Good morning. We have a great crowd here here
today. We're excited to see everyone
who's here. We have visitors, We have some
familiar faces. Chris called you old familiar
faces. I'm not going to call you old.
I'm going to call you just familiar faces.
And some of you, we used to be young.
Now you're here visiting again. You're, you're getting older.
So it's, it's good to see all of our visitors, whether you're
from the community or from another congregation.
Good to have you today. And I'm looking forward to
leading us again through the study.
And first, Peter, we're going on to Lesson 5.
So he's laid a lot of groundwork.
He's laid a lot of groundwork to this point in the letter that I
hope if you have not read it and you go back and read it, if
you're joining us for the first time in this study or maybe
you'll have a chance to go back and listen to our podcast.
We have some wonderful people who work to put that on and to
put that together. So please go back and listen to
that. If you wonder, hey, what about
this though, we may have already covered and we may be moving
past some details that you may have questions about.
And so if you are here today and you have questions about whether
it's the study or something else, because there's likely
that you will see something today that brings questions to
your mind, please ask. We're happy to answer and give a
defense for the hope that's in US and for the things that we do
and for who we are. So please ask questions.
It's good to see Ritu here today.
She's been working to get those Sundays off.
Her boss was trying to push for work on Sundays, and she's been
fighting against that. So praise God, it's an answer of
prayers that she's here with us today.
We've been talking about the people who are dispersed because
of persecution into all these regions.
They've been spread out. They've been persecuted and
abused by their government. And he's telling them in these
last couple chapters how to thrive and how to live within
that. And we talked about honoring
everyone, even though you're being persecuted, honor others,
even though they not might not be good to you, even though the
brotherhood at times is full of faulted people.
We're going to learn today we must be good and honor all
people to love the brotherhood, God's people, to especially fear
God. And we talked about that last
time, especially with the women. The women are told to to
surrender, to submit, but with the fear of God instead of a
fear of what might happen to them.
And we're told to honor the king.
That is regarding submission to government.
And so here's just a summary of the things we talked about
recently regarding government, your employers and wives to
husbands and these dynamics. He tells them to submit us to
government, us to our employers and wives to husbands.
The instruction is to submit. It doesn't say they need to be
worthy. We're to submit regardless in
their worthiness and to acknowledge and remember that
suffering in this process. If that happens to you is a
major thumbs up. Big bonus points you might say
from God. So don't don't be stressed out
or surprised if you suffer. He said that's good because he
says you're called to this. That's what Jesus did.
That's what happened with him. So if you're doing something
right. If that happens and he says
regarding to employers, to husbands, to wives and how we
treat everybody, our instruction is to honour them regardless of
their worthiness and to acknowledge that suffering is
part of the process. And it's a major thumbs up.
So we have honour and submission, which are huge
themes. They're going to apply to pretty
much everything we do. We learned from the women It
said last time, wives likewise be submissive to your husband,
to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word,
they without a word maybe won by the conduct of their wives when
they observe your chase, conduct accompanied by fear.
We've already covered that and that statement.
When a woman does that, it's a powerful strength she's showing.
And when she does that, it's saying, God, I trust you.
Even when it is difficult to submit to my husband, whatever
he is, whatever he's doing, I trust you.
God, she had said to her, do not let your adornment be merely
outward, arranging the hair, wearing gold, putting on fine
apparel. He says don't let it be all
about that. Don't let it be only about that,
but rather let it be the hidden or the inner person of the heart
with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which
is very precious in the sight of God.
We had to go back through that because that's going to apply
directly to why he's going to tell the husbands what he's
going to tell us. OK, so it part of his reasoning
was from this manner in the former times, the holy women who
trusted in God also adorned themselves being submissive to
their own husbands. He's saying this has worked for
a long time. Don't give up the example that
you've seen before. And he emphasized that they were
trusting. And the ultimate lesson for
women is this. A woman can trust her outward
beauty to make her really truly beautiful and to satisfy her to
make other people may be leveraged by her beauty.
Or she can trust God and and cultivate A gentle and quiet
spirit with with a godliness. It comes back to trust in God.
A woman can trust in her own ability to manipulate or control
her husband or she can trust God and learn submission.
It takes a lot of hard work on the woman's part and we need to
honor them as we're going to see in a minute.
Verse 6, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, which
means master, which means I'm you're my authority whose
daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any
terror. If you have questions, please go
back to our previous study, but we learned that women need to be
learned using this mindset that we all need to learn at some
point in different ways to not be fear driven, but to be faith
driven. A wise woman once told me, be
aware of your fears. They're often areas God will
challenge you in the future because they're areas you
haven't yet surrendered or learned to trust in God.
That applies to all of us. And now here's the instruction
to the men. Everything he says to us is
built on what he said with the women.
So we have to carry that here. He says husbands likewise
husbands likewise dwell with them with understanding, giving
honour to the wife as to the weaker vessel.
OK, first of all, likewise, how does the husband's role have
anything likewise to do with what the woman had happened?
I think it's as simple as this. The husband's command is to not
look at ourselves like we are the one that this is all about.
It's not all about us. The world does not exist to
serve us, and the women have learned that through submission.
That isn't all about them. And so we likewise need to not
look at ourselves like it's all about us.
And we need to learn to honor them in the sight of God.
We do not use dominance to make us feel like we're the most
important person in the room. We are given authority from God
to be the leaders of our homes, but it's not a dominance that is
unaware of the realities that are going on.
We must learn to dwell with them.
How with understanding just the phrase dwell with them is a
shortcoming of many of us men in our in our marriages.
If you were just told to dwell with them, what is that the
opposite of? There's a lot of marriages where
the husband is just there, where the husband and wife are
roommates, where they are just kind of passing through the they
share bills. That is not a biblical marriage.
A biblical marriage is partnership in every sense of
the word, and not dwelling with them is what that is intended to
imply. Not disconnected, not try, not
not trying. It's presence many people, many
women or many of us as humans have quality time as our love
language, but all of us need to feel dwelt with, to be feel like
someone is there with us. You cannot make someone feel
appreciated by acts of service alone, by gifts alone.
They all all of our lives are going to take dwelling with them
in this process, he says. Dwell with them with
understanding. It's not enough to just be there
and to listen. It is a quality that we need to
have an intentionality that they are understandable.
Now let me rephrase that. I guess I should say women think
differently than men do and that's OK.
God designed us to be that way because our strengths leverage
one another and we doesn't mean we have to fully understand
everything but that word. Knowledge is science.
It's like you can study it, you can give attention to it because
the opposite is like, you don't make any sense.
Yes, they do in their own mind, in their own ways, just
different than what we think about.
It's a different way of thinking and it is reasonable.
And so we need to have understanding with them.
We need to show understanding because sometimes I can talk to
Taylor like I'm listening to you, but you just don't make any
sense. There's a vibe you can give off
to someone in conversation like or you can give them the sense
that I'm I'm hearing you, I'm listening to you.
I don't fully understand everything, but I'm trying.
I'm here that you're you do make sense.
If I make my wife feel like she doesn't make sense versus I'm
just not understanding. Those are two totally different
things. But instead, I can seek to
understand so that she feels understood, even when we might
not always see things exactly the same way.
What does this take? It just takes time and effort.
We don't know everything that goes through someone else's
head. It takes time and effort to
understand their disposition, to understand their reactions to
things. And if we will just take this
line, dwell with them with understanding, this will solve
90% of marriage string. 90% of problems is just let's stick
through it. Let let me just try to
understand. Let me, let me be here with you
and not leave, not storm out of the house or storm into the
other room all the time. That was solved 90% of our
problems right there. But he goes on to say even more
details that'll help us understand.
This is just the second-half of the verse.
He says dwelling with them, with understanding, giving honour to
the wife as to the weaker vessel.
So our instruction, kind of like every other relationship, he
said, is there's a side of submission and there's a side of
honour. We must honour the wife.
Does that mean, like we already said with, with our bosses, that
small portion of people who are worthy or the times when people
are worthy? No, it's weird to give on
regardless of the circumstances because often times one, the
husband and wife will say, well, I'm not doing this because
they're not doing this. And then this one says, I'm not
doing that because you're not doing that.
There's no circle. You can't escape the circle of
them. Somebody has to start.
And God's pattern is you do your side and you take care of your
business. I God will take care of the
rest. It is not our responsibility to
handle anyone else's side of any relationship, especially not the
marriage woman. We are to show honour.
That's as this concept is going to blow up here as these verses
proceed. So stay with it.
Showing honour doesn't mean being nice to them or just just
don't abuse them or don't harass them.
It means to honour and respect them.
Fathers in this audience who have daughters, do you want your
daughter to be treated the way you treat your wife?
Because we don't want our daughters just to be not abused.
We want our daughters to be honoured.
How about this? These are the daughters of the
heavenly King of this world. God is looking down on them and
wants them to be honoured. We have a responsibility not to
just be nice to Him, but to honor them in a special way.
Why, it's going to get even more in our face here as we go, he
says, as to the weaker vessel. Now, there's no scripture that
says women are weaker than men or that says women are inferior
to men. This is not inferiority.
But let's talk about the context
of what he's already talking about.
He's already talked about how women have the responsibility to
surrender themselves to physical, emotional, social,
especially during that time they were vulnerable in their society
they lived in. So physical, emotional, social
and authoritative vulnerability to the men, to their husbands.
Not not all women, to all men. It's not that it's wife to
husband. Women have this instruction to
surrender invulnerability and we had better honour them in that
vulnerability. That's the point he's making.
When they were designed, like we said last time, to be their most
God-given purpose when they are serving and taking care of
others and putting others above themselves and taking care of
the needs of others. Genesis tells, tells us that God
created woman as a helper for man to support and to
strengthen. And you know what happens with
that? God gave women these chemicals
in their brain. Estrogen is a chemical of
compassion and empathy and care, especially for children.
Taylor's been having a hard time because Daisy won't stop crying.
But there's points where she, like, can't control.
It's just her hormones make her cry.
I don't have that. I can sit there and put earplugs
in and just bounce her through it.
And now it's, it's hard. It's, it's loud, but I don't
have the same chemicals in my brain that she does.
And so if the women are called to surrender, submit and and
serve, and God gave them this disposition that that makes them
vulnerable because they love so much they want to do that.
We had better honour them in that because if we in turn abuse
that submission, that submissive dynamic, May God have mercy on
our souls because it is not a position we need to be in.
God is telling us to honour them, as do we have no more
context for a weaker vessel. Now to the one who is tender.
That word weaker, we're going to see in a minute might actually
have more behind it than we typically think of.
But women have to submit themselves to a sensitivity that
we as men are often hardened to, and that is putting yourself in
a position of weakness to serve. May we honour them in that.
And God, presiding over all of this thing, wants us to
delicately handle them with the care that He has placed
something that is gentle in our hands, that we would not crush
it, that we would not abuse it because oh man, it can go so
wrong. Half the songs ever written are
from women passionately berating men who have been unfaithful,
who have been unkind and rude and domineering.
Rightfully so. There's a huge way this can go
bad quickly if we are not careful to honour our wives.
OK, so we settled that context. We had to put a lot of words in
the context to make sure we know he's not just saying hey honour,
Hershey's weaker than you. So is there a, is there a way
that maybe this could have been translated better to make us see
more of the context? The phrase weaker vessel, some
commentators say, actually goes back to their dishes they used
to use in their dishware. They had common dishes just like
we do, and they had some dishes that were more delicate.
We call that fine China. And when we pull out the fine
China, you don't throw them in the sink like you do the plastic
Ware. You don't toss them in the sink.
You don't throw them around the kitchen with that, with that
fine China you treated as special.
And you have to be gentle with it because it's precious.
And there are commentators that say this is a better translation
of the phrase weaker vessel. Now whether that was literally
what the author was intending or not, it carries the meaning that
the whole passage was was building up for us.
Then the dynamic of women the husband and wife needs to carry
anyway. Whether this was his
translation, a better translation or not, it carries
the idea better that we can fully understand the concept of
fine China. God is saying I have created
this dynamic in which these beautiful realities exist and
you can't toss them around. Why cheaper dishes are used and
abused as tools. They're just something to get
stuff on the kids plate and get it in their down their throats.
Cheaper dishes are used and abused as tools #2 China is
precious though, and special and it's beautiful.
And we handle China with special care.
Why? We realize it's a value.
How does that parallel the wives?
Wives don't want to be another task used and abused as tools.
They don't want us to come home from work and see them as just
another box to check or a task to complete.
They want to be treated as precious and special and
beautiful and God put that in them and God wants that too.
Wives want to receive special care and to be valued just like
China does. Fine China.
We are to give honour to the wife and whenever special
authority is given, special accountability is always given,
he says. Giving honor to the wife as to
the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of
life. If the previous build up didn't
help clarify it enough, he says. We are to look at this as we are
heirs together. Part of this is of the grace.
Women don't have to earn our honor because God didn't.
We didn't earn God's grace. Grace is a gift freely given
despite or regardless of whether someone's worthy or not, and we
together are heirs with them, One man said This reminds
husbands that even though they have been given great authority
within marriage, their wives are still equal to them in spiritual
privilege and eternal importance.
They are joint heirs, and if men ever start to look at themselves
like this isn't the case, they have missed the whole picture.
And the Heavenly Father looks at these daughters of his with
special importance because they are heirs just as much as we are
of the grace that is coming to us, of the grace of life that
God has given us. And some people take this to
mean even more specific. There's graces and blessings in
the marriage relationship that we get to be heirs together of.
Sure, absolutely. But even more so God's
inheritance and his grace he's given us to given to us Because
of that, we should keep our minds in check.
We happened. By you might say a flip of the
coin, we could have been male or female.
We we were male. So maybe you do not think that
we're better because of that in any way.
The feminist movement in our country and maybe even around
the world has caused a lot of damage.
It is undermined, as we talked about before, women's best
qualities, but it's in response to a lot of chauvinism that
existed where men were at the head of everything in the sense
that they were better. They were they were domineering,
they were often times abusive. And so it's often a response to
something else that creates another problem.
And we can never, the extremes don't work.
Women are not better and and everything, the men and men are
not better than women. And these two ideas are so
divisive and so wrong on many levels.
We are heirs together, so it says as being heirs together of
the grace of life that your prayers may not be hindered.
So we need to be careful as husbands, how do we treat our
wives because our prayers, our prayers can be hindered.
You mean God's not going to listen to me if I don't treat my
wife right? And I used to think and when I
first got married, I was like, man, I got that's shocking.
I got to be careful. He didn't say that a lot of
times about different things, does he?
That seems like a like a big rule.
I need to watch out now that I'm a husband.
This shouldn't be a surprise to me though.
Why? Because God often turns us
toward each other and says, you want to talk to me?
Work stuff out with these people first before you put your gifts
at the altar. Make it right with your
brethren, he says. He says in the parable of the of
the unforgiving servant, this man was, was forgiven a debt by
his by his master. There's a greatest debt that
anyone could ever imagine. And he was forgiven that debt.
And then he turned right around and he went to some other guy
that owed him very little comparatively.
And he showed judgement on him. And he was, he was rude to that
man. And he said, you're going to pay
what you owe. And that Master said seriously,
I forgave you all this. No, you're going to go, you're
going to pay now. I forgave that debt, but I'm
going to put all that debt back on your shoulders.
What's the principle? If we are not treating people
each other a certain way, God's going to say no, no, don't talk
to me yet. You work it out with each other
first and you handle that dynamic that is right in front
of you first. So why should I not be surprised
if I as a husband and distant and unloving and not dwelling my
with my wife with understanding God's not going to listen to me?
If I'm not going to be that way to someone who I have authority
over? Why in the world would he listen
to someone he has authority over me?
Why is he going to listen to me, a man who wants to be distant
and uninvolved and not loving his wife and understanding her?
This prayer is not going to go any higher than the ceiling, you
might say, but a man that will dwell patiently and dwell with
understanding and love. When that man hits his knees in
prayer, God will hear because he's handling his dynamics with
grace. And that's where God says, OK,
now you understand, now you understand grace.
It should be no surprise that our prayers will be hindered
because that's how dynamics work in the Kingdom, he says.
Finally, all of you. Who?
All of you. So now he's been talking about
all of us, all these categories, but now he's making a broad set
of instructions, says all of you.
Be of one mind, having compassion for one another.
Love as brothers, be tender hearted, be courteous.
Doesn't this sound like a summary of everything he's told
the husbands and wives in the marriage relationship?
I think it does. Why?
Because marriage is really an arena.
I'm kind of taking a step back now.
I said we're stepping into all of us, but it for those who are
married and and we're going to connect it now to the people who
are unmarried. Still, all these concepts and
skills are is it's arena to practice in a close environment.
The concepts that we should be practicing everywhere.
We take these instructions from God, and we have to learn to
work those out in a very close dynamic, and we work closely
together all the time. It can get tense, and so
bitterness can develop easily. And it's hard to have patience.
It's hard to have love. It's hard to be understanding in
that arena where you're going to practice all the time.
And so marriage is an arena where the consequences of our
actions, our heart are quickly exposed.
It's a place where the blessings of how a good relationship can
function. Marriage is a is a arena where
we can see the blessings quickly grow from because we can see all
the blessings of a good marriage as things work together.
And it shows us that we can just figure it out.
We can work through it. Marriage is an arena where your
habits in your heart reach a swift conclusion because of the
closeness and frequency of interaction.
You know, there's a lot of interactions where if I am
unkind a little bit here, a little bit over there, I never
see the real impact of those in my face.
Sometimes I never see the impact of my heart.
When it's hard and unkind, sometimes it it reaches somebody
out there and I never see it again.
But in a marriage, it bounces right back at you and you see it
immediately. Marriage is an arena where we
see these Christian principles. It's like speed up.
It's like the process is is expedited and you can see where
they bear more fruit rapidly, where they bear fruit more
rapidly and you can taste their effects.
So I can see if my marriage is not going well, it's probably
because my heart has a lot of wrong in it.
My actions have a lot of wrong in it.
And I can see it grow up in front of me and say, OK, that's
the fruit of my marriage. That's the fruit of my heart and
my actions concert on the on the opposite effect.
If you're handing your your relationship in that close
interaction with love and kindness and gentleness and
mercy and leadership, you're going to see the fruits of that
grub right in front of you and say, OK, something is going
right. I can see the blessings.
I can see the consequences. I can see it all work out right
here in front of me. My point is these concepts go to
all of us Married people have the benefit and sometimes the
consequence of seeing it come right back at you quicker.
But we all have to learn how to submit and some how to show love
and honor and grace. As he instructs, keep skipping
the slide. I want to be on for us to have
compassion for us to love and be tender hearted.
But you know, what if if you feel like you're a little bit
left out on that, we have an arena just like marriage might
be a little bit more closely knit.
We have an arena to work on that as well in a way that you're
going to see and come right back at you where the fruits of your
heart and your actions come right back to you.
The church is an arena for your heart and your actions to come
right back at you and see, what are my dynamics like here?
What are your relationships like with the people in this
building? Because your heart is probably
going to result in the action in the in the dynamic at church.
Are you distant, cold. You probably don't have very
tight relationships here. Are you uninvolved?
You probably don't feel variable.
Are you loving and building and cultivating relationships?
You're probably going to get that back.
It's an arena for us to try out and to practice the Christian
virtues and to see you come to fruition, to see beautiful
fruits of love and kindness and mercy grow together right in
front of us. In this room, we have a chance
to grow something special. But it's hard because at church
is where people's greatest hopes and dreams rest.
Many people in this room, their greatest hopes and dreams are
here, but your greatest concerns are here.
There's people who are worried about the health of this
congregation. What's going to happen in 20 and
30 and 40 years? So people's greatest worries are
here, too. That creates tension sometimes.
This is the core of all truth of our lives here.
It's going to cause some tension, right?
It's where we hopefully spend a lot of time.
It's where we build our identity here.
This is where we are hopefully vulnerable.
If you're not vulnerable, you're probably not building a strong
relationship in this place, and it's where you put your money.
This is a recipe for a lot of attention, a lot of challenges,
but that means it's a place for us to grow a lot.
It's an arena for practice, for a lot of really good practice.
And so do you have people here that you are bitter towards?
He says here, finally, all of you be of one mind.
So he's telling all of us to be of one mind.
That means that I cannot approach my spiritual life with
this mentality that some people approach it with where I'm going
to figure out my spiritual life. And I'm going to go on this
journey by myself and I'm going to come back and be with
everybody. Once I come back, once I'm done.
That's not that's not how God ever instructs us.
We are supposed to be working together and have it a other
centered mindset as we grow in Christ.
The great myth of going and figuring things out and coming
back when I'm done. It's often a powerful people get
lost, confused. It's a place where people get
influenced by other things instead of being influenced by
good people around them. And you know what?
If we can't find peace in the searching and the growing and
the grind, that's an issue in our heart.
And as much as we want to blame it on other people who might be
unkind to us, it's our fault. They're sure there are people
who might not be the kindest to us.
But we are responsible for our spiritual heart, for our
spiritual life. And we probably need to work on
finding peace so that we can share this journey with our
brethren, so that we can work together and be of one mind.
Are we on the same page? Do we all share the same
aspirations and hopes and coming goals?
Do we share life's challenges together?
That's what it means. That one mind doesn't mean we
have to think exactly the same on every little thing, because
that's impossible. But we can be unified, he says,
having compassion for one another.
Love his brothers and be tender, tender hearted.
Are there people here that you don't give a lick about?
Are there people here that you have had it with and you're done
with and you'd rather just totally forget about?
There are times when when the Bible does say to just to just
ignore people because they're going to cause problems.
But just like Jesus did, he's going to tell us a minute, but
Jesus turned around and blessed those people.
Jesus didn't completely block him out and say forget you, I'm
done with you. He had mercy on me and he
returned a blessing and we need to be tender hearted.
If I'm hard hearted toward other people here, I'm not following
this command to be tender toward people.
I'm commanded to choose tender heartedness to where if I think
about someone in this room that I'm hardened towards, I'm done
with them. I'm just tired of them.
I have to choose to not have that mindset toward them, to be
tender instead. What does tender mean?
It means I am easily affected by them.
Like if something happens to them, I have concern for them.
Maybe I'm praying for them. If they're bitter, then I say,
God, please give them strength there.
They struggle with bitterness. If they're unkind, God, please
help them because maybe it's a struggle for them.
Do you just show up and get out? Being here is great, but you
can't be tender hearted toward people and be totally uninvolved
in their life. This is a command from God.
This isn't like a yeah, if you want to, here's some stuff
that's good for Christians. We have to be easily affected by
people, our brothers. He says, not returning evil for
evil or reviling for reviling, but On the contrary, blessing,
knowing that you were called to this.
He keeps coming back to that phrase.
He's like, this is what it's all about.
If it's hard, he's like, yeah, that's that's why we're here to
grow. So you don't actually stay the
same. You always work.
If you always do what you always did, you're always going to get
what you always got. But On the contrary, we want to
turn and bless that is Jesus quality work.
That's now we're getting into the good stuff.
And if you have trouble reviling or returning these things here,
maybe here's some steps. If people revile you or unkind
towards you, maybe start with a breath.
Someone says something rude to you?
Taking a breath sets the tone for the conversation.
I'm not going to fly off the handle at you.
I'm going to handle myself with calmness.
It sets the tone without ever having anything good to say.
Oxygen clears the mind and relaxes the nerves.
That's number one. Take a breath #2 use silence.
If somebody says something rude to you, you can just use
silence. That's where people feel dumb
when you say something that's off the wall.
When you use silence, guess what it does?
It allows the person's words to hang in the air, and then they
start to smell. But if you respond and you throw
some other words in the air, now they're thinking about what you
said. But if you just let the words
they said hang in the air, that's all there is to think
about and they start to realize what they just said.
And maybe you can follow that up with asking a question that
shows them a mirror. Were you hoping to embarrass me
by saying that? It's not.
It's not reactive. It's just what's your goal by
saying that? That's going to completely
disarm them if they try to then throw another punch.
Remember, not not physically, but maybe verbally.
You silence, don't swing. When I was a pitcher, if I could
get somebody on in the batter's box swinging everything I threw,
man, I was, I was living because I could put a ball on the inside
corner that I can throw, hide outside.
And I had them swinging every which way I had them the rest of
the game because I knew they were swinging and everything I
threw. But you know what, the people
who are hard to get where the people who would be patient,
they wouldn't swing in our discussions, in our
interactions, don't be afraid, just not swing.
I'll throw the caveat there on #4 here.
If you're the batter, the people that are the hardest to to avoid
swinging at are the people who throw a lot of strikes.
If you have a pitcher who is pounding the strike zone over
and over and they're not missing, the umpire catches on
it. The umpire starts calling
strikes that don't even look like strikes.
They get the benefit of the doubt.
And so sometimes in our interactions we can receive
words that are off the wall rude from people who are usually on
it, and they're usually right and they're usually wise.
But even from those people, we need to be aware that they can
throw wild pitches and they can be off sometimes.
And so may we be willing to even from people who are usually
good, reliable people, just take a breath.
And sometimes those are the hardest people to not respond to
because usually they're right. And then I want to respond to
defensiveness, but may I not return reviling for reviling,
but On the contrary, blessing, knowing that you were called to
this, that you may inherit a blessing.
So we are called to bless others.
Why? So that we can inherit a
blessing. If you can't, out of the
goodness of your heart towards that person, show love.
At least show love because hey, you're going to get a blessing
out of it. You get something out of it
that's pretty good. But the language of calling and
blessing, remember that goes back to Abraham.
God called out. We talked about this in I think
the second lesson. God called people out and gave
them a purpose and said I will bless you.
God called Abraham and he called the children of Israel to that I
will bless you, make you a great nation.
That same blessing is being pronounced on us as Christians,
the same Abrahamic blessing of a covenant promise.
It's being carried into simple actions like this, like
suffering, but in return blessing.
We will be the blessed, the calm of God.
That's pretty cool. It's always been God's plan.
He wants to call people and give them a blessing.
Then he goes on to say verse 10 for this is a quote from Psalm
34 that uses for he who would love life and see good days, Let
him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking to
see. See this goes back to the Old
Testament. It's nothing new.
Let him still steal the quote from Psalm 34.
Let him turn away from evil and do good.
You know, sometimes we make it so much harder on ourselves and
so much more complicated than it needs to be.
It's simple, turn away from evil and do good.
But we can overcomplicate it to the point that because of our
own bitterness, because of our own judgmental nature, instead
of being gracious because of our own judgmental nature, we can
make it like it's trudging through mud to get ourselves to
be kind to someone. Because we've got this so much
mental baggage of our anger or frustration towards them that we
can't hardly squeak out a kind remark, but instead turn away
from that. God wants us to live free and
peaceful and light hearted. And the more we carry those
bitternesses, it's going to be exhausting.
And it becomes impossible to live the Christian life with joy
when you're carrying things, trying to muscle up a kind
hello. We're a positive attitude and
maybe turn away and run with the light, spirit and the freedom.
Still continuing in the Psalm, it says let him seek peace and
pursue it. Let him seek him and pursue it.
Seek peace and pursue it. When I think of seek, I think I
have to look for something. I got to try to find it.
When I think of pursuing, once I may have found it, I got to go
after it and hide and seek. You had to look for something
and then they took off running and I got to chase the process
of achieving peace with others. We're going to see in a minute
even internally involves some looking, involves some
searching, and then involves some running a lot of work
sometimes. And he's given us the map to
peace. He's already told us have peace
with the government, have peace with the employers, have peace
in the home. We covered in the beginning of
this lesson in previous have peace in the church, have peace.
He already said even with all men, as much as you're able with
all men, pursue peace, but even pursue peace on the inside,
pursue peace in all areas of life.
God wants this. Like Frank said, Jesus is the
bringer of peace. He wants us in every area of our
being in our in our interaction. If you lack peace in your mind,
it takes some seeking into pursuing, just like with
relationships. And if you don't have it, seek
counsel. But we don't seek counsel.
Why? Sure, it can be sometimes
embarrassing, but yeah, I don't think that's completely why.
I think we don't seek counsel because that's we know when we
know the work begins because we know truly it's not going to be
a comment they make. This could be on give us peace.
That's when the work begins, when we know what's right and
what we needed to do to find peace.
And ultimately, all glory goes back to God.
No matter what work it takes on our part, God can use tools to
bring us peace. But remember, when Jesus went to
the man at the pool of Bethesda, the first thing he asked him
was, do you want to be healed? Do you want to peace enough to
go after him, to seek it and pursue it?
Or do you want peace to be popped into your heart by a word
someone says? May we pursue peace in all of
these areas. For the eyes of the Lord still
in the Psalm. For the eyes of the Lord are on
the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers, but the
face of the Lord is against those who do evil.
This is kind of a summation of all the concepts we've been
talking about. God wants us to be righteous.
It'll be better for us. It'll be better for our
relationships. It'll bring us peace, it'll
bring us joy. And he who is he who will harm
you if you become followers of what is good, But even if you
should suffer for righteousness sake, you are blessed.
Now he's saying this ironically to people who had really strong
risk, like people are being burned at the stake.
So who is he going to? Who is he who's going to harm
you? They probably got Nero, that guy
who's burning people, he's who's going to harm us, but he's like,
who's that? Who's that guy and who is he
will harm you if you become followers of what is good.
He didn't got nothing on you. But even if you should suffer
for righteousness sake, you are blessed.
You are the ones who received the Abrahamic blessing, the
covenant blessing and do not be afraid of their threats nor be
troubled contextually. They have literal threats for
their life. Maybe someone would say I'm
going to turn you in. I don't know what they would
say, but they probably have literal threats.
But maybe we have imagined threats.
Maybe we are afraid of some dynamic or something happening
in our relationships that might not be good if we are Christ
like. Maybe those are imagined
threats. All of those, He said they're
nothing. Why not instead, like he said,
live free, live with peace, and not put stock in what all these
people might say or threaten or abuse, but instead but sanctify
the Lord God in your hearts. You know what's going to make it
all work. Sanctify means to set God apart.
It means to make him holy. It means to put him on the
throne about everything else. Only then can you do everything
else. He can ask or instruct him that
is going to be this, going to be the recipe that brings it all
together. We cannot be holy.
We cannot have God on the throne of our whole hearts while we are
afraid of real or imagined threats to our discomfort or our
pain. God's above that.
We sing songs about God being on that place, putting no other
gods before him. No other God of pain or comfort
should sit on the throne to where we won't instead choose
God over that. But maybe we put God in the 1st
place and that's he's going to say some really good stuff after
that, but we got to stop here this morning.
He's going to say some really good things.
If you know the rest of this verse, please come back next
time. It's going to be a little over a
month because I was a little earlier this time, but I'm
looking forward to studying that and I hope you if you're not
going to be here, we'll study that or tune into the podcast,
whatever you need to do to hear how God can help sync.
We can help to sanctify the Lord in our hearts and to put it in
the first place. If you have not begun this walk.
This is a lot of time and energy and and life figuring out how to
do all this stuff and practicing.
But if you haven't been saved, you need to do that first.
The Bible lays out a simple plan and we talk about it like it's
steps. But I don't want you to feel
like it's a checklist. If I do this now, do this now,
I'm done. We can get really rigid when
we're really just trying to make it simple.
We're trying to make sure people know clearly, like, Hey, you're,
you're saying if you've done this, it's not a, not a
checklist, but it's a process that happens naturally.
It's natural for someone to hear the word and because of that, it
produces belief in their heart. And that belief is the
foundation for everything else that happens in our salvation.
We have to believe enough to repent, to change our life.
God is not really God if he is not who I'm surrendering to,
he's not really gone in my heart.
So I have to repent. I have to turn from my way and
go to God's way. I have to learn submission to
God in his ways, and I have to confess that it's not just being
good. It's not just believing God.
So yeah, I believe it's not just being good.
It's not my effort. It's that Jesus is the one who
saves. I'm going to confess that Jesus
Christ died from my sins and he's the savior of the world.
And I can be contacting the blood of Jesus through baptism.
I can have my sins washed away in baptism according to Mark
1616 and verses that are coming up and first Peter actually says
we have this anti type that now saves A baptism where you can
know from that day afford your sins are washed away and then
you you live faithfully. You go on about the Christian
walk with the faith that that takes time takes submission.
It takes a lot of work, and if you want to begin this process
today or if you need prayers to the church, please come while we
stand in, while we say.