Pilgrim Living in a Fallen World: Being a Blessing in the Desert
I Peter 3:9-12
Introduction: The snow storm and the delay in plowing has led us to offer our Sunday service at Lawndale Baptist Church in Philadelphia this week virtually. Whether you watch the live stream, or later at your convenience on YouTube, or read this version on the blog, I hope you are able to take the time in the Word and Worship and meet with the Lord today. It may be a good day to check in on a neighbor to see if there is a need that you can help with.
If our purpose in life is to know and
love God and to do our part in spreading the fame of Jesus in the world, how
should we then live? Peter has been urging his readers, who are experiencing
trials as they live “scattered among the nations,” to endure hardship
for the sake of the gospel, to be willing to have the attitude of a servant, as
did Jesus, and by so doing to be light in the world. There is a saying in medical
ethics, “Above all, do no harm.” That is part of what Peter is talking about in
this letter. We are not going to be perfect, we certainly are not sinless,
but we want to live a life that draws people toward the Lord, not one that
gives them an excuse not to believe! Above all, do no harm! Last week,
primarily in v.8, he told them the attitudes that they needed, that God could
give them, as a foundation for living as pilgrims in a fallen world: “Finally, all of you, have unity of mind,
sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” Now Paul
points to some of the actions that should flow from those attitudes.
The BIG Idea: As forgiven people, destined for blessing, we should be patient and
forgiving, guarding our speech, seeking to do good and pursue peace.
I. Responding to Opposition: Overcoming Evil with Good (9).
9 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.
That verse probably sounds familiar for a couple of reasons: 1) I
touched on it in the message last week, and 2) it echoes something Jesus said
in the sermon on the mount. We read in Matthew 5:38-45...
38 "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth.' 39 But I say to
you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right
cheek, turn to him the other also. 40
And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as
well. 41 And if anyone forces
you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the
one who would borrow from you. 43
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate
your enemy.' 44 But I say to
you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your
Father who is in heaven.”
I don’t believe Jesus is saying that Christians are to be defenseless, but rather that we don’t
need to be defensive, because it is
really not all about us, it’s about Jesus, His glory, and His mission in the
world. Besides, the Bible makes it clear that the battle is the Lord’s! So rather than striking back, we can entrust
ourselves to God. Paul makes a similar point in the last paragraph in Romans
12, let’s read a couple of excerpts,
“Bless those who curse you; bless and do not curse them… Repay no one
evil for evil, , give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all… Do
not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Rom 12:14,17,21).
We who have experienced such extreme forgiveness can practice
radical forgiveness. C. S. Lewis said: “To be a Christian means to
forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” I came
across a story of extreme forgiveness …
After
the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, no person in all of East Germany was
more despised than the former Communist dictator Erich Honecher. He had been
stripped of all his offices. Even the Communist Party rejected him. Kicked out
of his villa, the new government refused him and his wife new housing. The
Honechers were homeless and destitute.
Enter
pastor Uwe Holmer, director of a Christian help center north of Berlin. Made
aware of the Honechers’ straits, Pastor Holmer felt it would be wrong to give
them a room meant for even needier people. So, the pastor and his family
decided to take the former dictator into their own home!
Erich
Honecher’s wife, Margot, had ruled the East German educational system for
twenty-six years... Eight
of Pastor Holmer’s ten children had been turned down for higher education due
to Mrs. Honecher’s policies, which discriminated against Christians. Now the
Holmers were caring for their personal enemy—the most hated man in Germany.
This was so unnatural, so unconventional, so Christlike.
By the
grace of God, the Holmers loved their enemies, did them good, blessed them, and
prayed for them. They turned the other cheek. They gave their enemies their
coat (their own home).
Don’t answer evil with evil, or
reviling with reviling. Overcome evil
with good. Augustine said: “If you are suffering from a bad man’s injustice,
forgive him, lest there be two bad men.” God called us to be peacemakers, “…that you may inherit a blessing…”
He is not saying that we “earn” this inheritance, this blessing. This is
alluding to the future for which we were saved. God loves us, He is our
Father. John said, “Behold what manner of love the Father his given unto us,
that we should be called the children of God, and such we are!” (I Jn 3:1). Remember what Jesus did for you, then, as
forgiven people, destined for blessing, be patient and forgiving, guarding your
speech, seeking to do good and to pursue peace.
II. The Pathway to Abundant Life and Peace: Guard your
tongue and do good (10,11).
10 For "Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep
his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; 11 let him turn away from evil and
do good; let him seek peace and pursue it.
Peter begins v.10
with the word “for,” which introduces a quotation from the Old Testament. The
sense is, “For [it is written]…” The
motivation for the attitudes he describes in v.8, the reason we don’t strike
back verbally (9), is because God cares deeply about our speech. In His Word, He
has given us instruction about how in the world we should live. Specifically,
vss. 10-12 are a quotation from Psalm 34:12-16. Let’s read from the Psalm,
include a verse or two before and after to give a context,
34:11 Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the
LORD. 12 What man is there who desires life and loves many days,
that he may see good? 13 Keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking deceit. 14
Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. 15 The eyes of the LORD are toward
the righteous and his ears toward their cry.
16 The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut
off the memory of them from the earth.
17 When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and
delivers them out of all their troubles.
18 The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the
crushed in spirit.
Guard your speech! By the way, as
Peter quotes from this verse he realizes that his readers are suffering and are
experiencing injustice. He quotes, realizing the theme we have referred to
repeatedly in this series: We are Pilgrims living in a fallen world. A
pilgrim has a homeland, there is a destination and a hope to which he is
looking. And because of Jesus, that hope is sure. The next couple of verses in
that psalm say,
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out
of them all. 20 He keeps all
his bones; not one of them is broken. 21
Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be
condemned. 22 The LORD
redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be
condemned.
Jesus is the Righteous One. We are righteous only because we are
in Christ, He bore our sins and his righteousness was reckoned to our account.
“He keeps all his bones, not one of them
is broken…” That Scripture was fulfilled when the soldiers were breaking
the legs of the condemned men to hasten their death, and when they came to
Jesus, he was already dead. So instead, the soldier thrust a spear into his
side. Jesus’ death made possible forgiveness and reconciliation for fallen
humans like us. His death makes it possible for us to have peace with God, and
so to experience the abundant life, the “good life,” for which we were created.
And so, Peter quotes the psalmist, “Whoever
desires to love life and see good days…” Peter was talking about the
abundant life of blessing that God wants us to have. Jesus said, “I am come
that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly” (John
10:10). That doesn’t mean your life will
be marked by “health and prosperity.” I have a digital copy of Libby Grove’s
book “Grief Undone.” In it she shares
the story of their family’s experience as her husband Al (my Hebrew professor
at WTS) dealt with melanoma that had metastasized to his brain and lungs. God’s
people deal with the effects of living in a fallen world as do unbelievers.
Jesus was also pretty explicit in the upper room, “Don’t be surprised if the world hates you. It hated me first!” He said, “In
the world you will have tribulation…” The point is, we can have peace and joy
that goes beyond the circumstances of the moment. We can count it all joy when we fall into
various trials. Why? Because God is with us and in us. Because we know the
end of the story will be better than we can imagine. And because we can be
assured that God is not only interested in the destination, but he is with us
on the journey, growing our faith, showing us His love. Remember Psalm 84:6, “Blessed is the man
who passes through the valley of Baca and makes it a well…” Streams in
the desert! We are still “passing through” this valley of tears. At times
we walk through the “Valley of the Shadow of Death.” But we know this isn’t
home. All of the things we love, that truly bring us joy in this life, are only
a glimmer of what God has in store for us. The best is yet to come! Because
that is true, we love life, and anticipate the “good days” God has for us.
Turn from evil and do good!
Turning from evil implies a change of direction, a new orientation in our life.
The idea is not that we will never sin again (would that that was possible!).
But it means that we are no longer slaves of sin and of Satan. We have been set
free. So, we are free to obey. Still, need to make choices to live in the light
of that reality. Paul said to the Romans, “…How
can we who died to sin still live in it? …So you must also consider
yourselves dead to sin an alive to God in Christ Jesus…” (Rom 6:2,11).
We are dead to sin because of our union with Christ. Still, moment by moment,
day by day, decision by decision, we turn away from our old life, from the
things that we know are against God’s will and in rebellion against His
authority, and we turn to Him.
Seek peace and pursue it! The language of “seeking” and “pursuing”
peace is like that of a predator going after its prey, it doesn’t give up, it
knows the importance of the pursuit: life and death! We might think of times we
have pursued something in life. Maybe your spouse… Maybe your job… or a
promotion. Here we are told to pursue “peace.” One of the lines that Jesus
spoke in the famous sermon on the mount was, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of
God.” The Christian life is all about peacemaking. He has committed
to us the ministry of reconciliation. Humans need peace with God. And we need
to be at peace with one another. James said “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this,
that your passions are at war within you?” (James 4:1).
Peter says that we are to
not only want peace, but we are to “seek” it and “pursue” it. That means we
go the extra mile. That means we do our part first-of-all, we forgive, letting
go of bitterness and anger, making peace with those who would “war” with
us. We have an enemy, and he isn’t
flesh and blood. We wrestle against “Spiritual forces of wickedness in high
places.” If you have trusted in Jesus as
your Lord and Savior, you have peace with God! And so, as forgiven
people destined for blessing, we should be patient and forgiving, guarding our
speech, seeking to do good, and pursue peace.
III. Trusting our Sovereign Lord: He is watching, He is listening, He
will judge (12).
…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.
When we see these references to “the righteous one” in the psalms, it is good
to remember that there is only One who was practically righteous, only One who
never sinned. In fact, the Psalm that Peter is quoting, as we noted,
Psalm 34 goes on to say in verse 20, as he is talking about the afflictions of
the righteous, “He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken.” That
is quoted in John 19:36 as finding its fulfillment in Jesus. He was the Righteous
One, and because of Him, if you know Him, if you have trusted Him as your
personal Lord and Savior, if you have entrusted yourself to God, you are
"justified," declared righteous, by grace, through faith.
Jesus is the Righteous One, the One who knew no sin. And the Father laid
on Him the iniquity of us all. He took our sin so that we could receive His
righteousness. In that time on the cross the face of the Father turned against
Him, such that He cried, “My God, My God,
why have you forsaken me?” He did
that for all who would one day turn to Him in faith. We symbolize in baptism
our unity with Christ in His death and resurrection, buried with Him, and
raised to new life. As Paul said in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live! Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the
life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me,
and gave himself for me.” And so, because of Jesus, when the eyes of the
Lord are on us, because we are hidden in Christ, instead of our sin, He sees
Jesus Christ, the Righteous.
What is God saying to me in this passage? Because we are forgiven people,
destined for blessing, we should be patient and forgiving, guarding our speech,
seeking to do good and pursue peace.
What would God have me to do in response to this passage? Is your love and joy in the Lord, “Sweeter as
the years go by”? Or, do you feel empty,
like something is missing? Remember the story of the married couple who were
talking as they drove down the road. The wife, sitting in the passenger seat,
asked the husband as he drove,
“Dear, why don’t we sit close together when we drive like we used to when
we were dating?” He was sitting behind the steering wheel. He looked over and
said, “Well I haven’t moved!” God is
still there, He hasn’t moved! In fact, He is still calling, still wooing us,
still speaking to us.
C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks
to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse
a deaf world…” People often experience much pain and grief in this life. It doesn’t
mean God isn’t good or that He doesn’t care. Remember, He so
loved us that He gave His only Son! Might those moments invite us to lean into Abba,
so that we can hear His still, small voice over all the noise of the world. Are we listening? He loves you. If you know
Jesus, you are forgiven! You have eternal
life! No matter what else is happening, that is reason to rejoice!
And know this, you are destined for
blessing, and the certainty of that future blessing is itself a blessing right
now, that sure hope motivates us to love life, to live the abundant, Spirit-filled
life for which we were created.
It means that since God has so loved us,
that we love one another, and we are moved to compassion for those who don’t
yet have the same peace. May we see others as Jesus sees them. As forgiven
people, destined for blessing, we should be patient and forgiving, guarding our
speech, using our tongue to build up, not to tear down.
God has you in the world for a purpose. We
are His body. Seek to do good. And as
far as it rests with you, pursue peace with all. Live a good life in the world,
show them Jesus. That is part of the mission He has entrusted to us. May we be
found faithful. AMEN.
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