The Good Life

The Good Life

We are going to return to our study in 1 Peter this morning.

Pastor Frank and I discussed our plans for preaching, and we decided to each do our own sermon series.

I will continue with 1 Peter, and Pastor Frank will start with a new series next week, and we will just alternate each week.

We decided to do it this way because our preaching styles are different enough that it would be difficult for us to both do the same series, plus Frank has clued me in regarding what his series will be, and it should definitely be interesting!

But I’ll let him unveil it to you!

So let us now read our passage for this morning, which can be found in 1 Peter 3, verses 8-12.

1 Peter 3:8-12

8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. 10 For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; 11 let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. 12  For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

This has been the reading of God’s Word, let’s pray and ask His help as we work out way through it.

This passage begins with a phrase that sounds as though Peter were wrapping something up. He says, “Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.”

Indeed, Peter is concluding something, but what? Is it the end of the letter? Nope, not even close. There’s still a few chapters left.

In chapter 2 verse 11, which we looked at several weeks ago, the apostle began a discussion of how we as Christians are to relate to the society in which we live.

You remember this— To recap briefly, Peter said, “If you’re a Christian, you’re alien and stranger to the world. You are also God’s representatives to this fallen world. And as His representatives, we MUST keep our behavior excellent among the unbelievers."

Then Peter gave three areas in which we do this: first one had to do with our relationship to government. And I know we DEFINITELY remember that one! That we are to honor the authorities that God Himself has appointed over us.

The second had to do with our relationship with our local authorities and even our employers. We are called to honor the law of the land, our bosses at work, or our teachers at school.

The third had to do with our relationship with our spouse. I know you remember that one, too! Good times! Good times…

Those are the three, basic, social spheres in which we live: We live in a relationship to the federal and local government; we live in a relationship to authorities at work or at school or at home; and if you’re married, you live in a relationship to your marriage partner. 

And Peter says in those three spheres you must live out a pure, irreproachable, excellent, Christian life.

And that means living in an evangelistic way.

The word was derived from the Greek word “euangelistēs,” which refers to a messenger who is bearing good news. And certainly, every Christian bears very good news for this fallen world— The good news of Jesus Christ.

Regardless of which facet of life we are in, Peter calls us to live to bring people to Christ and glorify God.

So up to this point, Peter has been clearly conveying the fact that we as Christians live in an environment which demands our godly living. We are strangers in this world. Yes. We are aliens in this world. Yes. But we must be model citizens because we represent Christ.

And in our passage today, Peter zooms out and puts the capstone on the whole thing. And I’ll give you a little spoiler right now: As Peter has been working toward this summary, he has been driving toward a particular principle that all Christians need to hear.

And we’re going to work our way to that principle, so let’s start by looking at verse 8:

“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.”

At first glance, he seems to give a list of random virtues.

But upon closer inspection, a pattern emerges.

The first and last virtues- unity of mind and a humble mind. These are mental virtues. They deal with a particular state of mind.

The second and fourth are sympathy and a tender-hearted. These are emotional virtues.

And then brotherly love stands at the center.

This is actually a very special style of writing, but you don’t see it very often in our culture.

Story-telling in our culture is usually a crescendo, meaning it starts lower, and it keeps building and building up to the end, which is the climax, the grand finale, where we get theme of the entire story, the lesson the storyteller wants the reader to learn is revealed at the end.

That’s what we’re used to in our culture.

BUT… That’s not the only way to tell a story. There is a different structure of writing called a “chiasm.”

A chiasm is when the verse or story is a basically mirror image of itself. The beginning and the ending mirror each other, the middle parts mirror each other, and then right at the center is the climax. The main point of the whole thing.

And THAT is what Peter is doing here. The main point of these virtues is brotherly love, and the rest of the virtues are reflections of what brotherly love within the Church looks like.

Together, these traits keep our Christian relationships healthy.

Strong relationships begin with “unity of mind.”

And I must clarify, to have one mind does NOT mean you have identical opinions about politics, or business, or hobbies, or music. Unity does not mean we are exactly the same.

If you try hard enough, you can ALWAYS find a reason to be upset with someone, and sadly, some people try very hard to find reason to be upset, even with fellow Christians.

Instead, unity means that we are agreeable and sensitive to each other’s concerns. Unity comes not from a creed or a law laid upon us, nor from a pretense that we agree when we actually disagree, but from relationships, from respect, and from knowing that we are family!

And you know what doing all those things takes? It takes humility, which is what unity is paired with in this chiasm! Unity is the first virtue, humility is the last, and they are paired together.

Humility is suppressing the desire to be important and to put our interests first. Since most quarrels come from a desire to have our way, we see that humility actually gives rise to unity.

C.S. Lewis once described humility this way: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”

It’s about putting other’s needs first.

And if you need an example, look no further than Christ.

Jesus is the supreme model of humility.

Philippians 2:5-7 states,

“5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

We show brotherly love toward one another by striving to humble ourselves and seeking unity with one another. We love one another by expressing sympathy for those who are struggling, being tender-hearted with those who need grace.

And we love one another by modeling Christ, who is the supreme example of humility. Being God in the flesh, He condescended to our level, walked among us while being perfectly obedient to the Father, and He humbled Himself by giving us the most magnificent example of love we will ever see— by giving up His own life on our behalf, paying the debt of sin that we owe to God.

Love itself can be defined by His act of humility. He set all who believe free from their bondage to sin and brings them to Himself to walk in newness of life.

And Church, the way we interact with one another should be modeled after Him. We know this because as verse 9 from our passage today tells us, just like Christ Himself, “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless.”

And Peter says, “for to this you were called,” meaning, each and every believer was called by God to model this kind of life with one another. It’s not a suggestion. It’s a CALLING!

Unity of mind, sympathy, genuine love for one another, a tender heart, humility, all of these are beautiful things that should characterize our relationship with one another for the good of one another.

But we have more motivation than just being at peace with our fellow Christians. There are more benefits than that which will accompany living out these virtues in our lives.

Because Peter curiously concludes verse 9 with, “that you may obtain a blessing.” What’s that about? What does he mean?

Well, remember earlier when I said that Peter has been working his way toward something that all Christians need to hear? Well, we’re there!

And you may be sitting here this morning thinking, “Oh great… more things I’m being told to do. It’s always rules, rules, rules…” Well, stay with me for a second, because Peter is about to give a new piece of information that should really interest you!

I’d like to read just the first half of verse 10:

For whoever desires to love life and see good days…

Question: Show of hands, who here wants to love life and see good days?

Is that something that interests you?

Living and loving the good life?

That’s a concept that’s pretty well ingrained in our society. Everyone’s searching for the good life. Everyone’s trying to come up with plans on how to get this good life. We even wish each other a good life when we say things like “Good morning,” or “Have a good day.” But what is a good day made up of? What does that actually mean?

If you look and listen closely, you will see that there are a lot of different plans people come up with to obtain this good life.

And for most people it’s chasing things, chasing objects. It may be a house, or a car, sometimes it’s a particular job, sometimes it’s a substance that makes you feel good artificially, like a drug or alcohol. Sometimes it’s even chasing a particular person. Like if they were to marry a particular person, they could have the good life, because being married to them would be… just the best thing in the world.

If you take an objective look at our society, that’s what you will see. The sad reality, however, is that these pursuits will all end the same way: with a failure to bring real satisfaction and that elusive good life. Those kinds of approaches may bring a moment's pleasure, a high, a rush, but they fall drastically short of days that really satisfy the heart.

A brief look at the life of King Solomon makes that painfully obvious. He was one of the wealthiest, if not THE wealthiest man to walk this earth and had literally hundreds of women at his disposal, but he said this in Ecclesiastes 2:17: “So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.” Huh…

But that was a long time ago. What about someone more modern? If you would like to find a character in this century who sort of personified the pursuit of the good life, then look no further than Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was certainly a literary genius.

We can appreciate him for that.

But what really made Hemingway famous was his interesting approach to life. He pursued the good life with a vengeance.

Biographers tell us about Ernest Hemingway, that he was a devout atheist and had little regard for morality. In fact, it was his thought that any sense of a moral code was a menace to human happiness.  So he pursued his good life, the love of life, through drinking, through parties, through fighting, through womanizing all over the world, living exactly the way he wanted to live.

He had power. He had fame. He had prestige. He traveled the globe. He sold millions of books. He pursued pleasure constantly.

And in the end, did he love life? Did he find good days? No. His journey concluded by him putting a gun to his head.

I suppose we could safely say that few people love life. Few people really do see good days. Few people are content. Few people are at peace. Few people have true joy in life.

And yet, everybody wants it.

But let me clue you in, Church, all those things are possible, and certainly we as Christians can and should love life.

We as Christians should enjoy its goodness day by day. But obviously, the methods used by men like Solomon or Hemingway aren’t the solution. So how does it become a reality? How am I to love life and see good days?

Peter gives us the answer. And including this in his letter was important, because remember who he was writing to.

He was writing to Christians scattered across modern-day Turkey living under the rule of the desperately evil Roman emperor, Nero.

They were suffering ridicule and persecution on a regular basis, and I’m sure that they wouldn’t have considered their life to be the “good life.”

But even in their situation, which, Church, was MUCH worse than what we are enduring right now. If we think we have it tough now, we are very mistaken.

But even in their situation, it was possible for them to love life and see good days.

Let’s now read verses 10-12 as a whole:

10 For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; 11 let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. 12  For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

Peter doesn’t mention ANYTHING about possessions or self-fulfillment, does he? Also notice that he doesn’t say anything about not having problems, does he?

Nowhere in Scripture will you find a promise saying that your life won’t come with difficulties, or pain and loss.

The good life is not a life without problems. Life for a Christian has its ups and downs and is characterized by constantly being at war with our sinful nature.

To put it simply, the good life is a life of living for God. It’s recognizing that as a believer in Christ, Ephesians 2:1-5 describes you.

Listen to what the apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2:1-5:

If you are a professing believer this is you:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air (Satan), the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, (some theologians have said are the two greatest words in all of Scripture) being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.

Jesus paid our debt to God on our behalf, and through God’s grace, all who have faith in His life, death, and resurrection, are surely saved.

Living the good life is not a life of living in the passions of the flesh, carrying out every desire of the body and the mind, as Ephesians says.

Living the good life and having true joy, regardless of your circumstances, is a life that is FIRST focused on the hope that we have in Christ, knowing that regardless of what is happening around around, we are secure in Christ and He has promised us a home with Him in His glorious presence in His heavenly kingdom.

And it is a life that is SECONDLY focused on resisting sin and striving to live according to His commands.

Sin destroys everything it touches. As soon as it infected creation when Adam and Eve first sinned, the entire world was plummeted into chaos.

Church, the more sin you tolerate in your life, the more miserable you’re going to be. I guarantee it! Not only are there eternal consequences for sin, there are temporal consequences as well.

We’ve all heard that common saying of dieting, “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips!” Which is to say, that piece of cake will be pleasurable to eat because it tastes great, but with it comes dire consequences in the form of body fat that is really hard to get rid of!

I think this sums up a Christian’s relationship with sin pretty well. Sin may feel good in the moment, but with it comes a myriad of trouble. It’s not worth it! It’s not worth it, and will only make your life more troublesome.

And so Peter says, if you want this life, first, control your tongue! Don’t gossip, don’t slander, don’t brag or boast, don’t lie, don’t make false promises, don’t be rude, don’t blaspheme God’s name, keep your tongue from evil!

The opposite would be to speak the truth in love, to praise God, and to bless humanity. Because Church, the words that come out of your mouth are a good indicator of what’s going on in your heart. Matthew 15:18: “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart…”

Secondly, turn away from ALL evil and do good. Forsake sin and instead follow Christ’s example of a perfectly righteous life. The good we enjoy in life follows the good we do in life. If we want a good life, we should turn from evil and do good instead. We should always strive to do good to all people, not just our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Third, life will be good if we “seek peace and pursue it.” This theme runs throughout the New Testament. The author of Hebrews also links holiness and the pursuit of peace in Hebrews 12:14: “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy.”

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

To summarize, then, we find the good life when we follow Peter’s five imperatives: stop evil speech, turn from evil deeds, do good, seek peace, and pursue it. The core command is to do good to others.

Then, Peter concludes, we will experience God’s favor, for as verse 12 states, “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.”

With forsaking sin and striving to be obedient comes blessing. To reject God and pursue a life of sin comes condemnation, turmoil, and ruin.

So Peter has explained how we might find a good and peaceful life, and he has BEEN doing that for the past several weeks. Like I said earlier, this is what he has been getting at this whole time. If we avoid evil words and deeds, do good to all, honor honor our leaders, submit to local authorities, submit to our employers, wives honor their husbands, and husbands love and honor their wives, it will ordinarily lead to a good life in the present.

Now I must say that it doesn’t always happen… We might do good and still suffer for it, and we’ll see Peter address that next time, but even so, at least we know that the Lord’s eyes see the righteous, that His ears hear our prayers, and that His face that favors us opposes all evil that confront us.

And these privileges, these ENORMOUS privileges, are ours ONLY by the faith in Jesus that unites us to Him. That faith lets us live well, speak blessings, repay evil with good, and live in harmony, sympathy, love, compassion, and humility.

And when the troubles come, we know that the Lord hears our cry. That should be enough to move us to live faithfully in His kingdom.

Church, the reason the good life that everyone is desperately searching for is so elusive is because they’re looking for it in the wrong place. Nothing this world offers will give you true joy, peace, and fulfillment. And the reason is because we weren’t designed for this world. We were designed for something much better. We were designed to know God, to love God, and be with God. Nothing outside of God can bring us the joy and satisfaction we all search for.

Pray.

Benediction:

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, 17 comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.