God Bless Us, Everyone!

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan. This is a message from Pastor Don Filsek from the series

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Ready for the Storm on 1st Peter. If you'd like more information on Recast Church, please visit us on the web at www .recastchurch

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.com Here's Pastor Don. How many of you knew

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Christmas is just like right around the corner? You already knew that didn't you? And how many of you feel like it's come up quickly?

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Anybody like me, like it seems like all of a sudden, like as I get older, it seems like it's all of a sudden it's here, and it happens more and more frequently that way.

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But the reality is, I mean, I've lived a few Christmases, most of us have, and you recognize that Christmas can bring out the best and worst in people.

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Have you noticed that? It can bring out the best, some really great acts of kindness and service and blessing others, and it can also bring out a lot of hostility and frustration.

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Depending on your own family tradition and what you do, it often entails cramming a lot of people into a small house.

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Is that, some of you, some of you have that Christmas tradition? Cram a lot of people into a small space. Awesome idea.

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Some of those are people that you cram into that house are people who have tried to keep a safe distance from each other all year long, while trying to look like they're not keeping a safe distance.

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You guys know, so yeah, that's like, that's not that funny, really. That's not funny at all. Right? Um, but you know what

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I'm talking about. And so you add into that tiny space with a lot of people, opening presents, lots of conversations,

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Uncle Carl cornering you, you know, all of those kinds of things that, that happen. And then there's always those aunts that call you by what they called you when you were a little kid.

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Do you know what I mean? Like for me, it's Donnie. Yeah, no, don't, please don't use that. But I've got a couple aunts that call me

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Donnie every time I say that. That was when I was eight, you know. That's like, it's going back a ways, so. But Peter, here in our text, is speaking to churches.

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And in speaking to churches, he has used a lot of family language, talking about us as a church in terms of family.

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And so kind of thinking through, what does a family look like? And what is, what do we do? And he speaks of God as our father, a family term.

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He speaks in terms of being born again into the same family. He speaks of brotherly love, using that tie between brothers as a, as an illustration.

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And in our text this morning, he's going to spell out in more detail that the family values of the kingdom. The, the family values of the church.

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What should we look like in regard to this illustration of a family? How should we act within the family of God?

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And as we think about the way that God calls us to live as his children, we ought to also consider what this reality implies for our relationships with our extended family, our actual physical extended family this

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Christmas, as we, as many of us will see them. But then also for relationships within the body of Christ.

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And the desire and call of God on your life and mine, over this holiday season, and really ultimately extending on as long as we breathe

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God's air, can be summed up in this passage in one word. God's call on your life.

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Yeah, I'm gonna say it. I'm actually gonna tell you. I'm gonna, I'm gonna suggest to you that I know what God's call is on your life.

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It is blessing. God's call on your life is blessing.

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We who are in line as God's chosen people, as the elect exiles that he's talking to in this text, we are in line to inherit the ultimate blessing of God.

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And yet, we have been called to not store that blessing only up for ourselves, but to in turn, bless others.

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As we dig into this text and seek to define the awesome calling of God to bless others, it's my prayer that each one of us this morning is challenged to be a better blessing to those around us, and particularly as this

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Christmas season unfolds. So I want you to open your Bibles, please, to 1st Peter chapter 3. And we're gonna be reading just a short, a short text this week, verses 8 through 12.

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But 1st Peter 3, 8 through 12. If you don't have a Bible on your lap, could you please just raise your hand and somebody will bring it?

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Mike's got some back there. And we want everybody to have a copy of the Word of God that they can walk through and see, and then if you don't have a

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Bible, then you can just take that one home with you, if you don't have one at home. Or you can just grab one off the table on your way out the door and, and have that at home to read.

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But recast, this is, I say this often and I want to tell you why I say it. I want to, I want to emphasize before I read

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God's Word that this is God's Word. This is what God desires for you and me to hear this morning.

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He's, he's not, it's not some mystery in his mind like, well, Don just picked a passage. But this is, this is the very

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Word of God spoken to us in our assembly together. That's why I read these texts.

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That's why I want to dig in, is that we might see that God has spoken to us.

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So follow along as I read. Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind, a humble mind.

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Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless.

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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.

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Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the

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Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers. But the face of the

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Lord is against those who do evil. Let's pray.

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Father, I rejoice in your Word. I rejoice in a Word that, that, that suggests to us a purpose for our lives, suggests to us a reason for our existence.

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Father, I pray that we would take this on this morning as your Word to us telling us how we are to behave, how we are to walk in this world as your children.

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Father, we have an opportunity to even now step before your throne through the, through the medium of music to, to praise you and to lift you up.

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And we rejoice in the salvation that has been provided for us through your Son, Jesus Christ, that these laws and these rules and the things that we look at in Scripture that tells us what is for our benefit.

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And if we behave this way, then you will shine your face upon us. And if we behave in a different way, you will turn your face from us.

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And yet we don't want to get that confused with the gospel that we are saved as sinners. Broken before you and at the same time, there's a reality that as your children, you desire more for us.

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And so as we come and praise you, let us, let us praise you as people who are set free and simultaneously have willfully chosen to honor you with obedience.

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Be praised and be lifted up in this assembly of your people. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen.

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Well, you can go ahead and get seated. Get comfortable. Remember there's more coffee and there's more juice and more doughnuts.

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If you need that over the next 30 to 40 minutes. It's our goal to just really keep our focus and attention on the

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Word of God and whatever that takes. If that means you need to use the restrooms for a minute, head out there or stand up in the back and stretch out.

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But keep your Bibles open to 1 Peter 3, 8 through 12. Again, every week

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I use the text as my outline. I don't give you, you know, three points with alliteration or anything like that.

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Once in a while I do, but not very often. It's usually, I'm just gonna walk us through what the text has to say to us.

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And so that's where we're going. And since, since we know that there are still more, two more chapters left, if you're just gonna browse through your

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Bible real quick, you'll notice that there's a couple more chapters. It seems strange that Peter begins our paragraph today with the word, finally.

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Do you see that in the text? Finally, all of you. And that might seem strange kind of like when a pastor,

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I mean, I would never be guilty of doing this, but when a pastor says finally or in conclusion, and you guys all shut your

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Bibles, and he proceeds to preach for 10 to 20 minutes more, how many kind of already, you know, you kind of start to check out with the word finally, right?

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Well, don't check out here, but he's got more that he's gonna say. So what is this word?

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Why this word here at this point? Well, the word finally in Greek is a summary type word.

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It kind of means in summary, and it could be translated that way. In other words, he's going to summarize some of the points and some of the things he's already been saying.

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So when you see the word finally in a Greek translation, it ends up being something that says, well, what's come before?

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I'm trying to wrap that up. I'm trying to sew that up for you. And so what is he sewing up?

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Well, in his overall theme of preparing the elect exiles, remember that's his audience, that's who he's writing to, those who have been chosen by God, but have been rejected by other people.

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So they've been rejected, they're exiled from their physical location, they've been removed or had to flee for the cause of persecution to preserve their lives, so they fled.

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But they've been chosen by God, and so he's speaking to believers here in the text. And his overall theme is preparing them to live the

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Christian life in the midst of persecution. And in the middle of that discussion about how to live in a world that doesn't necessarily always love what

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Christians have to say, how many of you know the world is increasingly getting there? Have you seen that in the news? Are you experiencing that?

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It's one of the reasons that we're talking about this series now, it's just signs of things that could be on the way, and as Peter tried to prepare his people for that,

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I'm working to try to prepare that for us as well. But he talked to them about how, in the midst of a world that's persecuting you, how do you respond to civil authority?

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He talked about submitting to a civil authority. He addressed Christian slaves in their response to their masters.

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He addressed the family. Last week we talked about Christian wives and how they respond to their husbands, and how husbands live in an understanding way with their wives, and how the family is, in essence, a unit of the church that has an impact on the culture and society around us.

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And so how should Christians respond to that? How should Christians live within the family unit that matters? And now he addresses all

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Christians, and in summary is going to say how we should respond to everyone with specific attention to those within the body of the church, with those who are

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Christians, fellow believers with us. And he starts off by making sure that you guys are listening.

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He starts off by saying, I'm talking to you. Nobody is exempt from listening in. Notice what he says, finally, all of you, all of you.

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If you're here and you're a teenager, he's talking to you. This is for you.

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Are you a grandmother? He's speaking to you. Are you a wife? He's talking to you. Are you an employer?

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He's talking to you. Are you a single lady? He's talking to you. Are you a dude? He's talking to you.

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This is for you. Regardless of generation, race, gender, or any other external distinctions, we are all to possess these things that he's going to talk to us about in verse 8.

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All believers, all people in the church should be looking for these signs of life within you, and here they are.

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We are to possess unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

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This list is an amazing and beautiful summary of life together in the body of Christ, life together in a church, life together with God's people.

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One commentary identified that these qualities have a have a unique structure in the way that they're listed. They go thinking, the first thing we're to do is a thinking word, feeling, feeling, feeling, thinking, with the center point being the core of what he is driving for.

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So it's thinking, feeling, feeling, feeling, thinking, and so what we think matters. It's like the bookends, but equally the core of this thing is how we feel towards one another, how we feel about each other in the body of Christ.

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The first thing we should express towards one another is unity of mind, a thinking word about the way that we think, and we should think in terms of unity.

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This is a character quality in Peter's culture in Greek that was used to express a common purpose.

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We we should think in terms of we are trying to strive for the same things here. We exhibit this as a church when we all agree that Jesus Christ is worthy of our worship.

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Just now in our singing we were expressing this concept of unity of mind. We were all together engaging our minds centered around truths of words that were put on the screen, focused on who

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God is and agreeing about those things. Some some of those things about us, some of those things about God, but we were expressing that.

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We express this visibly. There's an actual visible manifestation of this every week at Recast Church.

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When we come to the table at communion, if you have a mind that is engaged during communion, if you're thinking about what

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God has done for you, if you observe what is going on in this room with a theologically informed mind while we are taking communion, you realize that we are all demonstrating that we all think some of the same things as we come to the table.

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There is common ground for everyone who comes to that table to accept the body of Christ, the the cracker that represents the body of Christ, the the cup that represents his blood shed for us.

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We are all assenting as we come to that table to the reality that Jesus died for our sins.

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We are all confessing our neediness for a Savior, and we are all demonstrating thankfulness for his blood that was shed for us and his body that was broken for us.

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As we come to communion, that's what we're doing. It's communion, community, communion, union together, union in an essence with Christ, recognizing that we're connected to him, but recognizing that we are connected to each other.

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Communion is not a solo gig. I don't offer communion as I visit somebody in their home one -on -one.

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Communion is not something that's just to be taken between a husband and wife. I know some of you maybe did that at your wedding. I actually encourage couples to not do that at their wedding where just the just the bride and the groom take communion.

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What about all the other believers? This is about unity together in the body, and that's what we're demonstrating when we come together and take communion together.

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Have you thought about that? We're demonstrating something about unity of mind. Unity of mind, by the way, doesn't mean we never disagree.

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Doesn't mean we always have, you know, locked tight. Everything is always lined up, and we always have the same exact views on everything, but in a body of believers, we should always be moving towards unity and not away from it.

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Second, we are to be a people marked by sympathy. I've mentioned often in the sense of our core value of authenticity that we want to be a place where nobody mourns alone and nobody celebrates alone.

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Think about that. Some of the most lonely times in life can be when there's something to celebrate and there's nobody to celebrate it with.

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You ever been there? That could be a that could be a hard thing. I mean, you think, well, going through tragedy is really hard alone.

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Going through victory alone is even worse in some degree, right? And so we want to be a place where there's an actual sympathy that is involved in our lives with others.

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Sympathy is a weird word, and I had to wrestle with this, and I sent out my, I sent out my sermon every week, and then somebody kind of kicked back at me and said, well, what's the difference?

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And I enjoyed the the banter back and forth about what is empathy and what is sympathy. Sympathy comes from the phrase, it's actually

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Greek. So sympathy is the actual word that's in the Greek text. So that,

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I mean, we've just taken that word and we've just gone, okay, let's take a Greek word and make it English. Sympathy is a Greek word.

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So because of that, I mean, we're dealing with an actual Greek concept here that means pathos, means feeling, okay?

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It means the way we feel inside. It's got this non -tangible sense about us that what's going on in our hearts.

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And sim, like similar or sim city or, you know, those, those games, you know what

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I'm talking about? Sim, like it means the same thing or like that thing. And so it's when I align my feelings to someone else's.

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It's like synchronizing my feelings with the person in need at the time. Are you getting what

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I'm saying? So I could be down, but somebody's celebrating a promotion at work and they come up to me and they're excited about it, and sympathy says,

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I'm, I'm gonna align with that. I'm gonna go, yes, this is awesome. This is great. Now you kind of, anybody's mind play tricks with you right now and go, well, who's supposed to align with who?

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Like, what if I'm down? And let's, whoever, whoever gets to share first, I guess. I don't know, I mean, how do you, how do you actually work that into a conversation?

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Well, you're supposed to feel like me because I'm really down right now, but I just got a promotion, so I'm really up right now. I think play, we can play mind games with that.

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But the word empathy is a completely different word. It actually, it comes out of German philosophy and it's something that I, as I studied it,

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I was like, I don't want to use that word. It's a word that I'm not sure is really possible. It's like taking sympathy to a deeper level and assuming that we can actually enter into the other person's pain completely so that we can feel like they feel, see what they see, experience what they experience.

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How many of you know that that's just not possible? That when push comes to shove, I can't get in your head.

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I can't get in your feelings. So I'm actually, after studying these two words, I'm skittish of using the word empathy, but sympathy and alignment of my feelings.

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The point being that we should feel when each other suffers.

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We should feel when each other rejoices. It should move us.

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And I think a lot of times in our western culture and in our organized mind, well, I can like feel bad for you, but not be moved.

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To be untouched by the suffering of a brother or sister in Christ is a terrifying thing.

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That's a terrible thing if we're not moved in our hearts to actually feel with them.

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Are you getting what I'm saying in this? That our feelings matter. Our feelings engaging with others.

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Sympathy requires some sense of feeling. Yet how often have we been near someone in proximity to someone who is mourning without entering into that pain with them and crying with them?

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And a lot of times I want to say that I think the Christian thing to do or what many

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Christians assume to do is that, well, I'm feeling good and you're feeling bad and so I'm going to stand up here and pull you up to me, right?

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I'm going to make you feel better. And how are we going to do that? By reminding them that God is there. God works all things out to good for those who love him and are called according to his purposes.

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So we can get really cliche about things. And do you see how that's not entering into their pain? That's not going into the place where they are, but instead it's kind of like invalidating you.

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It's too bad you feel that way, but you should feel like me. So let's, why don't I try to pull you up to where I'm at?

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Are you getting what I'm saying on that? Even Job's friends, Job's friends, do they get a little bit of flack in scripture?

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Do they get a little bit of flack when people are teaching through and preaching through the book of Job? Even they had the sense to go to Job and sit in the dust and ashes with him silent for a few days.

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At least they had the wisdom to do that. Once they start opening their mouth, they make a mess of things, but and sometimes that should be a lesson to us, right?

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Sometimes we ought to be very, very slow to open our mouth when we behold somebody going through the ringer.

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Sympathy is a mark of Christian community. Thirdly, brotherly love is a core, or is the core around which all of these other qualities revolve.

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It's got the central, central position here in what Peter is saying. And all of these other things could be called an expression of brotherly love.

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A mark of a, of the Christian life is genuine heart engagement. Again, it's still a little bit more of a feeling, but with a commitment overtone to it that we would actually seek the welfare of others.

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When you hear the word love, you need to think in terms of seeking the welfare of others.

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That's a primary central core to what it means to love. And the interesting thing is our culture talks about feelings.

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A lot of times it becomes so reflexive that, that it ends up love being about us, not a commitment to another, and love is a commitment to the other for their benefit and for their blessing.

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And I want to suggest to you that brotherly love doesn't always look comfortable. Brotherly love isn't always, you know, passing along gumdrops and rainbows to each other.

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Sometimes what is in the welfare of another individual is rebuke. You realize that? Boy, that sounds really harsh, but that's reality.

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That's sometimes what is the most loving thing that we can do is a rebuke or a challenge or to actually address some issue that we've got with another brother or sister in Christ, and that's not always, it's not always comfortable, and it doesn't always,

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I mean, you know, that doesn't feel very loving. Have you ever been confronted? Any of you ever received a confrontation where somebody came to you and said, hey,

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I just, you said this the other day and it hurt my feelings, and you're like, defensive, or whatever your first response is? That's loving of them to do that.

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I mean, you wouldn't do that if you didn't love the person, right? If you didn't really have anything invested in it, you'd just blow them off and talk about them behind their back or something like that, but Christians don't do that.

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Christians address it because we have brotherly love towards one another, and we have the other person's welfare in mind.

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Wanting good and working for the good of others is the way of a follower of Jesus Christ. Fourth, the

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Christian exhibits tenderheartedness or compassion depends on your, the translation you're looking at. This is a gentle way of looking out for the needs of others.

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More specific than brotherly love, tenderheartedness is having a heart that is easily moved to feel for others enough to even go so far as to be moved to meet the need.

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It might be really good to distinguish the word from pity. Tenderhearted sounds like, boy, just at the drop of a hat you cry, or tenderhearted sounds like just at the drop of a hat you're just, you know, a hot mess over somebody else's issue or something like that, and that's not necessarily the case.

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Pity is defined as a strictly external, I mean, internal feeling.

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So have you ever, have you ever watched those commercials where they show impoverished kids with the distended bellies and they need food and all that?

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Have you ever been moved to pity watching one of those? Where you were moved enough to feel bad for the plight of those kids, but you didn't do anything about it?

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You didn't pick up the phone and call the 1 -800 number, you didn't submit it, you didn't give any money, you didn't meet the need, but that's pity.

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Pity is looking at somebody else's plight and going, oh those, I feel so bad for you, feel so bad about that, that's, that's rough, and then you just kind of walk away.

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That's pity. Compassion moves us to act, to do something about it.

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This word in Greek is, it would never allow you to just feel something and walk away from someone. Compassion is

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Jesus looked at the crowds and looked upon them with compassion that moved him to heal the sick, cast out demons to help people.

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In his compassion he did stuff. Are you getting what I'm saying in that? Do you see the difference between pity and compassion?

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And the Christian is to live a life of compassion or tenderheartedness.

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If I'm moved by tenderheartedness, if that's a character that I have in my life, I am going to try to help out when

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I see needs. And lastly, we should have humility of mind. Our thoughts should be genuinely humble about ourselves.

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How do you do that? You ever thought about that? How do I make myself humble? About the time that I make myself humble,

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I'm really proud that I'm a really humble person, right? I did a really good job being humble there. That sounds like pride.

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That was supposed to be funny. You guys, rough, tough crowd this morning. It's okay, it's all right.

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Our thoughts should be genuinely humble about ourselves. So, let's cut to the chase.

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Most of us, I would suggest, are getting a master's degree in false humility, right? We're really good at that.

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We're really good at the external show of humility, but what is going on inside of our minds?

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So, the conversation in our minds have a lot to do with how much better we are than others.

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I'm guessing that if you're anything like me, that happens to you from time to time, and it can be from how we parent, to how smart we are, to how good we are at cooking, to what a great driver we are.

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I mean, if you think about it, we're all pretty much above average at most things we do, right?

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I mean, you think about it, right? I mean, you can agree with that statement, right? You know, you're pretty much better than average at everything, only the fact of the matter is the stats don't, that's not the way the stats work.

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So, we can't all be better than, I'm sorry for you guys, but can't all be better.

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That wasn't funny. That was really bad. But how do you think of yourself?

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How do you really think about your driving? How do you really think about your giftedness at trivial pursuit?

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We live in a country that is, like, loves the trivia, right? Loves trivia, and it's like, so yeah, everybody is better than most people at that stuff.

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But we must recognize that the cross of Jesus stands as a reminder of how much

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I suck. I'm not a good man that Jesus just helped a little bit.

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I'm not, and neither are you. And yeah, some of you are going, yeah, I'm a woman, so of course

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I'm not a man. You're not, you're not just a good woman that God gave a little assist to, to kind of get you, get the, get the wheel spinning.

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If you look at me, I was a dead man. And one day,

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God breathed new life. Without that breath of God, without His Spirit residing in me, there is nothing here worth your attention.

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Go your own way and find someplace else. There is nothing here for you without the

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Spirit of God working in me and through me. It's the same for all of us. We often sing these lines, and I requested this song.

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I know we sang it last week, and then we sang it again this week, and you might be going, Josh, why are you doing the same songs again, bro? Um, I asked for this song because it just,

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I couldn't get this out of my mind this week as I was studying this and thinking about humility. I once was dead in sin, alone and hopeless, a child of wrath

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I walked, condemned in darkness, but your mercy brought new life, and in your love and kindness raised me up in Christ and made me righteous.

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Humility looks like believing that. We sang it, but do you believe it's true?

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Hopeless, alone in darkness, the end being the place that I deserve, alone in judgment and condemnation, alone in deep darkness, and instead

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I've been rescued and made righteous. Me?

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Made righteous? Any of you ever think that God had a sense of humor in saving you?

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I'm not worthy. I don't deserve it, but in his love and kindness raised me up in Christ and made me righteous.

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Mind of humility doesn't, isn't about really working hard at not thinking about yourself.

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That doesn't work. Have you ever tried that? Don't think about myself, don't think about myself, don't think about myself, don't think about myself.

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What are you doing when you do that? Thinking about yourself, but instead a mind of humility thinks often about Christ.

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He alone is worthy. He alone is worthy. He alone is worthy, and only what

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I do in him and through him is of any worth, so that when good comes out of my life,

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I turn back to Christ and say, thank you, that was you. He gets the credit.

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He alone is worthy, and with that we finish verse one. Okay, done with verse one.

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You guys are getting, anybody getting shifty, getting nervous? But the other four verses flow out of this one verse, and so a person who possesses and understands and gets the traits of verse eight is going to have an easier time applying the remainder of this text, verse nine and on.

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Peter has made it clear that the Christian life is one of submitting to authorities with a gentle and kind attitude.

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He's been talking about that, and he said a couple of times we are not to repay evil with evil or reviling that is harsh speech with harsh speech, but instead we are called to be a people who bless, who bless others.

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I would suggest that those of us who enjoy good action and adventure films have given very little thought to how our movies are filled with the notion of returning evil for evil, reviling for reviling.

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Revenge and retaliation is really the ultimate point of some of these movies that we watch. The end of every action movie is dedicated to the creative way that the bad guy gets his, right?

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And it's like the producers have to come up with, you know, they're competing with each other to come up with awesome ways to dispatch the villain, and it's like how is he going to get, is he going to fall off a cliff, what's going to happen?

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And that idea of evil for evil, reviling for reviling is something that is a pretty, pretty woven into our culture.

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Now there's certainly a judgment aspect of that, but have you ever noticed that God doesn't command us to be the one to exact vengeance on people?

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He has said, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. So you're going to go, well, what is our role?

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Is our role to be, in the end, ultimate, ultimately judge people's lives? We're going to leave something up to God here.

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The Christian life is not to return evil for evil or to return harsh speech for harsh speech, but instead we are called to bless.

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As a matter of fact, this is our calling. We are our very calling in life. One of the reasons

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God has you here on planet earth is about blessings, and our calling is both to give a blessing and receive a blessing.

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We do not earn our blessing, but the word obtain in the Greek language here, in verse 9 at the end, um, 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.

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That is an inheritance. The word obtain there is inherit. We don't earn an inheritance, we receive an inheritance.

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We have been called to be a blessing to our world that we may inherit a blessing from God, and the evidence is in whether or not we indeed are a blessing or not.

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To emphasize the point that God is the one who rewards and watches over behavior, Peter quotes an extensive quote from Psalm chapter 34, a psalm of David.

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So we have both Peter and David speaking here, and what David said in this psalm is true, and Peter utilizes it, and for his own point, whoever desires to love life and to see good days should keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.

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David in his generation, Peter in his generation, and now me in my generation are all suggesting that the quality of our lives depends significantly on the use of one particular body part.

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Somebody be willing to shut the doors over there, we're hearing, that's not an alarm, that's the kids ringing the bells out in the hallway, so practice in for next week.

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Thank you guys. One particular body part, the use of one particular body part, our lives in the course of our lives is set by the use of our mouths.

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The way we use our mouths. A tongue that speaks with evil intent and lips that engage in deception stand as a roadblock to your quality of life.

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You ever experienced that? Have you ever, have you ever maybe been caught up in a lie? Sometimes lies get so tangled that you have to tell lies to maintain the original lie.

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Any of you know what I'm talking about? Some of you remember when you were a kid and you tried to do that and you had to try to keep your story straight to your parents and eventually it all crumbled down because your mom is super smart and also has eyes in the back of her head and she figured it out for you.

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Um, you know what I'm talking about. If you've ever lived a lie, guilt and constant underlying shame cause a lot of sleepless nights, don't they?

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Deception breaks many relationships. Harsh and destructive words have kept sons from their mothers and mothers from their daughters, have broken up marriages.

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The tongue is a powerfully destructive force. James says it in dramatic flair.

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So I'm just going to quote him because the book of James chapter three, he just, he just dives in. He's not going to pull any punches.

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Listen to what James says to us. So also the tongue is a small member. This is a small part of your body.

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Yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire.

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And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life and is itself set on fire by hell.

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For every kind of beast and bird of, of reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue.

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It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it, we bless our Lord and Father and with it, we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.

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From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

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Did you catch that in the middle of it? All this stuff about how dangerous the tongue is, how it's a deadly fire that can set everything, the whole course of history on fire.

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And he says right in the middle of it, something that could come across kind of discouraging. No human being can tame the tongue.

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So is Peter telling us to do something that we just can't do? It's just an impossibility.

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Okay, we've just got to throw up our hands and go, Peter, you're telling us to tame the tongue. James tells us you can't tame the tongue.

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What's going on here? It's absolutely true. Have you ever, have you ever tried that?

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You ever tried to tame your tongue? Try to get rid of the quick wit that you learned from your family growing up or get rid of that sarcastic barb and, or even just the use of language that you shouldn't be using?

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You can't tame your tongue, but God can. God can tame your tongue.

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He can keep our tongues from evil. He can keep our lips from speaking lies. So maybe a starting point is to talk to him about it.

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Still quoting from the same psalm, Peter says, if you want good life and you want to have joy, that is a love for life, turn away from evil and do good.

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Verse 11 really ultimately defines the biblical concept of repentance. Look, if you look up the word repentance in a

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Bible dictionary, they should just quote verse 11. Look at verse 11. Let him turn away from evil and do good.

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That's, that turning away is the word for repentance, is a definition of repentance, and let him seek peace and pursue it.

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One thing that strikes me clearly as I've been studying 1 Peter so far is that the tragedy, there's a tragedy that Christians could ever be known as people who have had a violent streak in our history.

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As much as there is spiritual rhetoric of conquering for Christ and judgment and holiness,

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I hope you're seeing this and reading this as clearly as I am, that Christians are to be generous, gentle, kind, subject to authority, kind and calm in our speech, in a word, we exist here on this to be a blessing, to be a blessing to those around us in these four walls and out there in our workplace, out there in our neighborhoods, out there in the culture, out there on the committees that we sit on, and as countercultural as this is, whether you work in a union shop or a

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Bronson hospital or delivering packages on busy cold days or working with your children at home, whatever

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Monday through Friday looks like for you, do it with a heart of blessing others.

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Live with a spirit of blessing others, doing good, speaking good and pursuing peace.

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And here I get to throw you guys a bone, some of you are are saying this sounds like a sissy religion, does it sound a little sissy to you?

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But some of you, some of you kind of looking at it going, well I guess I've just got to be meek and quiet and just not talk much, and when

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I do, talk with a gentle voice. Are we supposed to just be doormats?

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Is that what it means to be a Christian? Have you ever thought that? There's all this talk about meekness, all this talk about humility, all this talk about not talking about yourself and not boasting in your own, and how many of you feel like, boy at the workplace,

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I'm gonna get run over if I respond this way. My boss is looking for the go -getter, is looking for the person who's trying to put their, their credentials above everybody else's so that they can advance and ahead, and we're just looking for people who are just, just pulling people down on that corporate ladder as they climb over the dead bodies on the way to the top.

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Some of you work in places like that, like that's, that's what your boss is looking for, he's looking for aggression and go -get -it -ness.

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Is that a word? Go -get -it -ness? I just made that up. So are we supposed to be floor mats, doormats?

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I would suggest to you that that is not that far off. It's not that far off.

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When you consider who we are following, what he did for us, and Peter has alluded to and has actually outright used

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Jesus Christ and the cross as an example and a world around us, and it looks a lot like suffering and some pain and some getting knocked down and getting back up and doing kindness for those who knocked us down.

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Like Jesus, who as he's hanging there, as the blood is dripping off of his elbows and off of his nose from the forehead, he can't scratch, he can't do anything, and as he's, he's there on the cross, what does he say?

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Father, forgive them for they know not what they do, blessing those at the foot of the cross who are taking his very life.

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Pretty high calling. Do you agree with me on that? So if you're here and you're a type

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A personality, you're looking for, Don, just give me something to conquer this week, just give me something to, I just want, the first thing, you know, give me something to sink my teeth into.

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Well, I will. Sink your teeth into your tongue. It's a great place to start. You want something to sink your teeth into this week?

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There you go. That's a good place to start. You have a massive battle to wage, to fight, to get this thing in check.

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The second battle we all get to fight is a funny battle in the word, the wording, the way that it's used.

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We are to fight for peace. Battle for peace. The word for pursue at the end of verse 11 is a very aggressive word that would probably sound like an oxymoron in the

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Greek language. If you were just to say those two words together, peace and pursue, it is.

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It's just almost directly battle, fight hard, pursue strongly, peace.

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Strive for it, drive hard for it, put energy into it. This is one thing I want to be sure that you are all aware of, is that as Kyle has resigned in the pursuit of a lead pastor position, there have been some disagreements on theology.

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I've been having a lot of one -on -one meetings with you and working through that, and the elders have constantly, routinely, regularly, and prayerfully pursued hard after peace in this process.

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We have constantly affirmed unity at the core of our faith. We have worked hard at taming our tongues, and I believe we've been successful at keeping our tongues from doing evil in this process.

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I'd recommend an excellent resource, by the way. If you're, if you're, if you're light and you're recognizing that you haven't pursued hard after peace, and by the way, it doesn't take very long for un, un -peace and unrest, for conflict to start to pile up in your life, to become overwhelming to you, there's a great resource that I would recommend.

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Well, the first resource I should recommend is prayer, or the word of God, but there's an awesome book that has helped me a lot, and it's got, it's saturated with scripture.

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It's called The Peacemaker by Ken Sandy. Aren't any of you familiar with that book? It's, it's one that I really think our church would benefit.

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If every single one of us read this book, we would be a stronger church as a result of it. It is about pursuing hard after peace.

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The author's name is Ken Sandy, S -A -N -D -E, if you're going to look that up and check it out, and if the only reason you don't buy the book is for cost, then come and see me, and we'll try to see what we can figure out, but I would recommend that book for everybody,

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The Peacemaker. It's, um, one that I've read a few times, um, listened to it on audio tape, and then, um, it really has helped me a lot.

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It's, it puts things in the correct emphasis about actively pursuing peace rather than just a passive, well, it'll all just go away kind of attitude.

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Blessing others and being at peace with others is very important in the Christian life, but it is not merely so that we have a good life or have joy or experience the lack of conflict.

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Those are good results, right? Like, is it good when you have a peaceful life and you don't have a lot of conflict stacked up on your shoulders, and that's a good thing.

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Who, who here would like to have a peaceful life? You just kind of, just being flat out honest, I'd like to have peace, yeah? Who wants to love your, do you want to love your life?

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Gonna be glad for it? Happy that you're alive? You want to see good days?

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Oh yeah, as opposed to bad days, I hope everybody would raise their hand on that, right? I'd like to see good days. But verse 12 wraps up the quote from Psalm 34 by reminding us that God sees and hears the righteous.

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The Lord is against those who do evil. You kind of already knew that, didn't you?

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You knew that in your head. We take for granted that God likes righteousness and hates evil, hates sin, but it is possible that we might struggle with this verse, which could so easily sound like salvation by works.

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If you do the right things, God will like you. If you don't do the right things, then God's got judgment for you.

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But by now, we're far enough down into the letter that we could possibly forget that this is a love letter written, like, like a love letter written to the elect exiles by Peter, where he has already extensively explained salvation to us by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ.

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In other words, has Peter just listed out a bunch of good works that we need to do so that God will like us?

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It's not the case. How silly of us to become so forgetful of what's already come in this letter.

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It's beginning to sound like Peter wants us to behave a lot to get God's blessing, but we're reading part of the same letter where Peter has said that we have been caused to be born again to a living hope.

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Peter spoke in chapter one in terms of an inheritance for Christians that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, and kept in heaven for you.

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So why is Peter reminding Christians that the Lord pays attention to the righteous, but his face is against those who do evil?

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Is it because he wants us to fear that we might lose our salvation? I don't believe that for a second, but he does want us to be motivated.

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For the believer, the temperature of our relationship with God is in proportion to our walk with him, and I think it's very telling that Peter cut off the quote from Psalm 34.

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If you were to go back and read in Psalm 34, it actually talks about these people who

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God turns his face away from them being cut off, and Peter doesn't finish the quote. He literally stops mid sentence in order to avoid saying that, because believers will not ever be cut off.

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Are there consequences when we sin? Are there consequences when we're not a blessing to others? Absolutely. But is

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God going to cut us off? No. A life lived for him gets his attention, and being just flat out honest,

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I want God's attention. I want him to hear my prayers. I want him to be watching out for me. So what motivates us in this is a reminder that this is all about God, the

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God who watches, the God who sees, and honoring him. The Christian life should be characterized by unity in Christ with others in the family, by sympathy, brotherly love, compassion, and humility in the way that we think.

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We should be a blessing to those around us, even those who revile us. We should pursue peace and keep our mouths in check, knowing that it is

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God who rewards those who are his. I came across a story when I was reading this.

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I don't give a lot of these kind of story type illustrations like this, but I came across a story of a soldier who regularly read his

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Bible. He was reading his Bible every night in the barracks before he went to sleep, and he drew the derision and antagonism of a particularly hostile man assigned to the same barracks right across, right across, not bunk mates, but right across the way.

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He withstood verbal attacks, reviling, and just general hostility and anguish from this other soldier.

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One particular night, the Christian sitting on his bunk reading his Bible just before lights out, and the non -Christian not able to get a rise or get the attention of this

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Christian sitting there reading his Bible through his muddy boots at the soldier. And to everybody's surprise, the next morning, there sat those formerly muddy boots, spit shined to perfection at the foot of that non -Christian bed.

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Blessing, not returning cursing for cursing, not returning reviling for reviling, not returning evil for evil, but returning with blessing and good.

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I don't know how that story ends. The illustration, you know, the guy gives his life to Christ and everything works out, and we know that things don't sew up like that in life.

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How many of you know that it might have been like he threw his muddy boots out in the next day so they'd clean them again? Could that be the, could that be the outcome of that story?

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Absolutely. So do you do it so that the guy gives it, bows his knee right away, and gives his life to Christ, and that's, you've done your duty, and the guy's, how many of you know that that could be a long haul?

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That could be a long haul. That's not, that's not it. That's not, it's not once you do it once and you've done what you, could be a long time of doing kindness.

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But that Christian soldier was faithful to the calling of God to be a blessing, to not return reviling, keep his mouth in check, and pursue peace.

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And as we come to communion, we express our unity together around the things that matter most. The gospel is the center.

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Our hope is in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, Recast Church. What we do in the next few minutes as we come to the table is a visual reminder that we are not alone in this calling to bless others.

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God has called us together, and if you've asked Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Master, and you've asked him to save you, then you are welcome to come to any of the tables, the four corners of the room, and remember his sacrifice for you.

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God has blessed us through the cross with forgiveness. God has blessed us with hope.

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God has blessed us with a future inheritance kept in heaven for us. And the question left in the equation is, who is he calling you to bless?

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It'd be awesome to put a name down on that this morning. Let's pray. Father, I recognize that this is a high calling that you've placed on our lives.

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There are some here who are reviled. There are some here who experience animosity, some of it coming from their very families because of their faith and trust in you.

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So Father, it's so easy to do blessing and kindness to others when they receive it and return it, and we give them gifts, and they give us gifts, and they pat us on the back, and we pat them.

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But Father, I recognize that that's not the extent of your call on our lives. We are to bless in the face of reviling.

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We are to follow Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. And Father, he who modeled this so perfectly for us, going to the cross, enduring that pain, enduring that suffering at the hands of sinful men like us, and returning with,

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Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Father, I pray that you would move in our hearts to create that same kind of tapestry in our lives where we are willing to give even in the face of antagonism.

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And Father, as we get an opportunity to visualize that unity that you've given to us, that sense that we're not alone in this, here as we come to communion,

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I thank you for the body of Jesus broken for us, his blood that was shed for us, that we could have forgiveness and be made right.

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Pray for our weak, Father, that you would go before us. Give us your grace and your mercy. In Jesus' name, amen.