00:00Hello everyone, it is good to be here with you all today. Great is our God for giving us mercy
00:06again today to look into the Word of God. Hallelujah. Today, my name is William Chambers
00:13and today I want to talk about when your life exposes the lies told about you. This message
00:22right here is for the believer. Believer, have you ever been trying to live right?
00:28And notice that people around you was putting dirt in your name, lying on you, not telling the truth
00:35about you. Oh, help us today, God. Or this message for the believer who actually did some dirty things
00:43back in the day. And they have repented of those things and changed their ways, but people are
00:51still trying to talk about them as if that's who they are now. Has it ever happened to you? Oh,
00:58I did do those things, but that's not me now. Quit acting like that's me now. Oh, what are you
01:04doing
01:05these times? Well, we're going to look in the text today. In this text, Peter is giving us a strategy
01:11on what we're supposed to do when lies are told about us. Having your conversation honest amongst
01:21the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may buy your good works,
01:28which they shall behold. Glorify God in the day of visitation. Now, Peter says we're to have our
01:37conversations honest. Now, that's old language for having your life honest or living an upright life,
01:46an honorable life. So, Peter is mandating us to live an observable life of integrity, an observable life
01:57that's upright and pleasing before God that men can look on and see. He said, have your conversation
02:06honest amongst the Gentiles, honest before those who do not share your own faith. He said, they're
02:13talking about you as an evildoer, but I don't want you to go out there and give a verbal defense
02:18of
02:19yourself and stand up for yourself and give them a peace of mind. No, I want you to give them
02:24a
02:24demonstration of a righteous life. Oh, help us today. He's saying, let your righteous life speak for you.
02:33He's saying, your righteous life will speak against every lie told against you. He's saying,
02:41I want you to live in a way that your life speaks. Live in front of those who don't believe
02:47in you.
02:48Live in front of those who have been influenced by lies told about you. Live in front of those who
02:55are
02:56skeptical and criticizing you. Stay visible and live a righteous life before them. Let your life speak.
03:04Your integrity is your most powerful evidence in a hostile environment where they're talking about
03:11you. Let your life speak. Now, he's saying there is a reality. You will be misrepresented. They're
03:19speaking against you as an evildoer. You're a living right believer, but they're speaking against you
03:24as an evildoer. Now, he's coming up against an assumption that where we think that if we live
03:30right, people won't talk about us. It's a false assumption that we think that if I just live holy,
03:37people will live, they will speak of me correctly. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oftentimes, because you
03:43are living right, that's the reason why people are speaking against you. Meaning when you live right,
03:49there is opposition. If you don't believe me, look at Christ's life. Oh, he was living the most
03:54righteous life there was, and he had opposition of the religious leaders because of that righteous
04:00life. Oh, goodness. That righteous life was exposing darkness. So he's saying people will speak against
04:07you, and they do it with the intent to shape how others see you. They do it with the intent
04:14to define
04:15you in your absence. Mmm. They do it with the intent to create a version of you that other people
04:24respond to. Oh, God help us. Has this ever happened to you? Well, if it has, Peter gives us a
04:32strategy in
04:32the text. He tells us, let your life outlast the lies. He says that they may buy your good works,
04:42which they behold. Glorify God. Oh, let your light so shine amongst them that they see your good works,
04:51and they start to glorify the Father themselves. He's telling us to let our life become a long-term
04:59testimony that slowly dismantles what was said about us. Oh, God help us to do that. The people
05:08make false narratives of us, but if our life keeps on contradicting those false narratives,
05:14they're going to have to keep on adjusting their story about us. And when someone keeps adjusting
05:19the story, that story eventually collapses. This is the strategy. Don't argue with them. Don't get in
05:26a mud sling and fight, because then they'll use the fact that you got into the mud sling and fight
05:30with them. They'll use to have evidence against you. No, I'm not going to sling mud. I'm going to let
05:34my life speak. Now, this is the strategy. But for this to work, we must resist the urge to defend
05:41ourselves. That's one thing we got to do. Don't defend yourself. Oh, the second thing we must do is we
05:48must trust that the truth will surface over time. Trust that, let God vindicate you over time. Let
05:56God do the work. Oh, and we must stay consistent, living a righteous life, living an upright life,
06:04even when misunderstood. We must do these things if we want our lives to expose the lies. As we let
06:13our
06:13light shine, and amidst a false accusation, a gap starts to form. There becomes a gap between what
06:20they said about you and what you're really living. Let the gap between what they said about you and how
06:28your life really is. Let that gap grow wider and wider and wider until people have to say,
06:34why did I ever believe such a false story in the first place? This is the strategy that Peter is
06:41giving
06:41to us. Let your life speak against lies. You don't have to. Help us to do so, God. In Jesus'
06:50name,
06:50I pray and say, amen.
07:11Amen.
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