Sunday Morning, March 31, 2019 AM

The Call to Be a Blessing in a Minefield of Life

Would you bow your heads with me as we go to the throne of grace? Lord, how grateful we are for the blessing of scripture-saturated music turns our hearts and our thoughts to our glorious Savior, Jesus Christ.

Now, Lord, we pray that you would open the eyes of our hearts to behold the glory of Christ in the instruction from your word today. How grateful we are for the passages that we've already read out of Ephesians chapter two and Proverbs chapter 17.

And this morning we pray that you would bless the reading of your word from 1 Peter chapter three and from any other portions of scripture as well. Lord, it is your truth that we desire. We live in a world that masquerades truth.

So Lord, we pray that you would help us to see clearly your glory in your word in the person and work of Christ. Lord, change us today. May we be different because we've been in your presence. And we give you thanks and praise and glory and honor in the name that is above every name, the name of Jesus, amen.

About 4 ,000 years ago, God called Abraham, well, he was Abram then, to leave Ur of the Chaldeans, to leave a land of false gods and idolatry and to journey to a new land, the land that God said, I will show to you, land of Canaan.

An ancient Egyptian document from around 2000 BC, so from around that period of time, talks about the land of Canaan and says, it was indeed a fruitful place. A land that was good, says figs were in it, grapes were there, it had more wine than water, plentiful was its honey, abundant its olives, every kind of fruit was in its trees.

There was no limit to the pleasantness of the land. So that's where God was calling Abraham to go, was to that place. And in Genesis chapter 12, first three verses, it tells us of God's call to Abram.

It says, now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So while Abraham didn't know a lot of the specifics about where God was leading him, you have to think that Abraham thought, God's talked a lot about blessing here.

This is gonna be good, this is gonna be good. And so you have to think that probably Abraham dreamed of entering the promised land to find a garden of Eden. In reality, he walked into a minefield in which there were constant explosions one after another, especially in terms of the relationships that Abraham had.

John Calvin does a good job of kind of inserting himself in Abram's place and thinking through all that happened to Abram as he journeyed to that land and all that he experienced in the promised land.

Calvin writes, he says, when he is first called by God's command, he is taken away from his country, his parents and friends, considered by men the sweetest things in life, as if God deliberately intended to strip him of all life's delights.

And as soon as he reached the land in which he had been bidden to dwell, he is driven from it by famine. Seeking aid, he flees to a place where he has to prostitute his wife to save his own life and act probably more bitter than many deaths.

And when he has returned again to the land of his abode, he is again driven from it by famine. What sort of happiness is this? To dwell in a land where you have to go hungry, even perish from hunger, unless you flee from it.

While in uncertainty, he wanders about hither and thither for many years and he is compelled by the continual quarreling of his servants to dismiss his nephew whom he cherished as his own son. Doubtless, he bore this separation as if he had undergone the amputation of a limb.

Shortly after, Abraham hears that his nephew has been taken captive by enemies. Wherever he goes, he finds terribly barbarous neighbors who do not even let him drink water out of the wells he had dug with great labor.

Now, when he has reached a worn out old age, he finds himself childless, the most unpleasant and bitter feature of age. Finally, beyond all hope, he begets Ishmael, but the birth of this son costs him dear for he is wearied by the reproaches of Sarah.

Finally, Isaac is born, but with this condition. Ishmael, the firstborn, is to be driven out and forsaken, almost like an enemy. Abraham, I'm gonna bless you. How do you like it so far? Have you ever dreamed that life would be like a garden, but instead it turned out to be a minefield?

In the Apostle Peter's day, that's where Christians found themselves. They had heard God's call to repentance and forgiveness through faith in Christ. And their lives had been transformed by God's great grace and mercy, but that didn't make the outward circumstances of life always pleasant.

They found themselves walking in minefields, in the workplace, in regards to the state, in their communities. For some of them, even their homes, which should have been a place of peace and safety, a haven from all the things around them in the world for some of them, their homes were exactly the opposite of that because their homes were places where they were married to an unbeliever.

So how are we as Christians to live in days like that? How are we as pilgrims, as Peter calls us, how are we as pilgrims to journey through life's minefields? Well, God's intent is that his people would be a blessing as they journey through life.

We have been blessed in order that we might be a blessing. And it's the ability to be a blessing even in the minefields of life that sets the Christian apart from the world. God promises to bless his people as they are a blessing to others, even in the midst of the most difficult of circumstances.

And so Peter urges Christians to be a blessing in attitude and action, both in the church and in the world. And in the process of that, God promises that we will inherit a blessing. So if you would take your Bibles in hand, turn to 1 Peter 3.

We're gonna look at verses eight through 12 this morning. If you would stand with me as we give attention to the reading of God's word. 1 Peter 3, beginning in verse eight. Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless. For to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing. For whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.

Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

You may be seated. Well, it's been a while since we've been in 1 Peter. Peter is writing to those whom he calls aliens, strangers, pilgrims in this world. And he's giving instructions to Christians on how to live consecrated lives before people who have critical eyes.

And so to back up just a little bit here, in chapter two, Peter has given instruction about how believers are to live before unbelievers, verses 11 and 12. In verses 13 through 17, he talks about how Christians are to relate to the civil authorities and how they are to live a holy and godly life as citizens wherever God has placed them.

Verses 18 through 25, Peter talks to servants, how they are to relate to their masters. And for us, how employees should conduct themselves on the job as a Christian and how we should bring glory to Christ in that sphere.

In chapter three, Peter turns his attention to the home, to wives of unbelieving husbands, how they are to live in such a way as to be a witness to their husband, even through just their daily attitude and actions, to win their husbands, even without saying a word, that the manner of their life should be so different than what it was before that it causes their husbands to stop and say, something's changed here and it's for the good.

And then to husbands, to treasure their wives, to love them and to honor them so that their prayers will not be hindered before God. And so then we come to verse eight that we just read. And Peter says, finally.

Now, if you notice this falls in the middle of chapter three and 1 Peter is five chapters long. So like many a good preacher, Peter says, finally, and he still has a long way to go. Well, actually, Peter isn't really saying this is the conclusion.

What he is saying, this is the conclusion of this section. To wrap all this up about living lives of holiness before a world that is often critical of our faith. Peter says, finally, finally, all of you.

So what he has said to citizens, to employees, to husbands, to wives, now Peter says, and if I've left anybody out, listen to this. Finally, all of you. And what's Peter's message? His message is, be a blessing, be a blessing.

In verse eight, Peter focuses particularly on how we are to bless the believers. As followers of Christ, in the body of Christ, in the church of God, how are we to bless one another in Jesus' name? Well, Peter says, finally, all of you have unity of mind.

That's the way the ESV translates the Greek there. I like the way the NIV puts it here. It says, live in harmony with one another. Live in harmony with one another. And I like that idea of harmony. I have a guitar that's locked away in my closet that I haven't had out for years, but every now and then I think about getting it out.

And I was thinking about harmony with my guitar, just to play a C chord, pretty simple chord on the guitar. It only requires three fingers. But as you do that, you have one finger on the C note, one is E, then comes G, then comes D, and then comes E.

All different notes. But when you strum that, it sounds wonderful because it's harmony. Those notes all complement one another and contribute to the construction of that chord. Well, that's the idea here.

Live in harmony with one another. It literally means, as the ESV puts it, have unity of mind or be of one mind. Peter wants the believers here to think alike, not in the sense of holding identical opinions, not in the sense of being pre-programmed robots where everybody does just exactly the same thing at the same time and talks in just the same way and dresses exactly alike, combs their hair exactly the same, drives the same kind of car, lives in identical homes.

It's not that kind of cookie cutter sort of approach that Peter has in mind when he says, have unity of mind or be of one mind. But it's the sense of being agreeable and sensitive to one another's concerns.

Just like the notes in a chord are agreeable with the other notes in that chord and contribute to the beauty of the whole sound, Paul says, be of one mind. Unity is not uniformity. God treasures diversity.

Now, our current culture has pushed the whole idea of diversity way out of proportion. God designed us with diversity of appearance, diversity of gifts, diversity of abilities, and all that is meant to work together as a beautiful chord to the glory of God.

And even in our thinking, in our understanding of God's word, we talked about this in our Sunday school class a little bit this morning, of how God brings us along at different rates and in different ways and how God uses that both for our individual good, but also to be a blessing to others and to sharpen one another and encourage one another in our walk with Christ.

So Peter says here, live in harmony with one another. Have unity of mind. I think of the early church and how that harmony was demonstrated in Acts chapter four, verse 32. There it tells us of the early church.

If I can turn there real quickly, I should have written it down. It says of the church, now, the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, one heart and mind. And then that became evidenced in the way in which they cared for one another, how they shared with one another, how they gave out of what they had to meet needs for one another.

The early church demonstrated that kind of harmony. What does harmony like that do? Well, in Romans chapter 15, Paul says that such harmony glorifies God. Romans 15, verses five and six. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may, with one voice, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Live together in such harmony that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. But what is the root of that harmony? Christ. In accord with Jesus Christ. If I were to go to tune my guitar and I start with the lowest one, the lowest string, which is E, and I think that sounds a little off, a little sharp, or a little flat, and so I twist it and tune it and get it to where I think it sounds right.

And then I take all the other five strings and I tune them in accord with that string. Does that mean I've tuned it correctly?

No.

I've tuned it according to what I think it ought to sound like. Then I get out a tuning fork or some other objective point of measurement of musical sound, and I find out this is horrible because I've not tuned it according to the right standard.

Harmony in the church is not just that we get along well with one another, we like one another, we say hi to one another and how you doing and hope all is well, hope you don't have any weeds in your yard and all that kind of stuff.

No, our harmony in the church is rooted in Christ and our relationship to Christ. And that harmony is based on being in accord with Christ. And so what is the unity of mind that Peter seeks? It's that we resonate with Christ.

That we are in harmony with him. Harmony glorifies God. Harmony also in the church destroys division. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth in 1 Corinthians chapter one, and he says, I've heard about disputes that are going on between you.

And he says, I urge you to agree with one another. That agreement, that unity, that harmony destroys division in the church. And that harmony makes us a witness to the world. And the gospel of John chapter 15 as Jesus, or John chapter 17, I'm sorry, as Jesus is praying his high priestly prayer.

Verse 20 and following, Jesus prays this. He says, I do not ask for these only, his disciples, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that's us. That they all 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.

The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you have sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

That harmony, that oneness, that unity of mind with Christ is a powerful witness to the world. So how do we bless the believers? Well, it begins by living in harmony with one another. Then Peter goes on to kind of describe for us the four-part harmony that he has in mind here.

Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Be sympathetic, Peter says, be sympathetic. Seek to truly understand one another and come alongside one another.

That sympathy is characteristic of Christ himself. Hebrews chapter four says that we don't have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with us in our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin.

We have a sympathetic and caring high priest in the person of Christ. And we're called to exemplify that same kind of sympathy towards one another, of identifying with one another, coming alongside one another.

That sympathy was characteristic of the early Christians. And later in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 34, the writer of Hebrews talks about how the believers joyfully embraced the confiscation of their own goods as they sympathized with their brothers and sisters who were in prison, and that they were willing to give up any and everything that they had in order to minister to and help their brothers and sisters in Christ in their suffering.

Be sympathetic. And refers not just to the sharing of grief or pain, but to a whole range of emotions. In Romans chapter 12, Paul says, weep with those who weep, but rejoice with those who rejoice. Be of one mind, be sympathetic, share in joys and sorrows, in the ups and downs of life.

And then Peter says, show brotherly love. Now, you know what the word there is, philadelphoi. That's the Greek word, brotherly love. It was a common word, familiar to everyone. And yet in Christianity, it came to be characteristic of love for fellow believers.

Romans chapter 12, verse 10, Paul writes and says, love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor. That's brotherly love. One of the things that I appreciate most about Sunnyside Baptist Church is how people show love for one another, whether it's in disasters or disease or death.

This body of believers shows love. We had a great example of that yesterday at the service that was held here to a remember Joe Mackey. Joe's been gone from this congregation for a long time, but this congregation always held a special place in his heart because of the love that you all showed to him and that he showed to this church.

And I remember when Cheryl and I made the decision to leave the church here, to go back to Illinois, to minister to family. The reason why I asked Joe Mackey to fill in for me first, to be the first one to come in and preach after we were gone, was because I knew that he loved you and you loved him.

And I wanted that to be the thing that moved this church forward. Your love for one another. Brotherly love seeks to treat others as you would wanna be treated. And so that's the second note of this four-part harmony.

Be sympathetic, show brotherly love. Thirdly, Peter says, cultivate a tender heart. Cultivate a tender heart. The word there literally means to be good-hearted or literally to have good bowels. That's really what the word means.

Because in the New Testament days, the bowels were regarded as the seat of emotions. And we understand that. You ever talked about having butterflies in your stomach? Okay, so we understand that feeling that we get.

Sometimes down in our gut. Peter says, cultivate a tender heart towards one another. It carries the idea of being generous and compassionate. The only other place in the New Testament where this particular word appears is in Ephesians 4 .32, where Paul says, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Cultivate a tender heart. It means to not only feel another's pain, but to do something about it. This year, Cheryl and I will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary, which is hard to believe that we are that old.

We'd only been married a couple of years. And perhaps I've told you this story before. We'd only been married a couple of years. And I was still in Bible college and working and Cheryl was working a full-time job.

And it was in, I think, the summer. And we'd made a trip to Illinois to see family. And Cheryl had some extended time off that I couldn't take from my summer job. And so she stayed there in Illinois and I came back to Missouri to be back to work.

And I had not been back for very long, if I remember right. Well, no, you flew there. Cheryl flew there and I stayed in Missouri. And while she was there, she was in her third month of pregnancy. And she called me on Friday night in tears and said that she had miscarried.

And that's a hard thing, even if you're with one another, but to be separated by 500 miles was really hard. And we talked and we prayed. And I said, I will get there as soon as I can. Well, word got around to people from our home church, church that I had grown up in, in Illinois.

And it wasn't long after that that I got a call saying that people had gotten together and they had purchased a plane ticket for me to go from Joplin to Champaign, Illinois to be there with Cheryl as quickly as possible.

And that as soon as she was able to travel that they were also gonna pay for tickets to fly us back to Missouri. That's what it means to have a tender heart. To not just feel someone's pain, but if it's in your ability to do something about it.

The last note of this four-part harmony is be humble. Have a humble mind. Now in the first century culture, the idea of humility was not highly thought of. It was seen as a negative trait. Among Christians, it came to be seen as a virtue.

Humility. Peter comes to that issue of humility a little bit later in chapter five, in verse five. He says, clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another. For God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Be humble. Who is the supreme example of humility? It is Christ himself. In my Bible class at CHA, I have the juniors memorize Philippians chapter two, verses one through 11. But I just wanna focus our attention on one part of that passage.

Verses six through eight, being Jesus. Who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing. Taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, after the manner of Christ our Savior.

When Peter talks about humility here, he means it to say that we are willing to serve others, to lay down our lives for others, to appreciate and to love them, no matter who they are. I remember reading of an account of George MacDonald, the Scottish writer from the 19th century.

And there was a man who was struggling with some issues in his life, and he had had some acquaintance with George MacDonald and set up a time to meet with him. But he was worried about what MacDonald might think of him and the struggles that he was going through.

But as he sat down with MacDonald, he was set at ease. And this is what he said about that meeting. He said, well, we sat in the library, and then I opened my heart to him as I had hardly ever opened it to any stranger before.

Doubts and fears, some burdens just then, were bluntly put before him, and he sat and listened with the utmost patience. It was strange, and yet it was not strange to find myself talking to him so freely.

I saw, I felt his holiness and nearness to God, and yet I should not have been afraid to confess to him my most secret sins. There was a humanity about him and a searching honesty, which, along with his sympathy, made me feel that he would understand me, he would not cast me out.

I have forgotten much of his reply, but I remember this. I should not be surprised, he said, if God has not some special work for you to do. I cannot describe the comfort those simple words gave me. Then this tension of mine was a discipline, and it meant good.

I could bear it and perhaps one day thank God for it. Then just before I left, he said, but after all, whatever help or comfort one may try to give you, it is but to follow the advice of Jesus. Enter into thy closet, and shut to the door, and pray to thy Father in secret.

Pour out your heart to God, get down on your knees. He will help you as no one else can, and will give you an answer in peace.

Be humble.

Blessing Even the Belligerent

So, we've spent a lot of time here talking about blessing the believers. But Peter understands that we don't live our lives within these walls, that we're called to go into the world as Christ's ambassadors.

And as Christ's ambassadors, we're not always gonna be as well-received in the world as we are here in the fellowship of believers. So, what do we do? Well, for lack of a better term, and you know, I like alliteration.

As you look at verse nine, Peter says, bless even the belligerent. Bless the believers, certainly, but also bless the belligerent. And he says, don't do this, okay? Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling.

Don't repay, don't revile, don't seek revenge. Revenge always tries to go one step further, doesn't it? I have never been very good at pulling pranks on people. I enjoy seeing other people be pranked, but I've never been very good at that.

But those people who are good at pulling pranks on one another, it's always a matter of one-upmanship, isn't it? Okay, you got me, just wait, your time's coming. And that's no big deal if it's just, you know, a prank of some kind, you know, all done and fun and good-natured.

But we apply that same logic to revenge, whether it is in our actions or our words or most of the time in our thoughts. Peter says, don't repay evil for evil. Don't return reviling for reviling. But instead, do what?

Do this, but on the contrary, bless, bless. There's a time to be silent. Back in chapter two, Peter talks about Jesus, that when he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

As we enter into the Easter season and we read those passages of scripture again when Jesus stood before Pilate, when he was being accused and reviled by the Jewish leadership, and what did he do? Like a lamb before its shearers is silent, so Jesus did not speak.

There's a time to be silent, but here Peter calls us not merely to silence, but to speak up, but to speak words of blessing. Luke chapter six, Jesus urges his followers to speak blessing. Luke chapter six, verse 27, Jesus says, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies.

Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. Don't seek revenge, don't return reviling for reviling. Instead, bless. There's a time to speak to our enemies, but not words of accusation, but words of blessing, words of kindness, and words of witness.

As Christians, we can live on one of three levels. We can return evil for good. That's the satanic level. We can return good for good and evil for evil. That's the human level. Or we can return good for evil.

That's the divine level. That's the Christ-like level. And so Peter says, don't repay evil for evil, but on the contrary, bless. For to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. That's the title of this sermon, obtaining a blessing.

How do we obtain a blessing? Well, we bless the believers, but we also bless the belligerent. Peter says, this is what you've been called to, not only to act in that way, but you've also been called to obtain a blessing.

And he quotes there from Psalm 34. And if you know anything about Psalm 34, Psalm 34 is a Psalm of David, and it recounts when David had been feigning insanity before the King of Gath, before Abimelech, as a way to try to protect himself and get out of a difficult situation.

And God delivered him. And so as David reflects on all that, we have these verses here in 1 Peter 3 that Peter quotes almost verbatim from Psalm 34. Verses 12 through 16. And Peter says here, do you wanna live a life that honors God?

Then live a good life. Whoever desires to love life and see good days, do this. Let him keep his tongue from evil, his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it.

Peter says, live a good life, and you will obtain a blessing. Watch your speech, watch your actions, watch your attitude. There are plenty of people who live a good life. Peter goes on in quoting David to say, live a godly life.

Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. Live not just a good life, but a godly life, and you will enjoy then a blessed life. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer.

But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. Many of you are probably familiar with the children's book. I just love the title. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Alexander's day begins like this.

This is all one sentence. I went to sleep with gum in my mouth, and now there's gum in my hair, and when I got out of bed this morning, I tripped on the skateboard, and by mistake, I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running, and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

And it goes downhill from there. We can all identify with Alexander. We understand. Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. But what do we desire? We desire what Peter talks about here, what David talks about.

We desire to love life and to see good days. But what exactly does that look like when fears face us and troubles trip us and disappointments defeat us? While we would really like to have a no fear, trouble free, zero disappointment series of days, that's not going to happen in this fallen world.

Either our sin or the sin of someone else is going to mess everything up. Nevertheless, as Peter reminds us in this passage of scripture, we can obtain a blessing. Even our worst days on the outside can be filled with blessing if we will but look and see that the Lord is good.

We can obtain a blessing when we bless believers and belligerents in Jesus' name and for his sake. As Warren Wearsby says, he says, a good day for the believer who loves life is not one in which he has been pampered and sheltered, but one in which he experiences God's help and blessing because of life's problems and trials.

It is a day in which he magnifies the Lord, experiences answer to prayers, tastes the goodness of God, and senses the nearness of God. Psalm 34, two verses that Peter didn't quote, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.

Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack because of the grace of God in Christ. We are blessed and we can be a blessing to the praise and glory of God the Father.

Would you pray with me? Lord, how we thank you for this passage of scripture. I pray that, Lord, you would use your word to strengthen us in our daily walk. Lord, use us to bless one another, to bless our neighbors, to bless our coworkers.

Lord, help us to bless even those who would revile us. May we follow after the example of Jesus himself. May we be sympathetic. May we be humble. Help us to be tenderhearted. Help us to love one another.

And may it all be to the praise of your glorious grace. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.