Grace Under Fire - To This You Were Called

Well, we're in 1 Peter, Chapter 3.

1 Peter 3 · chapter mention

Are you ready for a challenge from Simon Peter?

Oh man, you're sure it's a challenge.

First service didn't know what they were asking for.

So are you sure?

Ready for a challenge?

Okay, all right.

Chapter 3, starting at verse 8.

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

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.

For whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.

Let him turn away from evil and do good.

Let him seek peace and pursue it, 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.

Father, we thank you so much that the entrance of your word brings light.

So this morning, lord, we're asking for light.

We know that there are dark areas in our understanding, dark areas in our character.

Lord, we need your light.

We need you to come in and flood us with your light this morning.

So we ask you for that, lord.

Open our eyes to see.

In the name of Jesus, amen.

Okay, I'm going to tell you a story this morning about the hottest sermon I ever preached.

So well, actually, it's probably more likely, it's the hottest I ever was when I preached a sermon, that's actually more like what it was.

So I was with my friend, jay Raj, in summertime in South India, which is just hot.

It's just hot.

And he asked me to.

It's just hot, and he asked me to come and speak at a church.

Usually, when I'm in other nations, I'm working with leaders and training pastors, and sometimes, though, they asked me to speak at a church, and so I will speak at a church, and so we went to this church.

It was late in the afternoon, it was so hot and just like.

It's like 120% humidity, you know one of those things and then we went to this third story room, and so, like every step I climbed, it was hotter.

It was like one degree hotter every step.

I got to the top and walked in the room.

It was like a sauna, literally, like I was dripping sweat walking into the room.

People were up there.

I guess they're used to it, I don't know.

They were up there worshiping, and so I was getting ready to preach.

Now J Raj asked me would you preach on a specific topic?

And sometimes I am asked to speak on specific topics and usually I get to do whatever I feel the Lord leading.

But he said I want you to speak on how to be blessed.

Speak to us on the blessing of God, how to be blessed, how to walk the blessed life.

And I kind of knew what he was meaning, because you know, in a lot of places in the world, especially in third world countries, there's this doctrine that has gone before us, right, and this doctrine of prosperity gospel, and it's a real heresy and it's extreme.

It's really done a lot of damage, but it's also really well received in poverty stricken places.

So I think I knew what he was asking me to speak on Blessed, how to get blessed right.

But all I could think of was the Sermon on the Mount, because Jesus said blessed are, and he gives a whole list, right, of blessings.

And so I started going down the list of blessings according to Jesus right Now.

That includes poor in spirit, that includes those who mourn, that includes those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, that includes those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.

You're blessed when men revile you and speak all manner of evil against you.

For my name's sake, are you feeling the blessing this morning?

But I think we understood a little bit that morning about what it means to be blessed in this kingdom that we're brought into.

It's a different kind of kingdom.

There is a different way, there's a different definition of blessing, and this is what it's not necessarily our idea, is not necessarily God's way.

There's a different definition of blessing and this is what it's not necessarily our idea, is not necessarily God's idea.

That's what I'm saying and Peter is really telling his people here.

He's telling them how to be blessed.

In fact, he says to this you were called, you were called to inherit a blessing, but the context in which he was writing was this context of persecution and suffering and difficult times, and they were suffering for Jesus' sake.

So what happens is Peter echoes the words he heard from Jesus on that mountain.

And Peter was not he was never, he's not a stranger to suffering.

Right, he had a lot of suffering in his life.

But surprisingly, if you read what he says here, he says that in his experience it is our relationships within the church that are important in keeping our minds and our souls in the right place so that we are strong in ourselves, so that we're strong together and so that we hold forth a strong witness, even to those who are persecuting us.

Are you feeling a blessing this morning?

He even says we can turn the tables on those who are persecuting us.

But we do it in a way that perhaps we wouldn't expect, because the larger picture of what Peter is talking about even in our suffering, even in our sufferings today and their sufferings then as well is that we have a privilege of showing the character of Jesus to the world, but we have to have the character of Jesus inside of us and even among us in order to do this.

So we develop the character of Jesus mostly, maybe totally, in the context of relationships.

So Peter has a great big we, a great big unity, a great big us involved in his sermon today.

In his sermon, his letter then and my sermon today, and he refers to Psalm 34,.

Okay, I don't know if you noticed that, but half of what we read here was not original to Peter.

It was actually original to David.

In the Psalms and 1, peter contains the largest concentration of citations from the Old Testament of any book in the New Testament except for Revelation.

There are 21 references from the Old Testament in these five chapters.

So the fisherman knew his Bible, and you and I should too as well.

So he cites Psalm 34 in this letter twice, once in chapter one and once here and his readers would have got it.

They understood it, they knew the Psalm.

They probably sung this Psalm in their service this is very possible.

But they also knew the story behind the psalm.

Do you know the story behind the psalm?

This was a song of David.

It was a strange time in David's life.

David was afraid of Achish, the king of Gath, and it says that he changed his behavior before the king and the king's men, and he pretended to be insane in their hands and he made marks on the door.

He was scratching the door and he let his spittle run down his beard.

It's our boy, it's our hero.

And the king said this man is crazy.

Why have you brought him here?

He actually said quote do I lack, madman, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence?

Do I not have enough idiots?

What are you bringing to me?

Send him away.

So David is sent away and David writes the song, and the song has a lot of great quotes that we love to draw from right, like taste and see that the Lord is good.

We love that one and, like the angel of the Lord, encamps around those who fear his name to save them and deliver them from harm.

Love that one.

And my favorite is the Lord is near to the brokenhearted.

And it's true, it's all true.

But I think the big idea of Psalm 34 is in verse 19.

He says this many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.

That's what David is saying in the Psalm.

That's what Peter is referring back to.

There's a reason he says it, because it's in the context of suffering and afflictions that Peter is writing his letter to these people and God is delivering his people, his own people, there in first century Palestine.

And he speaks to us as well.

And his readers got it.

They understood, because they were experiencing their own affliction, their own suffering and persecution from a godless form of government, a godless culture because of their faith in Christ.

And I think what Peter was saying was we can't always control what's going on around us, but we can control what's going on within us personally and what's going on among us in community.

The big picture Peter's looking at.

He's stepping back and seeing the us or the we here See when your world collapses into catastrophe and devastation.

You got a couple of choices and devastation.

You got a couple of choices, maybe many choices, I don't know, but one of them you could set yourself up and prepare like some defender in a zombie apocalypse movie and build your bunker and be ready and outfitted and stand in your own strength against the enemy.

And I'm not sure if any scenario like this would really work out in real life.

Maybe in the movies, but not really In real life.

Maybe there's a better way to prepare.

I mean, we could prepare our bunker or we could prepare our hearts, and this is what Peter is saying here Prepare our hearts and prepare our hearts, and this is what Peter is saying here.

Prepare our hearts and prepare our relationships.

Focus on your connection to God and your connection to people.

Right, but, mark, what about survival?

What about being ready for every scenario, but I just really don't see the New Testament writers or Jesus for that matter, teaching survival techniques, do you?

If you do, maybe you should come and tell me, because maybe I'm missing it.

But I don't see that At some point we have to do what Jesus said to do, and that is, we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and these things are added to us.

We have to eventually come down to trusting God.

We have to come down to faith, don't we?

So?

I think this is how the New Testament is telling us to prepare and face suffering.

In the middle of this very kind of persecution, pressure, uncertainty and unjust mistreatment, peter has a prescription, and his prescription is that we live in love, that we ground ourselves in the gospel of Jesus Christ, ground ourselves in grace, ground your family in that same kind of grace, mend your relationships with other people.

What if we focus on this kind of preparation?

He doesn't ignore evil, he says evil.

Actually, he uses the word evil six times in this short passage that we read here.

So he's not sidestepping evil, but what he's saying is I think it seems to me what he's saying is you don't meet this evil with a fist, you meet it with an open hand.

When you're cursed, you don't curse back.

When you're reviled, you don't revile back.

There's a different spirit that we operate in.

We bless those who curse us.

So an open hand, so I kind of see it like five fingers on a hand.

Okay, because he says he actually gives us five things.

It's an awesome sermon outline so this was really easy for me.

Five things here he gave us right, like-minded, sympathetic, have brotherly love, be tenderhearted and humble-minded.

Okay, five things.

And remember, he's teaching them and us how to handle mistreatment, persecution, suffering.

And he says the key is it's the way you think, the way you feel and the way you love.

So let's look at this kind of word by word.

Here he starts the whole passage off by this one word finally, right.

Finally.

Finally doesn't mean I'm done with my letter.

Okay, because we're in chapter three and there's five chapters, although there are some preachers who say finally, halfway through their sermon that does happen.

I'm not going to do that today.

Actually I just did, didn't I?

I said finally, but right, so I'm not ending the letter, but I'm ending this to do that today.

Actually, I just did, didn't I?

I said finally, but right, so I'm not ending the letter, but I'm ending this passage of scripture, this passage of teaching.

It's a series of teachings that we've had the last few weeks, right about submission.

You submit to the government, you submit in the workplace, you submit in the home.

It's an idea, it's a posturing.

It's a posturing.

It's a posturing of humility.

Don't just live for yourself.

How about?

Let's dare to believe that if we lose our life, we can find it.

So finally, at the end of this teaching, I want to tell you how to do all these teachings.

I want to tell you the state of heart you have to be in to be able to submit in those ways.

Finally, all of you.

All of you means each one of us and all of us together, and I think that's really important, that this is not just a command to individuals, but it's a command to the community.

They're going through this suffering together, and so we have to step back and we have to think outside of ourselves.

This is how we prepare, this is how we make it through suffering.

We think outside of ourselves and we think in community.

So, first word, like-minded.

Like-minded, that means we think in the same direction, we think together in the same direction.

It doesn't mean that I agree with everyone on everything all the time.

Number one, that's impossible.

Number two that's not what he's saying.

Okay, if two people agree on everything all the time, one of them is not thinking, one of them is just following, right.

But he says.

What he's really saying here is there's a difference between unity and uniformity.

Like-minded means we're going in the same, we're thinking in the same direction.

Okay, like-minded unity, not uniformity.

Like-minded means we're going in the same, we're thinking in the same direction.

Okay, like-minded unity, not uniformity.

Uniformity is that uniformity is like comes from pressure from the outside.

There's pressure to form into something.

Form into one, okay.

So usually it's legalistic, oftentimes it's superficial.

It has to do with outward things the way you look, the way we talk, the way our group believes we should be.

That's uniformity we're forming together.

So you end up being a smaller and smaller group, right, like the old Englishman who said to his friend everyone in the world is quite mad except for me and thee, and sometimes I have my doubts about thee.

So you get more and more narrow-minded, you get more and more exclusive and your group gets smaller and smaller.

This is uniformity.

He's talking about unity, which is different.

Unity is not from the outside in.

Unity is from the inside.

Unity comes from being moved by loyalty and love from within.

It's an inner condition or disposition of your heart.

Okay, I'm with you because we're together, we're related together.

Last week, tyler mentioned this word, hupotasso.

This word that's translated submit in the New Testament, hupotasso, which means to come up underneath, and there's two words that in the Greek that mean come up underneath.

One of them is hupokuo, one is hupotasso.

Hupo means come up underneath, kuo means out of duty or out of law or because I have to.

Okay, so it is.

You're the sergeant, I'm the private and therefore I have to salute and I have to obey.

It's my duty, I have to do it.

Okay, it's not.

I may hate your guts, I may have no loyalty to you at all.

My loyalty may be to your stripes, right, but it's not to you.

You turn around.

I might either spit or curse in your direction.

Spit or curse in your direction, but I have to.

That's hupakuo.

That's not the word that Peter and Paul use in the New Testament about submitting.

It's hupotasso.

And hupotasso is coming up under out of duty, not duty.

Devotion Out of, not duty, but devotion out of love, out of loyalty, out of we have relationship out of.

We're connected, we're together.

And so what I'm doing, I'm doing from a different motive.

It's not because I have to, it's because I love to, it's because I'm connected to you and together we're walking through this thing together.

So if we're going from law to love, we're getting there.

If we're moving from duty in our minds to devotion, we're getting to the right kind of submission.

It's out of love.

So this is what he's talking about here unity, unity.

Okay, so we're all going to see things differently because we have different perspectives, we have different gifts and personalities and we all bring something different to the group, but we can do it together and in our differences, in our diversity, we can still be like-minded, going in the right direction.

We're thinking in the right direction together, because unity is based on respecting the diversity and finding commonality.

Right, that's what he's saying, but here's the problem In our culture, that's not very common.

What we see in our media, our social media or on the media in general is pretty much the opposite.

It's like lack of dialogue.

It's attacking the other, only, always, ever attacking the other person.

That's basically what it is.

It's just calling names and it's really immature and it's a real fleshly way to live your life.

It's the enemy of unity.

And so how do we keep one mind when we're going in one direction and there's one truth but there's a lot of perspectives?

How do we do that?

We grow up up, we mature.

It takes maturity to listen to other people.

It takes maturity to defer to one another.

It takes maturity to consider their perspective and value it, even prefer others above yourself and value a unique expression of God and other people.

I've been listening to this podcast that's really interested me recently and it's by two former governors of the state of Tennessee, one a Democrat and one a Republican, and they're talking about issues.

You know what the name of the podcast is you Might Be Right.

Isn't that surprising to you?

You Might Be Right.

Isn't that attitude refreshing?

You Might Be Right.

It's thoughtful, civil discussions, conversations about tough topics, to hear both sides so we can go forward and progress.

That's what it's about.

It's a humble posture to working together.

You know and we can learn from that.

But you know, the problem is you've never heard.

You've probably never heard of that podcast, because stuff like that doesn't get great ratings.

What gets great ratings are basically catfights on the air.

That's basically it.

And so, as far as our media is concerned, they're just stuck in attack mode.

But it doesn't have to be that way with us, and that's what Peter is saying.

Don't let it be that way.

How do we not be that way?

How can it not be that way among us?

Well, it's the second word be sympathetic, sympathetic, and this word means sympathetic, and it also is tied into empathetic.

I know those two things are a little bit different, but it really it means something deep in your feelings.

It literally means feeling what you feel.

So what it really means is your pain in my heart.

That's what this word means your pain in my heart.

We are to be like-minded.

We have to believe true things, but being correct is not enough.

It's not enough to believe the right things.

A lot of us have been around long enough to understand that there are people who are right in what they believe, but they don't have a sympathetic heart and they cause a lot of damage.

They damage people.

They even damage in some ways.

They can damage the kingdom of God or the thing that God wants to do in a place.

They damage people with their rightness because their heart isn't there.

Because their heart isn't there.

I was thinking.

I'm trying to remember this movie.

You know it was based on a novel.

It was a famous novel in the 20th century that was made into a movie.

It was about a whole group of people going on this epic journey together.

There was a lot of spiritual parallels.

And what was it?

You know what it was?

No, no ideas.

Conical Narnia, that's right, but that's not it.

That's not what I'm thinking of.

Lord of the Rings no, that's not.

It either's not what I'm thinking of.

Lord of the Rings no, that's not either.

It's Wizard of Oz.

Actually, okay, wizard of Oz, the Wizard of Oz.

It's basically the same thing, very different Same thing.

There are some real spiritual parallels with that, because you have a scarecrow with no brain and you have a tin man with no heart.

Okay, now you kind of need both.

I don't know if you've noticed this, but if you're lacking either one of those, you don't live very long physically, and if you're lacking those things spiritually, it's a big problem too.

So my big revelation, spiritual revelation from this movie was that without a brain, you get scattered all around and carried away by flying monkeys.

You got to watch the movie.

If you haven't seen it, you're going to watch it, and it's actually more accurate than you think in the spiritual realm.

But without a heart, you're just a hollow tin man and you have nothing inside.

You just are rigid and unyielding and you're metallic and you can become rusty.

Christianity is not merely about what we believe.

It's about being formed into the character of Jesus and having that character formed inside of you.

And this is what Peter is saying here Not only like-minded, but sympathetic.

It's what you think and it's what you feel as well.

And how is this even possible?

Well, by the third thing he says, which is brotherly love.

You got to think right.

've got to think right, you've got to feel right.

You have to have a source of brotherly love.

And this language of family is all through the New Testament, right?

Brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers.

Timothy, my dear son, we have this family language all through there and we should love as a family, should love.

And I realize that not all brothers get along, and we can have an altar call later for brothers who don't get along.

That's fine, we can pray for you.

I know this for a fact because I have a brother and he's 8 years older than me and so growing up, he could do whatever he wanted to do.

Actually, he could take me.

It was very easy.

He was bigger, stronger and we fought with each other a lot.

But you know what?

He also fought for me.

He fought with me, but if you're fighting with me, he would fight for me, and that's that's the thing.

That's that closeness that makes you loyal to one another.

That's the kind of family, brotherly love he's talking about here.

They had these ties, these spiritual ties, and I have this habit of not a habit, it's kind of an interest.

It's an interest of looking up words.

Etymology is really important to me.

For some reason I like to look at the meaning of words and the meaning of old sayings and the way things have been said through the years.

I just think that's fascinating because I'm weird like that.

But there's some of those old sayings we use and we use them wrong.

We actually get the wrong understanding from them.

They actually mean something very different.

For example, there's a saying blood is thicker than water.

You heard that one Blood is thicker than water, which I always thought meant blood.

Like family kin, blood is thicker than water, whatever water is.

I don't know what that means.

I just thought I thought it meant family.

It means more than just whatever, but that's actually not what it means.

The original saying from long, long ago is the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.

The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.

The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.

In other words, the relationships you choose to make, the commitments you choose to make with people, are more significant than the bonds that you have with family, the water of the womb.

That's what it meant, kind of the opposite of what I ever thought it would say.

But there's a proverb that says something very similar.

Right, there's a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

Right, there's a friend that's even closer than a brother.

So if you put it simply, it just means that relationships you choose can be more important than the ones that you don't choose.

But I think it goes even deeper than that.

I think we have even a stronger bond because we're chosen by God together and we have blood ties, the blood of Jesus ties.

We have the deepest kind of blood ties.

We are devoted to each other for eternity.

We're connected for eternity.

We should learn to be devoted to each other.

That's what he's saying.

We're connected forever, so we have to cultivate devotion to one another.

And how in the world do you do that?

Well, you do that with the fourth thing he mentions, and that is be tenderhearted.

We're getting deep into the thoughts and intents of the heart here, right?

Tenderhearted Very interesting word because it's tenderhearted.

That's a good translation.

But another good translation literally is strong bowels.

Tender heart, strong bowels same thing.

How can that be?

The word is you splanchno.

Splanchno means the guts.

It means the core of who you are and the way you feel, where everything comes from in your inner core of who you are.

Splanchnah, your guts, okay.

And then the little prefix you E-U means good.

So it means to have good guts, have good guts, okay.

Why is this word understood as both tender-hearted and strong-bowled?

Because it takes a person with a strong inner disposition to be tender-hearted, because your feelings can take you anywhere.

In fact they can take you in all directions at once sometimes.

And it takes strong bowels to be tenderhearted, to stay resolved to tenderness, to stay resolved to love and commitment and loyalty and deferring to one another and valuing one another.

It takes strong bowels, and none of these pathways that Peter is laying out here before us are easy.

These are difficult paths.

They're not normal to us.

It takes a strong person to be tender.

It takes guts to have heart.

And that word's also translated compassion.

Compassion.

Passion means suffering, come means with Suffering with.

It's exactly what Peter's saying through this whole book.

We're suffering together With Jesus, with each other.

We're suffering together.

We endure suffering and persecution together, and this kind of compassion is what Jesus was moved by.

Right.

He says that Jesus was moved with compassion, and so he stretched his hand out to heal and to feed the hungry.

And so this kind of compassion is not just your pain in my heart, but it's that pain makes me do something.

It looks like something in my life.

I move to action.

And how can all of those things happen?

It happens with the fifth word that Paul uses humble-minded.

Humble-minded.

We have to be like-minded, so we're thinking in the same direction, but lowly-minded too.

So like I'm thinking lower than you are under you, supporting you, serving you, lifting you up.

Lowly-minded.

It's also translated, and maybe in your Bible it says courteous, be courteous.

But I think today our modern idea of courteousness is just kind of weak, a little weaker than what this word is.

Courteous is just like opening the door for somebody, or, you know, letting you go first, or I don't know, saying God bless you when you sneeze.

That's courteous, I don't know.

It's something much more than this.

It's deeper.

It's a state of mind that is under you, lifting you up.

That's what it literally means.

It's Philippians, chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Let this mind be in you.

That was also in Christ Jesus.

Though he was in very nature, god did not consider that a thing to be grasped.

But he let it go and he humbled himself and he became obedient, even to death on the cross.

That's humble-minded and that's good guts.

That's good guts.

So, big picture, peter's talking about unity, he's talking about us, and unity is really important.

I just want to tell you this from the elders' standpoint your leadership at TCC.

We work really hard at being united together and also at keeping unity within the body, and I think that God's blessed us with a really good, united spirit in this body.

We're grateful for that and we guard this, we guard it.

But Peter's not talking to leadership here.

He talks to leadership a couple of chapters later, right here, he's talking to saints.

He's talking to you and me, individual members of the body.

He's talking to you and me, individual members of the body.

It's not the job of the pastors to keep unity.

It's the job of all of us, of the saints, all of us, to keep unity, to grow up, to operate in love, to keep unity, to think like Jesus.

So what do these five things look like?

Practically Glad, you asked, because Peter goes directly from here into Psalm 34, which is very, very practical, and so it looks like this Don't deal out revenge when evil's done to you, don't pay it back, don't try to set the account straight yourself.

Don't spew hateful speech when it's hurled at you, or rather, on the contrary, rather on the contrary, rather on the contrary.

Some of you kind of pride yourself in being contrary.

This is a great place to be contrary.

Apply all of your contrariness right here.

Okay, this is you, this is your time.

Rise up and be contrary.

Rather the opposite.

Bless when they curse you, rather, bless them.

Open hands, not a fist, we don't live like this.

Open hands.

Let me just give you the words of Jesus.

But I say unto you love your enemies, bless them.

That that curse you.

Do good to them that hate you and pray for them, which despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be children of your father in heaven.

So Peter is just quoting Jesus and Jesus is just referring to Psalm 34,.

This is the way of blessing.

It always has been the way of blessing.

It will always be the way of blessing and this is what Peter says.

For this you were called.

If you wonder what your calling is, you were called.

If you wonder what your calling is, here you go.

You found it this morning.

This is your calling.

He says you're called to this so that you might inherit a blessing, and that word blessing is the word eulogy Eulogy.

You know what a eulogy is?

When you go to a funeral and somebody has died and someone stands up and tells you all the good things that they did.

They bless that person, they bless the memory of that person, they remember that person positively.

That's what he says a call to inherit a blessing, a eulogy, a eulogy from God, that God would speak about you in a positive way.

And he's telling us we need to eulogize people, not when they die, but when they're still alive, and even when they're trying to kill you.

Bless, bless.

This is what you're called to Bless, don't curse, so that you can live blessed and not cursed.

Peter's saying in the context of suffering grow up.

Grow up in the way you view the body.

Put away your factions and your favoritism and your arguments and seek peace and pursue it.

Grow up in the way you prefer others above yourself.

Lay aside your freedom for the sake of others.

Believe that when you lose your life, you find it.

Grow up in the way you endure hardship together.

Grow up in love.

That's it.

So to me, I think we could just ask a question.

Whenever we're not sure how to respond, we ask this question what does love look like here?

It's a great question.

It's helped me a lot of times when I didn't know what to do, and it looks differently in different situations.

Sometimes it's tough love and sometimes it's tender love, but both of those come from strong bowels, right, it comes from strong inner disposition.

What does love look like here?

Maybe that's the best way to prepare if we're living that kind of love.

Maybe that's the best way to prepare if we're living that kind of love.

So I think, though, that Peter is telling us this in chapter 3.

He's telling us to do this.

It's an imperative, it's a command, but he's telling us this because of what he's already told us in chapter 2.

So we need to go back and finish up today by looking at chapter 2, what Peter says about Jesus.

And so far in 1 Peter, we've found out that we're holy, which means we're chosen, which means we're different, which means we're set apart.

And here we find that we're called to a blessing, and Peter echoes that phrase in chapter 1, or chapter 2, 1 Peter, chapter 2, speaking of Jesus.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

So in verse 21, we start for to this you've been called.

There it is again because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.

He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth when he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten but continued entrusting, in trusting himself to him who judges justly?

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds you have been healed.

How do we carry out these commands that are not natural to us?

And these are commands, they're imperatives.

In Psalm 34, he uses the word must three times in that little passage that we read of it Three times Must you must keep your tongue from evil.

You must do good, you must pursue peace.

We must live in tongue from evil.

You must do good, you must pursue peace.

We must live in this way.

It's not an option.

You have to if you want to be blessed.

But we don't naturally respond this way, do we?

So how do we do it?

How are we enabled to live in that way?

Well, we're given a new heart through the new covenant, through the blood of Jesus, which speaks better things, which blesses us, the ones who have cursed him, and because he takes away the old heart and he puts in the new heart of flesh and he puts his spirit inside of us and he causes us to follow after him, then we're able to do these things that he's telling us to do.

We're able to respond this way because of Jesus.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds we are healed.

Ground yourself in the gospel.

So this finally that Peter is saying here is the finally to a series of encouragements to submit ourselves out of devotion to hupotasso ourselves.

Right, but why would we submit to God?

Why would we submit to others?

Well, it says it here in Psalm 34, because God's eyes are upon us when we do this, his ears are open to us when we do this and his face is toward us.

When we do this, you feeling the blessing.

We are able not only to withstand suffering, but this is how we turn the tide of those who are persecuting us and causing us to suffer.

We turn the tide on the spirit of darkness, and if we get this right in our hearts and we get this right among ourselves, then this light spills over into the darkness that's around us.

And that's Peter's message.

And if you go all the way back to chapter 1, he even says it again In chapter 1, verse 4,.

Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator.

While doing good, we entrust ourselves to one who's faithful.

His hands are strong, his eyes are watchful, his heart is compassionate and he's trustworthy.

And so Peter says throughout the book when we do this in Christ, we have a living hope.

We have an inheritance that never fades.

We have a precious, tried and genuine faith.

You have the salvation of your souls.

We have the joy that is inexpressible.

We have a revelation of Jesus, we have the character of Jesus inside of us and we have blessing that is beyond our ability to comprehend.

It's beautiful, isn't it?

Even in the midst of everything?

Yeah, even in the midst of everything.

Yeah, even in the midst of persecution, yeah, even whatever is going to come to our nation, yeah, yeah, we're strong, we're loved, we're settled, we're in good hands.

It's okay, it's okay.

So here's Peter's challenge to you today.

Okay, you said you wanted a challenge, right?

So I just found three of them here.

Number one dare to believe that if you lose your life, you will find it and think about what that might mean.

Number two mend and cherish relationships in the body.

It's precious.

The body of Christ is one of the most precious gifts we have, so we have to look to that.

Treat it as precious.

Mend it when it's broken.

And the last thing is repent from evil and turn to good.

The face of the Lord is upon the righteous.

The face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

There is a measure of fear of the Lord here in this passage.

Guys, we have to turn from evil.

We have to turn to good.

It is the work of Jesus, giving us a new heart that causes us to be able to do that.

But we have to do it.

We have to make decisions.

Part of that evil is the tendency to curse when we're cursed, to revile when we're reviled.

But how do we become children of our Father?

We allow Him to change our hearts so that we're blessing, we're living with an open hand.

Amen, I'd like to pray for you.

Why don't you stand up, father?

Thank you so much for your word, lord.

I thank you that in the cross of Jesus, you provided every need for fallen man and you've given us everything that we require, lord, you give us your righteousness through his righteousness.

The injustice that was done to him justifies us, and you yourself have lived with such an open hand to us, lord.

Not a fist, but we get an open hand, we get a tender heart from you, father.

So, lord, I'm asking you that you would teach us and help us.

You would change us day by day, open our eyes to the gospel more and more, lord, that we can ground ourselves in this love, that we can be changed to do what you're asking from us, lord.

I pray for those of us who need to have that challenge, to dare to believe that when we lose our life we find it, and I pray that you would challenge us and teach us what that means.

I pray, lord, for those of us who need to mend relationships and cherish the relationships in the body.

Lord, that you would convict and you would draw us into a place where we're able to reconcile relationships.

And I pray, lord, for those of us who are daily in need of turning from evil and turning to good Lord, of repenting, lord, turning our hearts toward that thing that is good and replacing our love on the things that are most important Loving you, lord, and loving people.

I pray for that, god, that you would give the conviction of your spirit and the kindness of your spirit that we'd be able to walk in that Lord.

Teach us, lord, because I know it's your heart that we live in blessing and for that we bless you and we thank you in Jesus' name, amen.