Good morning. The scripture reading comes from 1st Peter, chapter 3, verses 8 through 12, 1st Peter, chapter 3, verses 8 through 12. Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, atinda 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 them 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 faith of the Lord is against those who do evil. This is the word of the Lord. The more I read and the more I study, the Bible I am convicted over and over again, that the Bible communicates that you cannot be a Christian in name only. Christianity is an action-oriented faith, and I don't mean by that, that it is a works-based faith, because it is not salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. That's what Ephesians 2 and 8 and 9 reminds us for, by grace you have been saved, you faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of work, so that no one may boast. We don't work our salvation. It is by grace alone. But genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is always accompanied by works, which is James' point in James chapter 2 verses 14 through 16. He says, what good is it, my brothers? If someone says he has faith, but does not have works, can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Or simply reciting with our lips what we believe or who we are is not enough. It must be accompanied by works, by actions. Listen, speaking, your belief in Jesus is important. Confessing your Christianity is imperative. This is what Romans 10 and 9 says, because if you confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Confession with your mouth is important. Jesus is concerned with what your mouth speaks, but he is equally concerned with what your life speaks. Philippians 1, 27. Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. How you live brothers and sisters matters. You cannot be a Christian simply in name only, which means how you live should tell on you. Your life should testify who you belong to. It should testify to the gospel of Jesus Christ, your life ought to reflect what God through Jesus Christ has done for you on the cross. As Pastor Tony mentioned last week, our lives as Christians should be adorning the gospel. It should be dressing it up, making it appealing to those around us who do not know Jesus. Your life is not the gospel, but it should testify to the power of the gospel. How does the power of the gospel get displayed in our lives? Here it is through right living. We are to live right. Boyle down, that is what we have been talking about over the last few weeks regarding interacting with governments, the relationship between slaves and masters and husbands and wives. Submission is part of living right. Perhaps you have been listening intently over the last few weeks and you have thought Peter was talking to someone else. You are not a husband or a wife, a master or a slave, and you consider yourself as one who respects a government and you honor authorities. While I would argue with you that you actually were addressed in those last couple of sermons, if not in all of those areas at least one, let's give you the benefit of the doubt and say you went unscathed over the last three weeks as the sermons were coming forth. Well, you don't escape this morning. Peter has a word for all of us. Look at the opening words of our text. He says, finally, all of you. Finally, all of you. Peter says, if I wasn't talking to you before I'm talking to you now and his message to all is to live right. We ought to live right in the church and we're to live right in the world. Live right. You are to live right in the church. How do you live right in the church by creating a safe place for one another in the church? Brothers and sisters, persecution and opposition necessitate a safe place. Remember these exiled Christians are indeed facing persecution and opposition. Whenever there's persecution, whenever there's opposition, there is nothing like a safe place. Those who are in a war zone need a safe zone. Playing tag, growing up, that safe zone was home base. You remember that? When you away from home base, the person who was it was open to be able to be free to tag you. But if you were on home base, you were safe. And if you were really playing the game, right? Everybody who was on home base would create a chain so that it would extend the safe zone. So that even if you weren't in the safe zone, by touching them, you were in the safe zone. We need a safe zone. Persecution and opposition necessitate a safe zone. Brothers and sisters, the church, the community of the saints needs to be a safe place in a hostile world. When you are facing opposition, name, calling and slander outside the community of believers, guess what? You shouldn't have to face the same challenges amongst your brothers and sisters in Christ. The church brothers and sisters need to be different than the world. Not just in what we say or what we preach, but in how we live with one another. And let's be honest, living with and doing life with one another is not easy. We are not what we used to be, but we are not yet what we will be. And that process of becoming what we will be makes us rough around the edges. When you are in close proximity to one another, what happens is we cut one another. Not purposefully, or with malicious intent, because sin runs deep in our hearts, and we have yet to put to death that inner, old man, we cut each other. And listen, and listen, if you have been in the community of saints and you have not been cut by a fellow believer, you are not doing life together. You have not spent enough time in the community of the saints, because the do so, you will be cut. But even though we still haven't dwell in sin that is being rooted out, we know that God is working on our hearts. That is no excuse not to live right among each other. There is no excuse for the church not to be a safe place for believers and by default unbelievers as well. So Peter gives these brothers and sisters, and he gives us some instructions on how we as believers ought to live right with one another, thus creating a safe place for God's people. Firstly, you and I are to get along. Get along. One of the main tactics of the enemy is to divide the people of God. Division is antithetical to the plan of God. Paul says in Ephesians 2, 14, for he himself is our peace. He has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. God has reconciled us to himself and therefore he has reconciled us to each other. In Christ he has made one new man. Therefore Paul can say in Galatians 3, 28 there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. This is the plan and the purpose of God. That his people would be one. Satan seeks to afford that plan by causing division amongst the people of God. He does that by creating clicks and segregated groups based upon skin tones and an economic status or even relational lines, separating married and single and kids and and no kids and in the church we create these divisions. And what happens is that these divisions then become our identity. It causes disunity giving Satan a foothold in the community of states. We leave the door open just a smidge and when you leave the door open just a smidge, Satan comes in and begins to wreck havoc in the community of the saints. I think brothers and sisters this is why Jesus and the New Testament writers emphasize so, emphasize unity so often in their writing. It's that insidious. Jesus prays for the unity of the church in his high pre-sleep prayer in John 17 and 20. I do not ask for these only but also for those who believe in me through their word that they may be one just as you father are in me and I in you that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. This is one ness. Paul on several occasions in his letters that he sends to the churches addresses them and says that they ought to pursue unity. Going so far in one of his letters, a letter to the Philippians, urging Eodia and Sintiki to just get along in the Lord. Unity in the church by the sisters is not a throwaway command. You know what it does? It provides a safe foundation for the people of God. But we must remember unity of mind that Peter mentions here does not mean group think that we all go along just to get along. Unity of mind does not mean that there shouldn't be differences of opinion, cultural differences or even diversity. Unity of mind has to do with agreement on what is of utmost importance and we are united in Christ. We ought to be united in what Paul says that we ought to believe in Ephesians 4, 4, and 6 that there is one body and one spirit just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One faith, one Lord, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. If you and I agree on that, then we can live in harmony despite our diversity. The church needs to be a place where the most important aspects of our unity is celebrated, promoted and preached. Christ needs to be exalted. The unity that we have in him needs to be celebrated. When I come into the church, yes, yes, I want to see the diversity of the world. But what makes it safe is not that it looks like the world and therefore I am comfortable. Know what makes it safe is that although we are diverse, we are one in Christ. That is not our blackness. That is that is not our whiteness. It's not our marriedness. It's not our singleness. It's not our fox newsness or our MSNBCness. But we are united in our christianness. Therefore, we can have unity of mind. Peter tells us to just get along, have unity of mind. But he also says to these believers, if we are going to create a safe place, a haven from the world that is out there in opposition to us, we need to be sympathetic. I don't know about you, brothers and sisters, but I know for me in a world full of pain and suffering, it is easy to become desensitized to it. My shame, I too often find myself glossing over news stories that are really awful and tragic. It's not because I don't care, but there is so much suffering and pain. It is hard to make sense of it all. It's hard to figure it out. You become paralyzed and you're not sure you don't know how to figure it out. You're not sure what to do. You'd be surprised how quickly that attitude begins to infiltrate the church. You begin to look at the struggles and the joys and the pains of your brothers and sisters and you look at and you hear their stories and you approach them like the same news stories that come across your news feeds. You listen to their prayer requests, praise reports, and you are somewhat indifferent. For every prayer request, you know 10 more people dealing with that same thing. Let alone all the issues that you're dealing with. Remember life together is not easy, but again, it is no excuse not to be sympathetic to your brothers and dear sisters. Being sympathetic brothers and sisters is showing compassion for one another. It is entering into the pain or the joy of others like they are your own. Sympathy is not simply pity. It's not simply looking on those who are hurting and who are suffering and simply just feeling sorry for them. Compassion does. Is it moves you towards people? Compassion moves you to show mercy. Samaritan in Luke 10, 33, and 34, comes across the man who was robbed and beaten and left on the roadside for dead. When Jesus tells us that the Samaritan in verse 33 as he journeyed came to where he was and when he saw him, this man who had been beaten, robbed and left for dead, when he saw him, he had compassion. Now he wasn't, he wasn't just sorry, he didn't just have pity on the man, but he saw his wounds, he saw his hurt, he saw his pain, and his compassion moved him. What did it move him to do? He went to him, bound up his wounds, pouring oil and wine, then he sent him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. His compassion moved him to that. Brothers and sisters, living right in the community of the saints is seeing your brother or your sister in pain, seeing them in need and moving towards them in mercy, in compassion. You give of yourself to help them. That is a safe place. That is the place, the safe place, the church should be. There is anywhere in the world hurting and broken people should be able to go and find sympathy, find compassion. It should be in the community of the saints in the hostile world. We as believers need a safe place to go, where we can know that our pain and that our hurt will be shown compassion. That others in that community will move to me in mercy. The world on the other hand is not like that. This is why the church needs to be different because the world likes to kick you when you're down. We need to come to a place where when we're hurting or in pain, those in the community move to me, move to us in mercy. Oh, we're going to create a safe place. We need to get along. We need to be sympathetic. We also need to show brotherly love. Show brotherly love. This is the second time Peter is bringing brotherly love up in this letter. You remember back in chapter 1, first Peter 22, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart. Well, that's a given right. The church, the people of God, must be loving when you can't say that you love God and not love your brother or your sister in Christ. That's what first God for 20 tells us. The church is going to be a safe place for the people of God, a haven from the opposition of the world that love needs to mark her out. Not just any love, brotherly love, a love that is sincere, love that is quick to give, forgive, and give. Love that sacrifices, love that goes the extra mile. Love that believes the best about their brother or their sister. Paul, Peter, excuse me, calls attention to this again and again because brotherly love is crucial for the community. Love is what marks us out. This is how they will know you are my disciples by your love for one another. But you understand that this is not simply just so that unbelievers can see it so that they can look on this place and see the diversity of people from different ethnic backgrounds and economic differences and say how do all those people come together like that? But there is a unity in Christ in there displaying love for one another. This is how they'll know that you are my disciples. This is for the believer as well. How do you and I know we're part of a healthy church? One of the marks that you ought to be looking for is their brotherly love amongst that community. Are there people loving the unlovable? Are there those who are moving towards those who are in need and of mercy and loving them? Oh, this is this is what the community of saints looks like who is demonstrating brotherly love moving to them in loving this way is hard, but we can start by doing what Peter says to do next. And that is to be kind. That is to be kind. I sometimes wonder if Christians realize just how me they are to one another. The things we say, the way we treat one another is just me. A vast majority of offenses would never occur if people were just kind to one another. Tend to heart it as Peter said. Don't be mean. Don't be mean. Think before you speak. Consider before you act. Would this be a kind thing to say? Ask yourself would my actions here be thought of as being tender-hearted to this person? Being kind goes a long way. We sometimes think it's only for the benefit of the individual that I'm being kind so that the individual who I'm being kind to might benefit. Do you realize that kindness benefits us as well? The giver of kindness benefits. That's what Proverbs tells us. Proverbs 11 and 17, a man who is kind benefits himself, but a cruel man hurts himself. Proverbs 21, 21 whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find what will find life, righteousness and honor. The person who exhibits kindness benefits. When a community of believers is marked out by kindness every one benefits. It is a safe place from a world that is often very, very unkind. And if you don't think the world is unkind, you have never been on Twitter or you have never been on Facebook or spend any time in the comment section on block. There is nobody kind on those things. Those places breed unkindness. We ought not to bring that unkindness into the church. Be kind, Peter says. Be kind. And lastly, if we're going to live right in the community of the saints, you and I need to be humble. A community that is full of pride is not a safe place. Pride destroys communities. That is why the Bible never talks about pride in a positive manner. God's people are to be marked out by humility for that is in keeping with our calling. Ephesians 4, 1 and 2. Paul says, I therefore, prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called doing what with all humility and gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love. A lack of humility in a congregation can manifest itself. You do realize in a myriad of ways. So we need to be watchful and mindful in discerning of how a lack of humility can play out in a congregation. The danger for community like East Point that loves theology, that loves engaging. The mind is for us to be popped up in that knowledge. To look down on others to show a lack of patience for new believers.
Those who are immature in their faith, the reality is that the Christian who thinks that they are mature because they know and are prideful in their knowledge doesn't realize how immature they are. The church marked out by humility is a safe place because you are free from having to perform. Free from having to pretend you know more than you do. It is a community that is considering others more highly than themselves. It is a community that is imitating the mind and the heart of Christ. Know what else? It's a community where grace is abundant. To abundant James 4 and 6 God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble. When a community is pursuing humility, there is grace there. We ought to get along. We ought to be sympathetic. We ought to show brothers they love. We ought to be kind. We ought to be humble brothers and sisters. A church that is pursuing these marks is a safe haven for believers in a hostile world. The reason why the church pursues these marks is because this is the example that Jesus sent for us. This is the example that he said. That what Peter says in 1 Peter 2 and 21 still holds true for what he says in our text this morning. For to this you have been called because also because Christ also suffered for you leaving you an example so that you might follow in his footsteps. Christ is our example in every one of these areas. Peter has just exhorted his readers to pursue and there was none more compassionate. None more loving or kind or humble than Jesus and therefore there is none who is safer. There is none who is safer than Jesus. When you are and I are in Christ we are safe from the fiery darts of the enemy. Proverbs 18 and 10 tells us the name of the Lord is what a strong tower. The righteous runs into it and is safe. When you run into Christ you are safe because he is demonstrating. He is the epitome. He is the model of all of these characteristics that we have mentioned here this morning and you do realize when the church follows the example of Christ she is a safe place for believers. We need to live right in the church. When we do that it will overflow to living right in the world. We are standing the ridicule and the opposition of the world is where he is. It is difficult to be fighting upstream all the time it seems like. There is much opposition against Christian. It is difficult but if there is a safe place where you can retreat where you can be strengthened and encouraged engaging with the world as possible but if I am doing battle in the church I am not going to be equipped spiritually to engage the world. Hence the importance of living right in the church brothers and sisters. We don't live right in the church. We won't be able to do what Peter says we should do in 1 Peter 3 and 9. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling but on the contrary bless for to this you are called that you may obtain a blessing. It is easy. It is easy to fight fire with fire. When you are being called names, when you are being slandered, when you are being lied on retaliating in kind just seems like the natural thing to do. When you catch little siblings or friends fighting and you ask what happens one says he hit me and then what does the other one say? Well he hit me first. It seems natural because it is fleshly. It is easy to repay evil for evil because just what we think we are justified. We are just treating them the way they treated us
and it certainly doesn't make it any easier when you and I have people that are quick to justify our actions. Retaliating. Bro they had that coming right? You did exactly what I would have done. You responded the exact same way that I would have reacted. Brothers and sisters our examples are not each other. Our example is Christ. Who? Peter says in chapter 2 verse 23 when he was reviled, he did not revile in return when he suffered, he did not threaten but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. Jesus Christ is our example in this regard and if anybody by the existence would be justified in returning evil for evil it would have been Jesus. But on the contrary he blessed. He blessed. He blessed as he hung on the cross after being spit upon the king of the universe who created everything. They are hanging on the cross, being mocked, being beaten, about to be put to death. What does Jesus do? He prays. Father forgive them for they know not what they do. That's that's how you and I are to bless in return. We pray. We pray when we are reviled. Matthew 5 and 44 but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
That is what Christ did and he is the example that we ought to follow. You do realize that the world wants to go back and forth with you. They want you. They want to fight with you. The enemy wants you to respond in kind and once the world wants you to repay evil for evil but my exhortation to you this morning is don't fall for the trap. Don't let Satan win but here is my real appeal and I hope you listen. Don't forego your blessing. That's what it says. The second half of verse 9 but on the contrary bless for to this you were called so that you may obtain a blessing. Those who return reviling with a blessing will themselves be blessed. My father-in-law he says he does this all the time when we come to him and we share some good news or something that's gone well in our family. He'll say you must be living right and you get taken back for a second right but he's really brothers just just giving me Bible. He's giving me Bible for Peter uses the Bible to support his point. He takes us to Psalm 34 and quotes David. He says for whoever desires to love life and see good days let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking to seat 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 prayers but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil and sisters living right in the church and in the world has benefits these there are blessings associated with living righteously in a hostile world and I know we don't like to talk about rewards or blessings for living right because it sounds too much like the prosperity gospel but but you need to get over that because listen these are not rewards that we demand or that we deserve this is God being gracious generous to his people God desires us to have good days God desires to hear our prayers and the way those blessings get appropriated to his children is through right living this is mean that your life will be a bed of roses of course not suffering as we will see next week is still a reality for Christians but godly living pursuing holiness seeking peace following the example of Christ will be rewarded with blessing question is is living right worth it perhaps you wonder that is living right in this world worth it when everyone is living wrong is does it is it worth it to be living right you ever wonder that Psalm 34 teaches that it is and I know it sometimes feel like the righteous whether the unrighteous are prospering and the righteous don't but be encouraged by the assistance by what David said for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil the Lord sees how the Lord knows living right in the church and in the world is always the best choice let's pray