The sermon opens in the middle of an expository series in 1 Peter, reading 1 Peter 3:13-17 and tying it deliberately to the Christmas season the church is still celebrating. The preacher notices a handmade "Merry Christmas" sign taped across three windows at a nursing home the congregation visited, and observes that when the windows are viewed separately, "Christ" sits alone in the middle pane — a fitting picture, he says, because Christmas is about Christ, and so is the whole of Scripture, including this text. The sermon's center is verse 15a: "but in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord" (sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts). The preacher notes the deliberate echo of the Lord's Prayer's first petition, "hallowed be your name" — the same Greek idea of being set apart, treated as supremely precious, matchless in holiness, beauty, and honor. He anchors this with the hymn line "I'd rather have Jesus" as the lived expression of what it means to prize Christ above every rival good.

The sermon then works out how this command connects to the rest of the passage. First, verse 14b ("do not fear what they fear, do not be frightened") stands in contrast with verse 15a: a fearful, anxious life is incompatible with a heart that has set Christ apart as Lord. Second, verse 15b explains why the contrast exists — believers are to "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." The preacher argues that non-Christians sense something "fundamentally different" in how believers spend money, time, and affection, and that difference provokes questions — he calls this living a "questionable life," not strange in a negative sense but arresting in a positive one, because it signals that ultimate hope is not placed in money, career, family, or health (all good things, he stresses, but ruinous the moment they become ultimate). The reason for that hope, he concludes from context, is Christ himself — the object and ground of a true Christian's hope, not doctors, savings, or family security. He illustrates with John Piper's line "you will waste your cancer" if suffering does not drive a person nearer to God, arguing that setting apart Christ as Lord means placing hope in the sovereign God over the illness rather than exhausting all energy chasing a cure.

He contrasts this with the alternative offered by secular culture, using the film Barbie as an illustration: beneath the "every night is girls' night" bravado, Barbie's sudden question "have you ever thought about dying?" stops the music, exposing an unavoidable confrontation with mortality and identity that the film's characters (Ken especially) resolve only by manufacturing their own meaning and purpose — a self-grounded life the preacher calls "very fragile," easily shattered and utterly without answer before death and the Creator. Against that fragility, the gospel is good news: sanctifying Christ as Lord is not something believers do for God but a recognition of what he has already done — redeemed, saved, and promised to work all things together for those who love him (Isaiah 40:31 and Romans 8:28 are both cited), a God who, unlike even a mother who could forget her nursing child, will never forsake his own.

The sermon closes with three brief aspects of this hope. First, hope must rest on a strong foundation — believers should be able to answer, honestly and specifically, why they believe, rather than resting on cultural inheritance (Richard Dawkins's jab that faith is mostly an accident of birthplace is raised and partly conceded, partly turned back on the atheist). The true answer, the preacher urges, is the gospel itself: Christ crucified for sin and risen from the dead, uniquely verifiable in history, unlike any other religious claim of a Creator becoming man. Second, this hope is expressed with gentleness and respect (verse 15c) — the calm, humble speech of someone secure in Christ, contrasted with the raised voices of people whose arguments, and whose ultimate hopes, are weak. Third, this hope produces a life diligent in good works (verses 13, 16-17): resting one's hope fully in God does not produce passivity but hard, joyful labor — like Paul's tireless ministry attributed entirely to grace — whether in costly mission trips, regional evangelistic campaigns, or handing out gospel flyers that seem to bear no fruit. As the year closes, the congregation is urged to carry this same question into the new year: what good work has God prepared for them to do, in joyful confidence that their hope is secured in him.

Bible Verses Used

• 1 Peter 3:13-17: The sermon's main text — the command to sanctify Christ as Lord and its outworking in fearlessness, readiness to give an answer, gentleness, and good works.

• Matthew 6:9 (the Lord's Prayer, "hallowed be your name"): Cited as the linguistic and theological parallel to "set apart Christ as Lord," showing that sanctifying Christ is the believer's first priority.

• Isaiah 40:31: Quoted to show God's promise of renewed strength to those who hope in him, grounding the security of placing all hope in the Lord.

• Isaiah 49:15 (a mother forgetting her nursing child): Used to illustrate the impossibility of God ever forsaking those who have set their hope on him.

• Romans 8:28: Cited as God's promise to work all things for the good of those who love him, reinforcing why hope is safely placed in Christ rather than in circumstances.

• 1 Corinthians 15 (implied, via Paul's labor "by the grace of God"): Referenced to show that hope in Christ produces diligent, joy-filled labor rather than passivity.