For the Love of Pete

Find a couple places to emphatically says FOR THE LOVE OF PETE!!!

1 Peter 3:8-12

So today’s title is another shameless idiom like our series title. I was just going to title it for the Love. And then I thought OH NO, wait a minute we are in Peter, and don’t people say for the love of pete? I hadn’t heard it in a while, and in fact some people believe it originated from people not wanting to take the Lords name in vain by saying for the Love of God or the Love of Christ, but apparently taking St. Peter’s name in vain was a little more acceptable. Anyhow if you want to find your way to 1 Peter chapter 3, the verses we are going to look at today help us consider how the love discussed in this portion of scripture exhibit a specific character in each case. So we will start with verse 8 here in just a moment. If you have your Bibles open I wonder what the header above verse 8 says in your version.

I looked at a few different ones and found themes such as… Suffering for righteousness’s sake, Suffering for doing good, Suffering with a clear conscience… Then I read the next 5 verses and see three directives surrounding a love for someone or something. It’s almost as though Peter is saying that love oftentimes looks alot like suffering.

Why do you love your wife? I love all the pain she causes me?

What do you love so much about life? I enjoy taking losses and keeping my mouth shut about it.

Why do you love the Lord? Because most of the world hates me because it’s full of evil.

Not exactly the ideal valentine’s day card themes…

Let’s read a couple versions then explore these tensions a little bit…

1 Peter 3:8–9 “Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”

For the Love of People FIND STORIES Highlight a person for each section?

Here in just the matter of 2 verses we see 8 directives, a reason and a outcome. Go live out these two verses and you don’t have to read much more Bible for the day. The directives are unity, sympathy, love, compassion, humility, no evil for evil, no insult for insult, repay blessing for evil, the reason is because you were called, and the outcome is a blessing!!!

What I believe to be most important about the directives is that they are a plurality of instructions that are all representative of the Christian character. And I believe are to be understood as synonomous with one another. In other words, don’t just be sympathetic, but let the sympathetic one be humble. All in all we could say that means that the love of people should be characterized by these directives.

If I’m going to love people it means I seek unity, rather than taking sides. Did you know we are a people that takes sides? Don’t think so? Bengals or browns? Chocolate or vanilla? Conservative… or liberal… pause. We can’t be people of love that love people when we spend so much time talking about our differences.

If I’m going to love people it means I’m sympathetic rather than judgmental. I heard about someone in a Christian community who lost their job the other day, and I heard three different stories about why they were fired, mostly rumors that would only hurt the persons reputation, but no one commenting on how it made that person feel.

If I’m going to love people it means I’m compassionate rather than critical. Anyone in here ever do something to injure themselves physically and have that person in the remind them of how they could have prevented the injury. Yeah I got it. I won’t stick my finger in an outlet again, believe it or not you didn’t have to remind me.

If I’m going to love people I have to be humble rather than need to be the center of attention. Some people can’t see us loving them because don’t believe we could love anyone more than we love ourselves. Sheesh pastor. But am I right?

If I’m going to love people, getting back at someone is never on the table. In fact I believe Peter’s desire is to touch us, that we are supposed to be so supernaturally transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, that when we are treated wrong, the love of God in our hearts should go out of our way to return kindness for evil, because this extreme irrational response will open the door for the gospel message.

Why are we supposed to love like this, when you accepted Jesus, this became your first and most unquestionable call. This is what you signed up for, and it’s where real blessing takes place. I’m sure we could just shut down the sermon there and come pray and I’d have to race you to the altar but before we transition to the next thought, I’ll remind you of this, these principles are prescribed behavior towards everyone in your life. Not just the church, not just the family member, not just the enemy, in case some of us are kind to strangers and struggle with those closer to us. I hope I’m wrong but I bet everyone has a person or short list of people that you have said I’ve done my part in trying to love them. Guess what as long as you and they are still breathing, you can try to love more, you can try to love again. Best I can tell, those two verses say it could be something that releases that blessing your waiting on, more on that in a minute.

Transition: Let’s look at verse 10-11 (Peter here actually quoting from Psalm chapter 34 says)

1 Peter 3:10–11 “For, “Whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue from evil and their lips from deceitful speech. They must turn from evil and do good; they must seek peace and pursue it.”

For the Love of Life

Another 2 verse packed full of instruction. List the instruction and talk about it mean we will have the life we will love.

The first word in verse 10 is the word FOR, F…O…R and it’s reframing the blessing you are waiting on from loving people to point to the fact that a person that is seeking blessing must want to live a life that they love.

Do you want to love life? I mean do you really want to love the life you are living, or just looking for the next hit? The next form of entertainment. I’ll tell you what. I really love life. I do. And do you know what I find most of the time, is that it irritates people that don’t. If you aren’t going to love life at least don’t get irritated with people that do love life. I like being your pastor, it’s a really cool job. I like my family, their a cool group of people. I like my house. I like playing golf. But for whatever reason as a pastor, I find that alot of people think I’m supposed to be beat up and struggling, and having a hard time. Look if you think that’s how I live most of the time, you can show your support by continuing to put buckeyes in my office, whoever you were this week, thanks so much! But here’s what I get alot of times. Hey Pastor Jonathan how’s your week been? I respond my week’s been great! They look at me, maybe put their hand on my shoulder, but how are you really doing. Sorry, you asking the second time isn’t going to make me less happy. I love life! Sure I get tired, and my back hurts sometime, and I don’t need to pay to ride roller coasters because I’m teaching a teenager to drive, but I like what I got going on.

Do you want to love life. Start by loving people, then verses 10 and 11, says talk less bad, talk more good. Do less bad, do more good. SEEK PEACE AND PURUSE IT.

Let me touch on each of these three directives quickly.

Talk less bad, talk more good… I tend to downplay problems. Not because I don’t think problems need to be addressed, but because I think we are quick to search for issues rather than celebrate good. The Holy Spirit is always working on our behalf and He’s aware of my problems, of your problems, of our problems. We always want to be growing and seeing how we can improve, but we must guard against a spirit that would magnify shortcomings and overlook all the good in people, and all the great things happening around us.

Do less bad, do more good. The verse actually says turn from evil and do good. It’s really hard to do good while you are still looking at, hanging around, continuing in things that aren’t good. See here what Psalm 101:3–4 says…“I will not look with approval on anything that is vile. I hate what faithless people do; I will have no part in it. The perverse of heart shall be far from me; I will have nothing to do with what is evil.”

We will talk more about this next week, but too many of us stay in the mix with evil trying to fix it when we were to turn from it, avoid it, and have nothing to do with it. Also to be clear, and you will hear this come out in my preaching alot, I just referenced it a couple of weeks ago. New Christian you can listen, more experienced Christian you listen more closely. Your small sin, your sin that you justify, that you have other people justify for you is EVIL. Sin is evil, and the quicker you deal with “quote” small sin, the more you will avoid “quote” big sins. Turn from evil, do good.

Our third directive to love life is to seek peace and pursue it.

Peace is not about the absence of conflict, but rather it is seeking the presence of God amidst the conflict. But mind you, we aren’t to pursue conflict in order to somehow prove this reality.

SEEK PEACE… You don’t have to look for conflict, there’s enough right? Wake each day saying how can I be a peace producer. People are going to like you so much more when they see you wanting to keep the peace. You are going to like you so much more when you are working to keep the peace.

Romans 12:18 says “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

For the Love of People, For the Love of Life, For the Love of the Lord

1 Peter 3:12 “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.””

For the Love of the Lord

We WANT the love of the Lord. Now, now, don’t hear me say you can do anything to keep God from loving you. But throughout scripture the principle is made clear that we can receive greater favor from the Lord when we are obedient to the next step He’s asking us to take and we live according to His word.

Again at the beginning of verse 12 we see the word FOR, pointing back to what we’ve been talking about and framing towards what is about to be said. So you love other people, so you prove that you love life by the way you speak, and live, and pursue peace. Verse 12 says THIS is where it lands you.

We love people and we are blessed.

We get to love our life when we pursue peace in our words and deeds, and NOW…

We get this extra lovin’ from the Lord…

The verse says more righteousness equals more attentiveness. The verse says when you live good you get God’s eyes watching you and his ears are open to your prayer.

Did you know even the world believes this principle? Take it from a pastor, over the years, there are people that believed that asking me had some elevated supernatural power. That somehow God heard my prayers more than He would hear theirs. I’ve always responded to those people that I would pray for them if they agreed to pray for themselves. But as I’m saying all this now, maybe they were on to something. Maybe I could live however I want, and as long as I move all my prayers to God through righteous people I could live the best slash worst of both lives. Anyone feel like this logic might not hold up with an almighty God? While I’m not going to lie, there are people I know to be great prayer warriors and I ask them to pray for me in different situations, it seems as thought submitting myself to the conviction of the Holy Spirit and moving towards the things of God might have a greater impact on my prayers being heard.

But what about God’s eyes being upon us? I know for the 90% of you that don’t play golf, you love all of my golf illustrations but this one just fits too well. There’s a saying among golfers, “You must be livin’ right.” Do you know what that means? It means I hit a ball deep into the woods, it hits 11 different trees skips off the water, bounces off a gophers head and then magically ends up on the green when the ball should have been lost forever, and your playing buddy looks at you and says, you sure must be living right.

President Thomas Jefferson was credited with saying, “Im a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the luckier I get.” Now there’s nothing wrong with working hard, and I’m not sure where I fall on the luck stuff, and I’m certainly not trying to overdo some type of unhealthy obsession with a karma type of mentality or believing somehow we go tit for tat with God where He reciprocates a specific and relatable blessing to every good deed, but when I’m living according to His word… the ball does seem to bounce my way in life more. This is biblical… not just from our text today… but paraphrasing Psalm 1 “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night…— whatever they do prospers. BUT Not so the wicked!

For clarification we are not propping up a works theology where the harder I worker the more God gives me. It’s starts with our faith and trust in him, and then our good works flow from that out of a response to that relationship with Him.

Our prayers are heard, blessing flows our way, and He promises us His protection. Not only are His watchful eyes of protection upon us, but He is fighting against our enemies. I receive alot of peace from this. Now we have preached here before about who are enemies are and I honestly don’t think there are a lot of people out to “get” me. If you know of any please don’t tell them where I live. But I think this even means that when we are trying to honor God and someone seems to be disputing our leadership or direction that the Holy Spirit is working to breakdown that spirit of division. My enemy is satan and sometimes he manifests himself not IN people, but IN BETWEEN people. So much of scripture is written to WE rather than ME. And if we are always reading the scripture thinking more about WE than ME. We can remember we are all on the same team, so then when we re-frame verse 12 this way…

The eyes of the Lord are on (ARMS INCLUDING ALL) ALL OF US RIGHTEOUS, HE HEARS OUR PRAYERS, AND HE’S KEEPING THE SPIRIT OF THE EVIL ONE FROM INFILTRATING OUR MISSION.

“For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.””

Response

Invite the team

14 years ago before I was a pastor, I received a promotion in my company that I knew someone else wanted. Over the next 18 months that person lied about me, started rumors, and did things to sabotage my branch that I had oversight of, the kind of things you only hope happen in movies. As a result my Vice President was influenced to demote me from that position. I wanted so bad to share my thoughts on the other employee as this demotion was going to cause me to move my family back from Indiana to Ohio after just 19 months, but the Holy Spirit was crystal clear that I should not, and thankfully I listened. The employee who had sabotaged me was promoted to my position and I moved back to Ohio. It was hard, I would say I stayed somewhat wounded for the next year. But over the next year that employee who had taken my position was fired because others came forward about his behavior. I began to pastor my first church, so that my demotion in the world actually lead to a promotion in the kingdom. It’s important for you to know that the VP that demoted me worked in Akron, OH while I worked in Indianapolis, IN. 4 years after leading my first church we moved to northern Ohio, and one in day I saw the VP in the drug mart across the street from my house. 4 years after the fact, having lived 5 hours apart, I would move in across the street from this VP. I got to have a meal with him, and though he never said sorry, and I never said I forgave him, I got to tell him about how God had used my exit from the company to open incredible opportunities to answer my calling.

Towards both individuals had I not chosen to love people, who knows where I would be now. Good chance I wouldn’t be right here.

What if God is using that loss in your life, because He wants you to win more for Him.

We can’t say we love people, and have exceptions

Do you love your government leaders, your church leaders, your family, your neighbors, your co-workers, who is on the list that you aren’t even supposed to be keeping. There’s a lot of freedom in ripping up that list.

Don’t differentiate between anyone based on their behavior.

Our behavior towards them reflects our character not theirs.

Blessing is not predicated on justification of behavior, your character is determined on your response, not your justification.

We can’t say we want a life that we love, when we continue to limit that potential by our words, and continuing in a sin we are aware of. Sometimes we have to take a loss. John Maxwell said we get to celebrate a win or mourn a loss for 24 hours then it’s best to move on. Every coach and every player will always tell you after the game what could have been. I’m not interested in living a what it could have been life, I want to live a what can we do from here kind of life.

I mentioned titles to this section of scripture earlier, and there was one more that I found that I saved til the end today. One version of scripture titled this section The best life… ultimately isn’t that something we would all be ok with? “The best life”

Sometimes in human terms we can see suffering as just that. But if we can see that God called us to lose our life to gain what He has for us, we can move forward with great strength in confidence.

God’s grace and mercy blow me away every day, but I never want to settle for good when God has whats best for me in store.

STAND

What is it for you this morning?

Do you still have a list of people that you don’t have to love? That has to end today. Not a fake love but an extravagant love that causes you to take a posture of humility and suffering though they have hurt you time and time again.

Why would you want to live a less than life? Turn from that sin that’s hanging on and seek peace rather than sighting problems, we are so much better together.

And when we do these things, God hears our prayers, and his watchful eye of protection is upon us.

I need Him to hear my prayers because I pray alot of them. And I can’t imagine where I’d be if He were to lift His hand of protection from me.

PRAY

Post Response

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Go love better this week. Seeking peace, turning from sin, trusting in God.

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