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It's good to be in the house of the Lord and see everybody. Well, we're we're still in 1 Peter. We're going through 1 Peter verse by verse. And we're going to be in 1 Peter chapter 3. And we're going to begin with verse 8. 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 8. So you might have a device that you're reading it on, or the Bible, in pages made out of wood. But either way, we're going to read the Word of God. Amen? All right. Here we go. 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 8. 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. Lord, we thank you for your word. We're so grateful for the fact that it is living and it is active, written by the Holy Spirit, moved upon men to bring us your will and your counsel and your wisdom to us, so that we can live godly, saved, redeemed, rescued, enlightened, illuminated lives about who you are, the purpose of this world, and where we're going to end up, that it's going to be with you in eternity, forever and ever and ever. And that, as we sang about today, is our blessed assurance. Amen. So we give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen. So I don't know if you remember when you were a toddler, but um most of you probably have had toddlers or you have known toddlers. And I don't know if you knew this, but there is a set of laws that govern toddlers' interactions with each other. And let me just give you a few of the codes, of the laws, of the regulations that toddlers have set up for themselves when they're dealing with themselves. Okay? Here it is. Number one, if I like it, it is mine. Alright? Number two, if it's in my hand, it's mine. Number three, if I can take it from you, it's mine. For if I had it a little while ago, it's mine. If it looks just like mine, it's mine. If I saw it first, it's mine. If you're playing with something and put it down, it's mine. And here's here's the kicker. If it's broken, it's yours. Right? That is the toddler's code of ethics. All right? Now, the toddler's code of ethics does not work in the house of the Lord with brothers and sisters in Christ. Amen? That's why Paul instructs us in Scripture to grow up. Grow up is used once in Scripture. The word grow in the New Testament is used about 30 times, but Paul says, rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church, growing more and more to be like Christ. Isn't that awesome? As followers of Jesus, the guiding principle isn't what's mine, but it's what's yours. It's not me, but it's about you. It's not self, but it's others. Amen? Philippians 2, 3 to 5 says, Don't be selfish, don't try to impress others, be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. And this is our theme today, is that we were created, we were destined to be a blessing. Amen. And to be a blessing, sometimes we got to get out of ourselves. Or as my friend says, we've got to not listen to the committee in our head about things that are contrary to the word of God. When we're only interested in ourselves, what we want, what we're lacking, what we need, we lose sight of this kingdom principle, and that is that we are to give and it shall be given to you. Isn't that something? And here's the paradox for you, friends. To receive what you need in the Lord, you have to give it away. What you need in the Lord today, you have to give it away. Give and it shall be given unto you. Give and it'll be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap, for with the measure you use it, it will be measured back to you. That's not only talking about money, it's talking about every act of generosity, every act of self-sacrifice, every act of surrender, everything that we give to the Lord. Amen. When we know we should forgive, but we don't feel like it, and we forgive, guess what? A measure, a great measure of forgiveness and the thrill of being forgiven is going to be given to you. If you need love, what do you have to give away? You've got to love. If you need forgiveness, what do you have to do? You have to forgive. And if you need friends, be a friend. Amen. This is a paradox because the world doesn't act like this. The world says, I gotta get what I gotta get, and I gotta get it quick, and I gotta get it now, and I'm gonna get it from other people. This principle in God's word is that when you give and you give things away that you need, it comes back to you in measures that you'll never imagine. If you need love today, love people with the love of the Lord, and the love of the Lord will see you through. Amen. With a greater revelation of who He is. This entire section we've been studying the last couple of weeks, from chapter 2, verse 11 up until now, has been dealing with how believers are to engage and live their lives in the eyes of the world. The unbelievers are watching us, and it could be by the way we live our lives in all of these areas, loving Jesus, honoring Him with our words, attitudes, and actions. We could attract the unbeliever or even the antagonist to the gospel of Jesus. Amen? Peter's been talking about the three major areas of social interaction in society. We talked about how we are to interact in this world as it concerns the government. We're to submit to the governing authorities. Why? Because Donald Trump is excellent and praiseworthy? No. Because God is sovereign and he's in control over every matter in this universe. Isn't that awesome to know? Our sovereign God knows. The Bible says that he exalts leaders and he tears leaders down. And we're to submit to this authority, the sovereign authority and power of God, that he knows what he's doing, he's revealing his will and his way in this world, and is using governments and people and institutions and organizations to do that, and we can trust him in that. Amen? Now, when the government does something that is contrary to the word of God, and we are to do something that is contrary to the word of God, that's when we appeal, and that's when we um work against it. Amen? But we're we are to submit ourselves to the governing authorities and live a dignified, quiet life that brings honor to Christ. Then we are, we talked about in the workplace that a servant is to be submissive to his master. In uh Peter's time there were 60 million slaves. In Rome itself, three out of four people were slaves, were servants. And Paul is uh Peter is speaking to these people, saying, even in this situation, you are to submit to your masters, which is a hard, hard thing. You might have a manager at TJ Maxx that is really, really getting on you, and you have to submit to them. I said that we have some some friends right over here in this area, three of them from TJ Maxx, all right? Listen, great store. Go. Buy. Buy, buy, buy. All right? And see these wonderful ladies. They're awesome people. We all have had uh managers that maybe have harassed us, have abused us. And we we submit to the Lord in that because we know that the Lord has us in every area of our life, and he's gonna and he's gonna see us through. The Bible says that it is the very will of God that we should suffer even unjustly, because Christ suffered unjustly, and he died in our place. So, Peter, and then uh the third aspect that we just uh heard about last week was this aspect of social interaction in the home with husbands and wives, right? And it all boils down to submitting to the role that God has given you. Submit ourselves to each other out of reverence for Jesus Christ. Now, in this passage, Peter takes us to a fourth area of social interaction, and uh it's written to the body of Christ, the family of God. What we just read. Jesus said that they will know that we are disciples of Jesus. We're Christians, we're followers of Christ by our love for one another. Isn't that awesome? Now there'll be people that come into our services that visit that might not know Christ, and when they see our interaction of honor and respect and love and sympathy, tender-heartedness, humble-mindedness, they'll see that as very contrary to the things in the world, right? How we respond to each other. In other words, how we bless each other, how we speak to each other, how we prefer and honor one another, how we love to be with each other, how we want to be together with each other because we are brothers and sisters. We are family. Amen. And it's very significant in the last days that we get together with the family of God. Lots of us think, man, I want to go to that service or I want to go to that life group because I need something, right? Well, maybe the Lord needs you to go because you might have a word or an encouragement for somebody else because we are all ministers of the gospel, ambassadors of Jesus Christ. Amen. So when you show up to service, let's not just think what we're gonna receive, because you'll receive everything that you need, but let's think about how we're gonna minister to others. Maybe the Lord will give us a word. Maybe we'll see with our eye, in the Spirit's eye, somebody going through something, and the Spirit moves something in our hearts, a word of encouragement, a word of exhortation. We come up alongside of them and say, Listen, I got a word for you from the Lord. That the Lord is with you, He sees you and He knows you. Amen. And this is the beautiful, beautiful revelation of why we get together. So you'll have to ask yourselves at Wednesday night at 6.25, what in the world am I doing? I'm in my recliner at home. I should be with the family of God. Amen. That's not guilt. Hopefully that's conviction. Get your butt up, get in the car, and let's have some fellowship. Amen? Let's hear the word of God. Let's pray together. It's an awesome time of knowing Christ and being together. We need to take time to want to be together as brothers and sisters in Christ. Tertullian was a second-century church historian and was said that the Roman government were so suspicious of these gatherings of these churches because they were growing so rapidly that they sent spies into the churches to check them out, see what was up. And there's a report of one of the spies that reported back to the Roman government, and this was his report. These Christians are very strange people. They meet in an empty room. They have no image. They speak of one by the name of Jesus who is absent, but they seem to be expecting him at any time. And my oh my, how they love him and how they love one another. Isn't that awesome? What a compelling, attractive testimony to be able to see in the lives of believers. Looking at these verses that we've read, there are three things that will bless others and attract people to Jesus, and that is our attitude, our response, and our motivation. Our general attitude, our gentle response, and our genuine motivation. General attitude of all Christians. Here in verse 8, Peter sums up what he has just said from chapter 2, verse 11. He sums it up and says, finally, in summation, all of you, and that means all the family of God, all the brothers and sisters in Christ, all the body of Christ, all the body of Christ, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. This is a five-fold description of the general attitude of every believer. Every believer needs to exhibit these qualities to each other. And this is tough because there's a lot of different types of people in this room, and we have a lot of differences and opinions, right? And I bet you that if we brought up politics right now, the air in the room would go sour because of the very many diverse and varied opinions of politics. How about the style of clothing? Have you ever seen somebody wearing something and you were like, what in the world? I would never wear that, right? What about uh styles of music and art? When I was youth pastor in Queens, all the kids were into rap. I'm a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant that grew up on classic rock. Rap was not my thing, man. But I had to gear myself up to enjoying rap and fellowshipping with these kids that loved rap. There are things in our body that can bring disagreement and dissension and distraction. But the early church didn't agree together on all things. There were church arguments and disputes. Let me name a few of them, okay? The early church uh had arguments and divisions about meat sacrifice to idols, should we eat it? Uh, in keeping the Sabbath, what days were appropriate to worship, which widows should be taken care of by the church's finances. Paul and Barnabas had a dispute over John Mark, whether he should be involved in the missionary journeys. The disciples argued about who would be the greatest in the kingdom of God. We are fallen human beings saved by grace. We're gathered together to be like-minded, to have the unity of mind. We don't have to think alike, but we do have to have one mind. And what is that one mind? It is the mind of Christ. Amen. So on core essentials, we must agree that there is no other name given among men under heaven whereby we must be saved. It is the name of Jesus Christ. Amen? Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. That is a core belief. We preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that whosoever will may come and accept Jesus Christ as Lord. How about the nature and character of God? We love to talk about the nature and the character of God. Because to the degree that we know who God is, to that degree we worship him properly and we worship him in spirit and in truth, and we learn to love him because of the nature and the character of God. There's a lot of false opinions and speculations out there, friends. And how do we fight it? By our know-how? No, by God's say-so, right? The word of God. And that is a powerful, powerful thing. So we have this like-mindedness or unity of mind. It's cooperation in the midst of diversity. And Paul brings this up in scripture when he talks about the body. There are so many diverse functions and operations of the word of the body, isn't it true? Now, I just had to have uh a particular area of my body went south a little bit, okay? And the rest of my body uh said, hey, let's let's help this other part of the body out. All right? And I'm getting healthier and healthier, and I lost 20 pounds. My wife is after me all the time, same with the Maris, about eating right, right? I just went to dinner with Mike and Jackie, and she was all over me because I had shrimp and I dipped it in garlic butter, and it was awesome. Awesome. But she got after me, but she did say she was sorry today for being so rough. But she said it was because she loved me, and isn't that nice? Yeah, thank you, thank you, Steph. But uh, notch it down a bit, okay? Just notch it down. Listen to this verse that they may all be one. This is Jesus' prayer for us. 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 sent me. When we are one-minded, like-minded in the core essentials of our faith, trusting in Jesus. Amen? The world looks at that and they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ because we have a proper understanding of who He is, proper understanding of the character and nature of God, the proper understanding that we as believers we need to live a different life, a holy life, a separated life. Amen? We don't gauge our passions towards the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life. Our passions are generated now by the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit that ministers to us. He is the one that causes us to will and to do of his good pleasure. And aren't you glad for that? Amen? So there are there are essentials. We need to be like-minded, have unity of mind. And then the second word is sympathy in verse 8. Is God calling? No, I'm just kidding. All right. The second one is uh the second one is sympathy. Sympathy comes from the word pathos, it's to feel or to have an emotion or a hurt. Some means together. So together we feel the same thing, right? So being of unity of mind and like-minded, we as believers in Jesus Christ, we need to think the same thing. And now the Bible is is uh directing us through this word sympathy to feel the same thing. Isn't that cool? The body of Christ thinks the same thing and we feel the same thing about each other. The best definition of sympathy is this your pain in my heart. Amen? Your pain in my heart. And what happens a lot with uh Christian workers and pastors, we see a lot of pain, we see a lot of adversity, we see a lot of sorrow, and the tendency is to say, oh my, literally, oh my God, another catastrophe, another adversity, another sorrow, another situation where people are hurting and our hearts can be calloused, right? But your pain has to be in my heart, my pain has to be in your heart, and we need to feel it. And then uh thirdly, talked about brotherly love. How many have uh brothers? How many at one time in your life hated your brother? Okay, amen. Truth. Truth. Oh, yeah, I talked about my brother a lot, six years older than me. Um when you look at brotherly love, it's kind of like, hmm, how do I grasp this, man? I had a younger sister, she was here a couple weeks ago. We argued, we fought, we were physical with each other. A couple weeks ago. When we left church, we got home, and no. We argued, we had disagreements, we fought. But you know what? When uh when somebody at school was not nice to her, guess what Danny Boy did? Went up and grabbed the guy by the neck and said, You mess with my sister again, I'll kill you. Right? Because we are family. And if you notice, families are the ones that hurt us the most because there's such closeness. And here's a little tip for you. When you walk into the into the house of the Lord, you're going to get hurt. There might be a family member that will insult you. There might be a family member that will humiliate you. There might be a family member that does not show this brotherly love. But we need to show brotherly love. We need to show that we're for each other. We're not against each other. Amen. Loyalty and allegiance to each other that moves us to share life together with each other. We need to have a loyalty to each other. We are loyal to each other, this family of God, this Steel City Church. We have an allegiance towards each other based on the grace and the love of Jesus Christ that has brought us together as a local body. Amen? We are the Church of Jesus Christ here in Lackawanna, Steel City Church, the family of God, and we love each other, and nobody messes with family. Amen? Alright, then fourthly, it speaks about being tender hearted or having a tender heart. This is a weird, weird word because it translates literally as in Scripture as bowels or intestines or inner organs. And here's a verse from the KJV. Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humble-mindedness, meekness, long-suffering. And did you ever have somebody say, uh, well, what's your gut say, right? What's your gut instinct? Um, it talks about having intestinal fortitude. And if you were nervous or anxious, maybe you had to speak in front of people, there's these little things that occurred down in your belly called butt butterflies. Remember those things? The little whirling of uh discontent and stress. The deepest emotions uh were felt in the intestinal region when it came to uh came to the Greeks. And here's the thought you must be deeply concerned about others. You must be deeply concerned about others. We don't judge situations. Here's the thing the church must be a place where the walking wounded feel at home. Amen? And I believe we are our church that that cares for the destitute, cares for the ones that are in despair. We have what's called the Urban Compassion Ministry, where we help people in urgent need and we give and we serve, and that's that's why we give so we can minister to the to those that are hurting and to those that are wounded. Uh we need to be deeply concerned about each other. We need to feel it in our gut when somebody is is in pain or sorrow or adversity. Amen. Together, like-minded, tender-hearted, with sympathy, we serve and we love each other. And then that fifth one is being humble-minded. And uh when Peter wrote this in the Greco-Roman world, uh being humble was regarded as a weakness, not a strength. Only weak people were humble. And then when the Greeks conquered people, they made them humble. They made them humble-minded. The Greeks loved self-confidence, self-assertedness, having a prideful swagger about yourself was culturally accepted. And it was definitely not being humble. And this is the paradox of our relationship with the world, amen. We are we are great in the kingdom of God when we are the least, amen. We are great in the king kingdom of God when we are when we stoop to the lowest. Said that humility is the grease that keeps relationships flowing smoothly. It's not a matter of climbing higher, it's a matter of stooping lower. Amen? And this is the this is the idea. Usually in the business world and in uh to be successful, there's the top dog, and then the cone as you go down the lower elements of the organization or managerial team or whatever, and then on the bottom are the pawn scum that really do the work. Just kidding. And then uh, but here's the thing with the with the cone of sacrifice. Jesus stooped to the lowest abyss of life, ministering extravagantly to the slanderous people, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the hurting, how he stooped so low. Amen? And our aim as a church body, each individual, we want to be where Jesus is as he ministers to people. That means we have to stoop low. Are you ready for it? Are you ready to humble yourself? Are you ready to get dirty? Are you ready to get uncomfortable? Are you ready to come out of your comfort zone and your convenience to stoop low and to serve people, just like Jesus did, stepped off his throne of majesty and splendor, came to serve, be a suffering servant, and to love on people and to die. And that is awesome. So all these five descriptions, beautiful descriptions of the general attitude of the believer that we need to share with each other. Amen. All these all these things. And then the second element in this passage of scripture is in verse 9, and that is a uh we're to have a gentle response to those that insult us and those that revile us and those that persecute us. Normally, gentleness is not really the thing that comes out when we are insulted or humiliated, right? It's usually anger and frustration. Verse 9, it says, 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. Revile means to criticize in an abusive or angrily insulting manner someone that doesn't treat you as significant or important. Would this happen in our church? Yes. Because we're human and we fail and we're weak. But we don't fight back, we don't yell back. Here's the thing that we do we bless back. Amen? And we do that by understanding how so much of the blessing of the Lord is upon us. That He has given us every spiritual blessing in heavenly places to meet our need in every aspect of our life. How we are so blessed by the Lord. Amen? And it's the overflow of the blessing of the Lord in our lives that overflows to others when we are insulted, when we are reviled, when we are persecuted. The love of the Lord shines through. And interesting, Peter, he had to learn this because remember in the Garden of Gethsemane when uh they came to pick up Jesus. Peter took out his sword, probably aiming for the guy's uh servant's head, but he ducked and only cut off his ear. And Jesus said, Hey, this is not the way to do this. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Amen. Jesus didn't come to win a fleshly battle over the Roman Empire, he came to win a spiritual battle over sin, shame, guilt, condemnation, death, and hell, and a job he did well done. Amen? When he said, It is finished. It is finished. This is the stamp of our authenticity as believers. It's nice to be cozy and lovey and dovey with people that lovey dovey and cozy you, right? But when you're insulted and when you get reviled, when you are humiliated, this is the stamp of our authenticity of a Christ follower. Is this that we love our enemies? We love our enemies. Even in the Old Testament, they had a law, the punishment must fit the crime. You've heard of this life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. And this uh law was given to limit vengeance. Because if you take my eye, I'm gonna take your head. That's just the way it goes. It's a natural process. And this is the beautiful element of limiting vengeance. We bless someone, we bless people, we pray for people. You might get uh there are some psalms that David wrote that are called imprecatory or vengeance psalms, and there's uh a line that I love. Uh it talks about David wanting to um wanting to break their teeth in their mouths, okay, of the enemies. And we can read that and say, yes. In fact, we might have that as our favorite theme verse for a little while. Break the teeth of our enemies, God. But that is not the way to do it, right? And here's the thing about your enemies. If you pray for them, you begin to feel the heartbeat of God for them, and you begin to see with God's perspective and perception on their lives, what they're struggling in, what they're going through. Amen? The brokenness and the woundedness and the hurt in their lives. And as we pray for them, as we pray for our enemies, our heart softens towards them, and the grace of God is able to minister to us and see us through. We stop drinking the poison of bitterness while we wait for that enemy to die. And isn't that true? When we're bitter, we're drinking the poison that's killing us while we're waiting for that enemy to die, and that's not God's way. So, we have a general attitude, we have a gentle response, and we have a genuine motivation. Psalms chapter 34 speaks, says, for he who would love life and see good days, and this is uh for all of us, wouldn't you love life? Don't you want to love life? Don't you want to see good days? But for a lot of people, a lot of people hate life because of the pain and the sorrow and the adversity. A lot of people just endure through life, plodding through life with no passion, no joy, no thrill. And a lot of people want to escape life. They have a tendency to get the drugs, get the alcohol, do whatever they can to numb and dumb the feelings of uh disillusionment and the feelings of no satisfaction and fulfillment in their life. God says, because Scripture speaks to us, that's why we do it. God says to do it, amen? To forgive and to love. And God evaluates you. He's got his eye on you. He doesn't evaluate you to see if you measure up, he evaluates you to see if you're willing and able to respond to him in such a way that he can flood his grace and wisdom and power and insight into your life. The Bible says that he dances over us. Amen. He's excited about us, man. He wants to show himself strong on our behalf. Are you willing? Are you willing to receive him today and allow the Spirit of God to overcome you and move upon your life? Man. God loves us. Bible says, while we were sinners, while we were powerless, while we were weak, while we rejected him, while we lived our life in contempt of his word and of his way, Christ died for us. In the midst of that, friends, he died for us. What great love. Amen. Now, isn't that love? Isn't that love powerful and strong enough to see you through any circumstance, to see you through any broken relationship, to see you through the financial prosperity in a way that will give glory and honor to God, in a way that you'll have extra cash to bless people, to minister to people, to love people. We're not faultless, we're not perfect, but we are forgiven. Amen? Because of that forgiveness, the Bible says now we're accepted of God. We've gained access into his very presence. Before, because of our sinfulness, God said, Stand back. But now, because of Christ's death, your faith and trust in the person and work of Jesus, the blood of Jesus, shed abroad in your heart, the forgiveness of sins. Now God is reaching his hand out, the Heavenly Father, and says, if you're with Jesus, you can come on in. Amen. Oh, to feel the presence of the Lord. We felt the presence of the Lord this morning. Right? The Holy Spirit was here ministering to us. So today is your attitude filled with the Christ-like character characteristics found in verse 8. And here we go. Verse 8 unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Who do you need to forgive today? Who's that one person that you always think about? That always brings up hurt and pain. Who do you need to forgive? Forgive someone? And Gina, you're right. We need to experience forgiveness in ourselves as well. That's good, Gina. Who do you need to express Christ's love to today? Is there someone that you've been holding back because they insulted you, they humiliated you, maybe they frustrated you? And there's a little bit of a holding back of the grace and the love of God for their life. Allow yourself to love them. Amen. Allow yourself to be moved with compassionate love of the Savior, to love on them. There was a pastor that went to a conference and he went up to uh greet another pastor. And the pastor went like this and said, No, no, no, no. We are enemies. And the guy was shocked. So the guy grabbed him and hugged him. And I said, The Bible tells me that I'm supposed to love my enemies. I love you with all of my heart. And they they had a time and a moment of reconciliation. Amen? Love conquers every hindrance that is set up by the by the world, the flesh, and the devil to hinder the move of God. Do you respond to insult and reviling with grace and gentleness? Honesty. Somebody said no. Right? We could all say no. And here's the thing: as we yield ourselves to the Spirit of God, the fruit of the Spirit of gentleness, amen, comes over our heart and our lives. Because we have experienced such gentleness by the Savior in dealing with our heart and our life. He's gentle. Amen? As he ministers his love to us. So your genuine motivation to experience Jesus in a new and fresh way in all your relationships and all your circumstances. Are you genuine in your motivation to experience Jesus? Are you ready for him to work in your heart and life as we give him everything that we are? Amen? A general attitude of love. Amen. A gentle response to the insults and humil humiliations, even in the people in our own family here. And then this genuine motivation to do what God desires us to do through the Word of God and experience who He is in such a great and wonderful way. Let's worship the Lord together and seal the deal. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you today.