I Hope You SUFFER S19e19 1peter3:8

Yes, I said, I hope you suffer.  If you are resisting temptations, resisting bad ways of thinking, and bad behaviors, it will be hard. You will suffer.

And, I hope you will receive and give great compassion, tenderheartedness, unity, and brotherly love towards all who are suffering too.  In short I hope you love the brotherhood and the brotherhood loves you.  As I like to say, "Love the Knucklehood," because we are all relative knuckleheads in the church.  

Our difficulties resisting sin and against circumstance ought to DRAW US TOGETHER IN COMPASSION  rather than push us apart.  Thank you for drawing in today.  Thank you for Being With Me. bewithme.us to come back tomorrow.

Transcript

Michael Smith: 0:00

Good morning, my brothers and sisters. Welcome to episode number 19. In the book of First Peter, we're in chapter three now. And there's something here for everybody. Listen to this. This is from First Peter chapter three and verse eight. Today's title is, I hope you suffer. Now I'm saying that partially to get your attention, but partially because it's true, because when you're suffering, that means you're resisting temptation. Then when we get together, or the body of Christ gets together on a Sunday, then the answer is then I'm supposed to be compassionate. And, and she'll brotherly love. Why? Because you've been in the fire all week long. You've been suffering all week long. You've been resisting temptation all week, all week long. So listen in here, this is from First Peter chapter three, we're going to start in verse eight. Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love. A tender heart, and a humble mind. Don't repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling. But on the contrary, bless. For to this you were called that you may obtain the blessing. So two things I want to talk about just definition wise. Number one is the the tender heart. So this is the this is that wonderful Greek word the splink knows and what it means is we would say I have a tender heart towards you. But the way they would say it is I have tender bowels, my gut is tender, my visceral my very insides and I just think it sort of describes where we kind of watered down say, you know, my heart is tender towards you. It's just a little bit bigger of a word. So there's something in here for everybody. It's saying, here's how I want you to respond Church of God, I want you to be like minded harmonious of thought, Well, why is that not everybody in the church. In fact, nobody in their church sort of gets their own opinion. You get God's truth, you get God's opinion. And we're supposed to be moving away from our opinion, and agreeing with God towards God's opinion. So it's not a thought democracy. It's a thought theocracy. And we're melding our minds towards the way he thinks. Secondly, this sympathy, that's the sharing understanding in the hard stuff. And this passage, though, I hadn't read all the verses before it and all the verses that are after it, but basically, it's sandwiched between difficulty on one side of the Oreo and difficulty on the other side of the Oreo, it's suffering. You know, I love I love that, that Peter, he just, you know, admits this is tough. It's talking about submission and warring with your passions. And, you know, we come in on Sunday morning, and I hope you suffer because, as it says, in Hebrews 218, because he himself has suffered, when tempted, he's able to help those who are being tempted. So when you're tempted and you specifically resist temptation, guess what it's called suffering. You stop suffering when you when you submit to the temptation, which is not the effort that we're, you know, we're not supposed to be submitting to the bad temptations. The point is, both sides of this passage before it and after it, it talks about difficulty, difficult things, and how are we supposed to respond to each other? Are we supposed to throw each other under the bus? No, we're supposed to throw each other a lifeline. It's described as brotherly love. Loving the knuckle hood is how I say that, well, you know, the church is full of knuckleheads who are maybe trying their best and maybe succeeding plus or minus. And when we get together, we should be warm towards each other because people have been out there, you know, suffering, we should be tender hearted, have tender bowels towards each other humble minds. So the passage is calling for us to be with a group of people characterized by compassion and tenderness, because they've been in trouble all all week long. So and that's where I get sort of, I hope you your your suffer, because that means you're resisting temptation and all that and we're supposed to be having robust collective interior lives individually, hoping and God don't fearing what is what is frightening, honoring Christ as holy, for the Lord's sake to be subject within the home and within human institutions, and outside of the home towards towards the government. So then we get together and we're supposed to have a robust, collective, compassionate life towards each other, understanding tenderness, understanding what everybody else is going through. So don't throw each other under the bus throw each other a lifeline. This is a family we've been under duress and man is it good to see you on Sunday morning or whatever when the whenever the body gathers For everyone, you know, is fighting a great battle battle as Philo of Alexandria said, and we're going to head back to the trouble here thematically right after this verse, but hopefully the church is everybody in the church is in a great battle. Hopefully everybody in the church is resisting temptation and suffering in that in that sense. So then when we gather, we're supposed to be honoring one another and loving the knuckle hood and being sympathetic and having unity of mind and having brotherly love towards one another. So let's not be tempted to throw each other under the bus to revile or threaten or to be deceitful, or repay evil, or to use bad bad words or be to or to be fearful. So today's lesson I know it's ironic, is I hope you suffer because when you suffer, that means that you have resisted temptation. Then on Sunday morning, or whatever your fellowship time is, you drag yourself in on a Sunday morning, and you say, I made it and everybody in the church puts their arms around you and you put around your arms around them, and shows you are a unity of mine and sympathy and tender bowels towards one another brotherly love towards one another loving than the knucklehead together. That's where I hope you're both that you suffer. But I also hope that you love the knuckle hood, that you love, the body of Christ, that you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, and a tender heart towards one another. Let's be good to one another. Thanks for listening.