Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good morning and welcome!

In the world we live in today, we are truly blessed to be able to come, gather together, and worship in God’s house with the freedom we have.

This morning we are going to be turning over , looking at verses 8-12.

And while you are finding in your Bibles I would like to ask, has anyone ever felt like they were being watched?

You just have that strange feeling that somebody is watching you, but every time you look around you don’t see anybody.

It makes you a little paranoid doesn’t it?

But, I want you to know this morning that your not just being paranoid, in fact SOMEBODY IS WATCHING.

Somebody is watching every single thing that you say, that you do.

Everywhere you go, what you watch on television, what you look at on the internet.

This person even knows exactly what you are thinking.

And of course we know this morning that we are talking about God.

Many people acknowledge that God knows and sees everything, but most people don’t live their lives like it.

Most people forget that God knows all and sees all.

Because if we really thought about this concept we would probably change the way we do a lot of things in our lives.

I’ve even heard people go so far as to say, “God doesn’t have time to worry about what I do.”

Or they will say, “God’s too busy running the universe to be concerned with me.”

Their mistake though is that they want to put HUMAN attributes on God.

They are thinking of God in human terms, with human qualities.

So, yes, if we think about God in human terms, then they would be correct God couldn’t know everything or see everything.

God wouldn’t have time to know absolutely every single thing we said or did.

However, we need to be reminded that God IS NOT A HUMAN, God created humans.

We need to be reminded of a few verses of Scripture . . .

Genesis 1:1

God is not limited by human qualities, because God created the earth and everything in the earth, including us.

So, yes, while humans are very limited, God’s ability is UNLIMITED.

And we can rest assured that yes, GOD DOES SEE IT ALL and yes, GOD IS WATCHING!

Which coincidentally is the title of this morning’s message, God is Watching.

So, if you have found in your Bible, I’d invite you to stand if you are able as we read verses 8-12.

Again, that is . . .

Scripture Focus

Living in Harmony

So, our passage starts out in the middle of chapter three and is actually part of a much bigger passage.

Starting in all the way through , Peter is teaching the people on the subject of submission.

One of the first things we must do in Christ is submit.

James tells us to . . .

James 4:7-

Remember, the first thing is to submit.

We are submitted to God in obedience before anything else takes place.

Submission gives us the power to resist.

The power to overcome.

The power to claim victory through the Holy Spirit.

James tells us we have to come near to God.

We have to wash our hands, purify our hearts.

We have to grieve and mourn over our sins.

And most importantly we have to humble ourselves before the Lord.

This is no different than what Peter is teaching in the passage that immediately precedes our passage for today.

And if we look closely we will find similarity in what James tells us in verse 10 and what Peter tells us in verse 8 of our passage.

In , James says we are to humble ourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.

In verse 8 of our passage Peter says we are to . . .

So, Peter says that we are to do some things:

Live harmony with one another

Be sympathetic

Love as brothers

Be compassionate

Be humble

And I will tell you that unless we are first humble, it will be very hard to live in harmony with one another.

Unless we are humble, it is hard to be sympathetic to another person’s situation or to love others as your own family.

Unless we are first humble, we often lack true compassion for other people.

We may say we “love people” or even show the capacity to love, but true compassion is loving others when you aren’t getting anything in return.

And in order to do these things we have to first have a humble heart, which is only possible when we are submissive to God.

And the reason is that when we are being submissive to God, we can see the big picture.

The things that people do and the way people act really do not bother us as much as they used to, because we realize how unimportant those things are.

Wednesday night we talked a bit about all the work that God has called us to and how we honestly, don’t have time for a lot of nonsense.

We don’t have time to “play church,” we have to be focused on “being the Church.”

And if we have humility then this comes into a much clearer perspective to us.

Humility allows us to overlook some things in people’s behaviors and get to the root of giving them what they need, which is Jesus Christ.

And if we really have a humble heart then we are able to do what Peter tells us in verse 9 . . .

1 Peter

Anybody ever seen anyone that would repay evil with evil, insult with insult?

Don’t raise your hands, but have we ever acted like this?

The old “eye for an eye” mentality.

They got me so I’m going to get them in return.

They talked bad about me, so let me see what I can say about them .

Where is the humility in that?

Where is the sympathy and compassion in that?

Behaving like this is the complete opposite of what Peter tells us.

It is also the complete opposite of what Jesus teaches us as well . . .

And also . . .

Matthew 5:43-

And often times, we remember these verses when somebody has done us wrong, but NOT for the purposes of doing things differently ourselves.

No, we use them in order to attack those who attack us.

We will confront the other person and say things like, “you must not be a Christian,” or “The Bible says . .

.”

What I want us to notice is that here in , Jesus didn’t say “go and tell other people that I said you are to do these things.”

No, what Jesus said was that we are supposed to just do these things.

Don’t worry, God will take care of anything that needs taken care of and God doesn’t need our help.

And God also doesn’t need our help going around “warning” other people about how somebody treated us.

This type of “warning” is nothing more than gossiping.

Because, again, there is too much Kingdom work to be done and we really do not have time for this sort of nonsense.

People are dying and going to hell and we are worried about things that don’t amount to a hill of beans.

Peter tells us that instead of acting this way we are called to respond with blessing.

Which I know is hard sometimes, but if we are going to claim to be Christians and claim to have had our heart transformed by God, then we need to allow the Holy Spirit to have access to our hearts, and allow the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts.

Otherwise, we are not really being submissive to God, we are only trying to earn a “get out of hell free” card.

And that’s not going to cut it.

Living a Sanctified Life

At the end of verse 9, Peter says we are to respond with blessing because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

Which can trip us up if we do not understand what Peter is saying.

Many people will point to this verse and say that “Well, I’ve got overlook them because that’s how I earn God’s blessing.”

And we will also throw in . . .

And we will tie this forgiveness to something we “have to do” even if we don’t want to.