Called to Blessing

Introduction

How many of you ate black eyed peas and cabbage for New Years on January 1?

Does God hear everything that we say?

English Standard Version Chapter 3

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.”

Many of us have New Year traditions that we think will bring us blessing. Many of us eat black eyed peas and cabbage every year for health and wealth. I heard someone say the other day, “I have been eating black eyed peas and cabbage for forty years, and I’m still broke.”

Instead, let us go to the Bible to see how God grants His blessings.

Explanation

Firstly, live a life of harmony. Paul admonishes his hearers with five things:

Unity of mind

The better Greek word is “harmonious.”

Harmonious means, “in sync.”

Think with me for a moment about a piece of music. Have you ever heard a song with one note?

One note would be incredible boring and not harmonious at all.

However, a good song is one with different notes that all play in sync with one another.

We have great unity in diversity.

We might all be different, but we will be blessed when we realize that God can use all our differences to write the song of his grace.

Sympathy

The severity in our society is very troubling to me.

People lack any sense of sympathy for anyone else.

We desire sympathy from others but we fail to give it to others.

I want you to take a moment to picture the person who you think would be the exact opposite from you. Their ideology, their political leanings, etc, everything. They still deserve for you to see where they are coming from.

I am not saying that you you should just let them continue to live in their sins. We attempt to reach others for Jesus, certainly.

When you can listen, you can help.

My boss at Broadmoor gave me a performance evaluation. He said, “You need to learn to listen.”

I thought I was a good listener, and I almost interrupted him to tell him why I thought I was one.

He said, “People can tell that you are already thinking of what you are going to say next instead of listening to what they have to say.”

Brotherly Love

When I think of brotherly love, I think of Lord of the Rings.

The four little hobbits endure all sorts of scary and difficult situations, but everything seemed to be ok when they could sit around the fire with a hot cup of tea and something for dinner.

Their love for one another was a solace from the world.

To me, brotherly love is one of the truest and best forms of love. It form a sort of protective barrier around everyone involved.

A Tender Heart

Pastors must have thick skin and a soft heart.

Pastors often confuse thick skin with a hard heart.

Pastors also confuse think skin with a soft heart.

What is the difference?

We should all have thick skin and soft hearts - not just pastors.

A humble mind

We lean on Jesus.

We realize that we cannot do anything ourselves.

We know that Christ, Himself, must do the work.

Secondly, when someone does evil to you, repay it with blessing.

Christians are known to cry, “Woe is me!” about every little thing. We whine about this, or we whine about that.

Instead of whining, we ought to be blessing others.

Finally, remember that God sees everything that we do.

NOTE: Peter pulls this text from Psalm 34.

a. Watch your tongue.

b. Turn from evil and do good.

c. Why? Because God sees.

i. He answers the prayers of the ones who do good.

ii. He does not listen to the prayers of those who do evil.

Application

Let’s really try to love others this year.

We can love others by listening and caring and trying to place their needs first.

Conclusion

Devote yourself to blessing others, and God will bless you.