want to go through life wondering if we’ve done enough good works to please God. Martin Luther tried that for a while and it almost drove him crazy. No, we want to be absolutely certain that Jesus paid for all of our sins through his bloody sacrifice on the cross. In Old Testament days, the people of Israel were required to make sin-offerings daily. In fact, if someone ever tried to keep all the Old Testament requirements for sacrifices, he’d be more than busy enough with that every minute of his life that he’d never have time for anything else! God purposely arranged his Old Testament rules that way, so that his people would realize that the blood of all the animals in the world would never be enough to pay for their sins. He wanted them to look ahead to the day when the Messiah would come and offer one huge sacrifice that would finally satisfy God’s anger over sin.

That’s what Jesus did. He offered his own blood when he died on the cross. And his holy precious blood was worth infinitely more than the blood of rams and goats and bulls and pigeons. His blood was worth so much it paid—in one holy sacrifice—for all the sins of all the people of all time. Our consciences need never bother us, as long as we look to him as the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

How can we be so sure? Because God raised Jesus from the dead. You may recall that Peter was an eyewitness of that too. Because Jesus rose, we can be absolutely sure that God was happy with his sacrifice on the cross. And because God was happy with Jesus’ sacrifice, he’s happy with us too. There’s no doubt about it. Your sins, my sins, the sins of your neighbors and friends, even the sins of your enemies were all paid for with the holy precious blood of Jesus. For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit…

…Through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison ²⁰ who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. As if his resurrection weren’t enough proof, Jesus marched straight into hell to announce his victory. Every soul that had mocked him on earth, got salt rubbed into his already burning wounds. Every devil got to see firsthand the pierced hands and feet that had crushed their dungeon-master’s head.

Peter picks one really blatant example of all the miserable souls in hell: the people who drowned in the flood. Unlike in the blasphemous movie on NBC last week, our long-suffering God gave the wicked people of Noah’s day a whole 120 years to repent. For 120 years Noah patiently labored, building the huge ark board by board. Every day, God-hating people came by to ridicule Noah—and mercifully, every day God let them see in the blameless life and the trusting, quiet work of Noah, that the days of the world were numbered. Through the gentle, yet firm words of Noah—whom the book of Hebrews calls "a preacher of righteousness" God kept begging people to repent and be saved. But they refused. And so they drowned in the swirling waters of the flood. Now in hell, their time of grace is over. Now is the time to pay on their own for the sins they refused to let Jesus pay for. And so Jesus broke open the doors and barged in to say: "You see? Noah was right. I am the final champion. I am the True and Only God! You followed a loser! Noah believed in the winner!"

It’s all true. It all happened. Peter’s testimony is right. Someday we’ll see those very same losers at God’s left hand when he returns for the final judgment. How can we be so sure? Because God has saved us, just like Noah.

In [the ark] only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, ²¹ and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You see, not only has Jesus paid for the sins of all the unrighteous. You can be absolutely sure that that forgiveness is yours. Unless the pastor was blind and accidentally missed you with the water, you know that your sins were washed away the moment you were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Peter reminds us that your baptism wasn’t just some outward ceremony that only had to do with the outside layer of your skin. In baptism God was pledging to give you a confident, clean conscience. And the only real way to have a clean conscience, is to be without sin. God washed away your sin in your baptism and every time you remember your baptism by drowning the old Adam in contrition and repentance, God washes away your sins again, by virtue of your baptism. You can be absolutely confident, that you will stand before God with Noah on the right hand of Jesus when he summons all the world to give answer for their lives.

Finally, Peter gives us one more reason to be absolutely confident. Jesus Christ…has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him. You can’t see him, but you know he’s there. Peter stood there as an eyewitness that day too—the day Jesus was taken up to heaven. And he’s there right now. The Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him. (Hab. 2:20) The one who was powerful enough to rise from his own grave after being pierced with nails and a spear, is certainly powerful enough to control everything in the world, and out of the world. And that’s exactly what he does. Jesus will not let anything harm you. You are completely and totally safe in him. Do you understand why Peter could urge us to set apart Christ as Lord in our hearts, and to witness with peaceful, resolute, quiet confidence?

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect… Did you pay attention to the first reading this morning, from the book of Acts? If there was ever an example of quiet confidence, it was Paul. He too had witnessed the risen Jesus first hand. He knew Jesus was real. He knew God’s word was true. He knew he was going to heaven, and he knew that’s all that really mattered. No wonder Paul could enter a foreign city, head straight downtown to the central marketplace, and start talking about his faith. When he did that he was taken to the leaders of the city, where he again confidently told them the truth about Jesus. You heard how tactfully and respectfully Paul witnessed. But that didn’t keep him from boldly telling a bunch of skeptics about the resurrection of Jesus.

What a great example to follow. Now, obviously God hasn’t called all of us to be missionaries to foreign cities—but our text makes this clear: God has called us all to confidently give an explanation of our hope to anyone and everyone who asks. God has called us to exude the quiet confidence that comes from knowing Jesus died for our sins, rose again and is ruling all things for us, his baptized sons and daughters. And God has called all of us to live the kinds of lives that glorify him and draw attention to our faith: Keep a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

No you’re not salespeople—thank goodness. But you are witnesses, with every reason on earth and in heaven to confidently bear witness with your life and your words to the one incontrovertible truth—Jesus is the one way, the truth and life—the Savior of the world. He’s saved you from this world just like he did Noah. Now be unwavering like faithful Noah. Keep living for God like he did. Keep trusting in God even if the whole world thinks you’re crazy. It doesn’t matter, you know the truth. And you are his witnesses. Amen.