Living as Exiles - Week 6

Last week we got to be outside - this week the weather app on my phone said 100% chance of rain today - so we will try again another time. We do want to have a fall fellowship outside at some point, we will try to schedule that at tomorrow’s council meeting.

We are working our way through 1 Peter, the letter that the Apostle Peter wrote and sent out to the Christians that were scattered abroad. We are in our 6th week of this study we are calling “Living as Exiles.”

If you have missed any of the previous weeks and want to get caught up - you can find our sermons online at calvaryfoursquare.church

If you have your bibles, please turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 3.

Last week we studied vs 1-7 of this chapter - Peter gave instructions for how we structure our homes, the third in a set of instructions to be a people who submits… And it is a difficult instruction to face.

We are told to submit to government - and we know that government to be willing and able to commit terrible and evil things. We are told to submit to masters, even when they are cruel. We are told to submit to husbands - even when they disobey the word.

that is the foundation that we build upon for the scripture we are studying today.

Let’s pray together.

1 Peter 3:8–12 CSB

Finally, all of you be like-minded and sympathetic, love one another, and be compassionate and humble, not paying back evil for evil or insult for insult but, on the contrary, giving a blessing, since you were called for this, so that you may inherit a blessing. For the one who wants to love life and to see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit, and let him turn away from evil and do what is good. Let him seek peace and pursue it, because 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 what is evil.

Peter writes to the whole church again, saying all of you - Finally, all of you - then we get to one of these wonderful lists that you find so often in scripture.

I want to pick this apart so that we can understand it - look at all of the parts and see how it functions before we put it all back together.

That is how my brain works. I need to see the things that come together - and especially in a wordy, listy, stack of scripture like this one, its helpful to break it down.

The first thing I believe that we should see - is the why - because it is important.

The reality is, some of the things that scripture instructs us to do are difficult, some of them impossible on our own. Some of them, we aren’t willing to even attempt. But if you can see the REASON behind the instruction, often times the effort becomes less of a burden.

We are capable of incredibly difficult things, if we believe in the why.

So lets find it together.

Take a look at 1 Peter 3:9

1 Peter 3:9 CSB

not paying back evil for evil or insult for insult but, on the contrary, giving a blessing, since you were called for this, so that you may inherit a blessing.

Half way through the verse, you see a conjunction - which is a word used to connect two thoughts - and in this case it is the word Since.

Since separates two thoughts, the first being what seems like an impossible list of things to do, and the second is the reason why.

And the reason why is this:

You were called.

What in the world - does that mean? Let me tell you.

There is a god, who created the heavens and the earth, he formed people and created grass and blue skies and rain. And he created you with purpose, and then gives you instruction. And there is something wonderful about knowing what that is. Why did the creator of the universe decide that I should have breath in my lungs?

Peter describes that in verse 8 and part of verse 9. First, by giving 5 descriptions of who you aught to be, on the inside - and then by telling you how you are called to behave. We should remember that Peter is writing to a group of people who have already been wronged for one reason or another. They are living in exile. They are like us.

They had lived a life before coming to know the Lord. They were living amongst people who didn’t know who Jesus was - or knew of Him and rejected him. There was persecution.

And we should remember the position that he writes from as well. Peter had spent three years-ish walking with the Lord. He broke bread with Jesus, he sat around fires with Jesus, they spent time together often. And from that experience he writes to us.

I imagine that these are the very things that Jesus corrected Peter on, as they walked together.

So lets look at vs 8 to see those instructions.

Like Minded

Sympathetic

Loving

Compassionate

Humbly minded

If you are like me, you are looking at this list thinking - I can’t do any of that.

To be like minded - that is an instruction that we find multiple other times in scripture, but it means that at the most basic levels - we have to be on the same page. We are being called to be united in purpose and spirit, to be in harmony with one another. This instruction dictates how I think! I am not always good at controlling how I think - and I am certainly not great at aligning what I think with what everyone else is thinking. It is inside me, and I don’t have immediate control over it.

To be sympathetic - again, an inner being issue. This instruction dictates how I feel about others. That I would share the experiences, and be understanding. Well, this instruction we find elsewhere too.. we are called to shoulder one another’s burdens somewhere in the Bible I am pretty sure. Again - this isn’t something that I am all that great about - on my own. In fact, left to be just me, I am really judgmental. I say and think things really quickly totally disregarding other peoples real circumstances.

We are called to be a loving people. This is brotherly love, and again comes from our inner being. In my mind this would establish a motivation for some of the other things, if I could in fact convince myself to love others. But when Jesus walked the earth, his commandments were only 2 - to love god, and to love your neighbor. But people are not all that easy to love. People say and do hurtful things. Sometimes, I don’t want to love them.

Then we have a call to be compassionate - well, that is referring to how I respond to others. It ties into some of these other issues. Being compassionate means that I respond with care, that I take things into consideration before I respond, that I am intentionally more gentle than I would otherwise be.

and finally we are called to be humbly minded. That dictates how I should feel about myself - not prideful or arrogant. We dealt with this in a sermon a few weeks ago - because of how pervasive it really is. To be so certain of ourselves and our own abilities. Peter, many times corrected by the Lord himself, says that we should have a rightly weighted opinion of ourselves.

So here is the problem - we are instructed in scripture to be this way. And really, as a believer, as I study the word, and I see the way that Jesus is - I want to be those things.

I don’t want to get in the way of the work that God wants to do.

But to accomplish what I am commanded to accomplish - my self -my inner being - has to be renovated.

There is work to be done.

And renovation isn’t comfortable.

Mark and Sarah renovated a bathroom a few months ago - was supposed to be a simple job, Mark - was it as easy as it was supposed to be?

And we are talking about renovating our selves!

Breaking us down from the inside out. all of our experiences, our emotions, our anecdotes.

Repent - From our own ways, our sin

1 Peter 3:10–11 CSB

For the one who wants to love life and to see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit, and let him turn away from evil and do what is good. Let him seek peace and pursue it,

Resort - Back to Christ

1 Peter 2:4 CSB

As you come to him, a living stone—rejected by people but chosen and honored by God—

1 Peter 2:24 CSB

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

Relish in the good things that God has done.

1 Peter 2:2–3 CSB

Like newborn infants, desire the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow up into your salvation, if you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Request - Pray for help with these things.

1 Peter 3:12 CSB

because 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 what is evil.

Resolve: to be this way, and to do what we are commanded