August 25, 2024 | Boundless Goodness

Transcript:

Beginning in verse eight this morning, children, if you're headed out the back door to Children's church, you're welcome to do that now. We're all so glad to have you in here as a part of our service as well.

There's a very common deception that we find, both when we come to God and we find it in all kinds of other places as well. And that's the belief that the people who really love life, really enjoy life, are the people who just do whatever they want.

Our sinful hearts want to believe this lie, because I want to believe that I know what's best for me. And we're told this over and over and over in advertising and entertainment and social media as our friends talk with us. We hear over and over the lie that the people who really enjoy life the most are the ones who rule their own life.

Sometimes I think followers of Jesus believe basically the same thing, except we put a twist on it and we say, well, the people who enjoy life right now the most are the ones who do what they want to do. But we'll say, well, Christians will kind of have the last laugh at the end.

Even that's a lie. Not that Christians will have a better future, but the lie that says that right now, the best thing. Is for me to run my own life. That I will enjoy life the most if that's what I do. And if you if you believe this lie, even if you believe the slightly Christian version of it, then selfishly speaking, the best plan would be live life for yourself up until the end of your life and then turn to God.

And you may have heard of people who say that out loud. Most people don't say it out loud.

Of course, you don't always see the end of your life coming, so there's a danger, and you don't know if you'll want to turn towards God at the end of your life, even if you did see it coming. So there's that danger. But the bigger problem in the whole picture.

Is that the whole belief is wrong. It's a lie. According to that lie, God might be disinterested in making your life better. He might be too weak to do it. He might be cruel, but he's certainly not abundantly good.

God does not tell you. I want you to hear this carefully. God does not tell Christians to pursue a terrible life now in order to have a better life, then that's not the message of Scripture, but sometimes it's what gets told.

In this text, God says, if you really want to love now.

Here's how. Let's read first Peter three, starting in verse eight. Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless. For to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing for whoever desires to love life and see good days.

Let him keep his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. Good and gracious God, this is your perfect word.

Would you use your truth this morning to break Satan's lies in our hearts?

We come before you, and we need you to do that for us, because we cannot do it ourselves. So we sit as your servants and ask you to work powerfully through your word. This morning.

In Jesus name, Amen. Here's the structure of this text. It's short. It's simple. Peter starts with some summary instructions. Here's how you ought to relate to one another. These include some positive statements. Have unity of mind, have sympathy, etc. and then it includes a negative statement what not to do. So he says here's what you should do. Here's what you ought not to do.

You ought not to return evil for evil, or reviling or mocking for mocking. Then he says, why we should live that way. The end of verse nine. For to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. Then he points back to an Old Testament text, which is going to say the same things. Essentially with the order reversed, and it says, here's why you should live this way.

Whoever desires to love life and see good days. And here's how you should live. So as we go through this text that I want you to keep this structure in mind. This is what he's doing. Live this way. Don't live this way. For this reason, and Peter says, I didn't make this up. This was found in Psalm 34 two.

Here's why you should live and how you should live. So let's start with the why. Right in the middle of this, the end of his quote, and then the beginning of his Old Testament quote, he says, here's why you should live this way. Because if you misunderstand the why. It's easy to misunderstand what Peter is actually trying to accomplish here.

So the last half of verse nine. Peter says, on the contrary, bless. For to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. Well, first question might be what exactly does bless mean? And we could we could look at that a lot of ways. But for this morning let's just use the context to define it. Right before he said don't repay evil with evil.

So instead, on the contrary, what are you supposed to do when evil comes to you, you give good instead. That's what bliss means. In this context, he's emphasizing instead of the natural thing, which is to return in light kind. Someone treats you badly. You treat them badly. And kind of perversely, we pat ourselves on the back and go, well, at least I didn't treat them as badly as they treated me.

Which still isn't returning good for evil. So he says, instead of returning evil for evil, bless. Instead of reviling and mocking, we can use the language he said in chapter two. Honor everyone. When you are mocked, don't return with mockery what it means to bless everyone. So why? Why bless everyone for yourself? I'm betting that's not what you thought I was going to say.

And we could say, of course, it's not the highest reason we do good ultimately for God, for his glory. Peter knows that he's already talked about that in this book. He'll keep talking about it in this book. Of course, we know when you bless someone else, you are benefiting that other person. If you do good for someone, they experience something good.

We know that it's for God's sake. We know that it's for their sake. But that's not where this text drives you. This text says for you. Notice. Bless for to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing or the next verse. Whoever desires to love life, do you want to really love life? Here's how you do it.

He's not telling you again the lie. He is not saying, come live a terrible life now so you have a good life later. He's not saying that at all. He's saying there's real blessing and real joy to be found right now. Is it the ultimate joy? Is it the ultimate blessing? No. But there is real joy. He says, for your sake, so that you obtain this blessing.

Bless others, he says, for to this you were called all right. There's a real careful challenge here. If you understand this phrase wrongly, you end up with something very unlike the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And the key point is to know when he says, blessed, for to this you were called. What is this? Are you called to bless? This can point backwards and say, blessed, for you were called to bless or are you called to receive a blessing? Because the word this can point either direction. They're not unrelated, but which one is Peter pointing to?

Here's what I want you to do. If you have your Bible with you, I want you just to flip back to chapter one. We're going to look at the other places in First Peter that Peter uses the word called briefly. It helps us understand what he is thinking about. Chapter one, verse 15.

I'll read actually verse 14, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. So you say he's already been talking about God calling us. What does that look like? And if you went back and read verses three down through nine, you say he's called you to be his children and to inherit.

Throughout Peter. The emphasis is you are called to be a certain kind of people, not called to do a certain kind of thing.

He says, I've called you to be my children. Look at verse chapter two, verse nine. This is the next time the word called, the Greek word that's behind the word called is used. He says, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Again, you're this kind of people because he called you. He's not calling you to do a list of certain things so that you can become his people. He calls you to be his people.

Chapter two, verse 21. It's the next time the word called is used. For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. Oh wait, what's to this? You have been called right before that, he says when you do good and suffer for it, you endure.

This is a gracious thing in the sight of God. So he does use language here. That sounds like you're called to to do good and potentially suffer for it. But he's not staring at the suffering like God's calling you to suffer your terrible life. Now he's saying God called you to do good. You very well may suffer in this world.

But he says, what you find when you do good and suffer is grace. In other words, that text you could point to and say, it sounds like God called you to suffering. Yes, but the point of that suffering is ultimately God's grace. It's not suffering just for suffering sake. And if you flip to the end of the book, you see the other place in Peter where he uses called in chapter five verse ten.

We'll see the connection between suffering and grace here as well. After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. The God who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ.

Throughout this book, God calls his people to joy and his glory, and his grace. Yes, there's suffering sometimes along the way, but that's not the point of his calling. So go back to chapter three. Bless. For to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. In other words, Peter is not telling you God called you to live this certain way, and if you do it, you will earn God's blessing.

That's not how Peter uses the term throughout the book. It also would create dependance on my own merit. Where I go, I've earned something. He's not teaching you that your works earn your righteousness.

What he's saying is God called you as his people to receive the fullest blessing of his grace and his glory and his joy. Which means when someone does evil to me, I don't have to do wrong back to them in order to get something. I already have the best blessing I could have.

Peter says, when you look at evil done towards you, remember you are the most blessed person ever because you have Jesus.

If somebody steals money from you. Take whatever amount you want to imagine. Somebody steals $10, $100 thousand dollars, $10,000, wherever it starts to hurt a little for you. Imagine that number. You think that's wrong? Yes. Chapter two said God judges justly. We know that.

But now imagine that at the same time, someone stole that amount of money from you. Somebody else walked up and said. Here's a check for $2 billion. It doesn't hurt the same way anymore. And you don't feel like I've got to make sure I get that money back. You might think justice needs to be done. That's good. Sure, but you don't feel like I've got to protect my bank account from this theft.

Because $2 billion was a way bigger number than you were thinking about a minute ago.

Don't repay evil for evil, but instead repay good for evil. Because you've been called to God's imperishable riches forever. You've been called to his blessing. When it says another challenge for us here is this. This phrase, blessed so that you may attain a blessing is what it feels like. And you go. Is this just prosperity? Gospel is just just saying, Follow God and he gives you health and wealth and joy.

No, there's at least two problems with the prosperity gospel. The first one is the timing's off. God does promise you perfect health. Actually. And perfect, unimaginable wealth and fullness of joy and pleasure at his right hand forevermore. God absolutely promises you all of those things, but he doesn't promise it before heaven. So that's one problem.

But there's there's another problem that's more relevant for this passage, and that is that the prosperity gospel defines God's blessing on my terms.

Are you always sure that the health you want would be the absolute best thing for you right now? I know some people in this room who would say no. They'd say, I don't like to go through sickness, but they say, what God has done through sickness has been so much better than what I would have had without it.

When Peter comes and says, blessed, for you were called to obtain a blessing, he has something much bigger in mind than just I feel good today. My bank account feels healthy today.

He's looking at something way bigger than that. And that's the health of your soul.

So he's not telling you. Bless others so that you earn a blessing. He's telling you you've been called to an immeasurable blessing. And that blessing starts now. Not fully, but it starts now. That's why it's a lie to say God calls you to a terrible life now, so you have a better life later. Because God doesn't abandon you to just have a terrible life now.

He gives you His Spirit now as a as a down payment of all of that inheritance coming.

So this is the why he gives for his first section. God has called you to a blessing. All right. Well, then, how should we act?

Go back to verse eight. Finally, all of you have unity of mind. Start there answering the question, how do we live so that we begin to experience the blessings God gives in eternity? Now that's what he's doing. Here's your blessing. Here's how you live so that you start to have that experience now. Unity of mind. The word mind here could be translated in mindset.

It's not saying we all agree on every last detail. Some of you might really love a certain restaurant. Some of you might not. That's okay. That's not disunity of mind. We could even go to a more, more serious discussion and say, what about some interpretations of Scripture? What about the way that we live that out? Do we have to all agree on every fine point of doctrine, all the way out to the end?

No. Romans 14 talks about that. He says you disagree and he doesn't say I'm right. All of you just agree with me and we'll be all exactly the same. He says there. Each one of you should be fully convinced in your own mind, fully convinced that what you're doing is glorifying to God and loving others.

There are differences with unity of mind with what he's saying here. He starts have unity of mind. With that. Not every conclusion is the same, but our mindset in the discussions will be in harmony. Let me give you an example. Have you ever had a conversation with someone about scriptural truth? Where you disagreed but you got to the end and said, I really love that person and they really want to honor God.

I think they're wrong, but that's okay. You've been on the other side of that, too. You just might not know it.

Unity of mind says, I want to glorify God more than anything else. I want to edify and build up the people around me. And I'm going to humble myself. Unity of mind isn't. We all have exactly the same conclusions about everything that happens.

Husbands and wives do this too. I know you don't always agree with your spouse on everything, but there are some conversations where you disagree and the conversation isn't very pleasant. There's other conversations where you may disagree, but you go. We really have harmony around what we really want.

I'm grateful when I meet with elders here or deacons here. Do we always have exactly the same perspective on every issue? Of course not. That's good because my perspective is not right all the time and neither is anyone else is in the room. But I'm grateful for the unity of mind, for the harmony of mindset that says, no matter what, I want to glorify God.

First of all, I want to edify others around me, build them up, love them. That brings harmony.

I'm grateful. We talk about core values, and we can sit around a table and say, we all look to the word. That's our authority. We all come before God only because of the gospel, not because of what I've done, but because of what Jesus has done. Our goal is to see God and love him as the best treasure that we could ever have, and we build one another up, bear one another's burdens, community.

And we want to compassionately reach out to people who are not believers in Jesus Christ. That's mission. Those five core values is an attempt to say, here's a mindset that while we may disagree about some things along the way, here's a mindset that we do all of that for the glory of God. Have unity of mind. That means sometimes the specifics of our personal preferences have to be pushed aside for the sake of unity, of mindset.

And you know, when I described especially maybe husbands and wives, you know, when you have that conversation, there's disagreement, but there's unity of mindset. It's really good. It's wonderful. Might even say it's kind of like a blessing that will be perfect in heaven that we can experience a little bit. Now.

God called you to experience the fullness of unity with brothers and sisters in heaven one day. And if you, by God's grace and His Spirit, have unity of mind, now, you start to experience that now. Sympathy.

Sometimes we look at Bible words and we say, well, that doesn't quite mean what we normally think it means. This one means what you think it means. That's nice. Sympathy. Enter into someone else's feelings. As Scripture said, weep with those who weep. Rejoice with those who rejoice and do what you can to decrease their sorrow and increase their joy.

Sympathy. When you're in a group of people who interact like that, it's really good, isn't it?

The only way we can really do that is because of God's Spirit poured out in our hearts. It's a blessing of heaven that we experience a little bit. Now. Brotherly love. Since we are his people, we live together as a family. You know, your your family is different from you, but you love them. You reach across those differences to embrace someone.

You may think they're wrong. You may want them to change, but you love them. The same thing is true here because as we just saying, God reached across the greatest chasm to love us. And so we show love as a family to one another. We all know family members sometimes annoy you, sometimes they offend you. Sometimes they hurt you, and sometimes they hurt you worse than anybody else could.

But we love as God's family. Brotherly love, he says, have a tender heart. Compassion, specifically. Tenderness, is sensitive to pain. If you had to move somebody who had a broken bone, how would you move them? You move them very carefully. Gently, tenderly.

When there's pain of suffering around you. Do you show mercy and compassion with gentleness? When there's pain of sin? When people are going through guilt and shame and their pain of their sin comes. Do you forgive? That's another place. This word is used. Ephesians 432 be kind to one another, tenderhearted. Same word here. Forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

He concludes this list with a humble mind. If you look at that list and say, I messed that list up a lot, I'm not perfect in those areas. Join the club. First of all.

But understand, these attitudes are part of the way God wants you to experience his blessing right now. If you had to go through suffering and difficulty now, but you could do it with a group of people who were united in their mindset, full of sympathy, full of brotherly love, full of tender, gentle compassion, and full of humility. I think you'd rather have that than, say, my bank account looks pretty good and I'm healthy, but I've got none of those other things.

This is the blessing that God gives you. We're to have this mindset together. We're not to repay evil for evil, but to give good for evil. That phrase alone, by the way, means this. We can say it really shortly. The evil outside of you never excuses the evil inside of you. We don't believe that so often. But whatever evil has been done to you does not excuse you responding with evil.

That's what you're saying. Don't repay evil for evil, but instead return good for evil. So then look at the Old Testament quote in verse ten, because he's really saying the same things, but flips the order. Whoever desires to love life and see good days, if that's what you want. Which I know all of you, if you're honest, would say yes.

I want to love life. I want to enjoy it. I want to see good days. Whoever desires to love life and see good days, this is how you do it. This is how you experience the blessings that allow you to love life and see good days from our earliest days. Kids in this room I know you think this way.

Sometimes kids in this room. Your mom and dad want you to enjoy life. They do when they tell you something hard that you don't want to do, they're not doing it because they want to make your life miserable. I promise.

But we we have this sneaking thought. Do they really want what's good for me? That's a lie from Eden. Remember Adam and Eve. Here's all the trees. Here's all the fruit. It looks so good. Don't eat of this one. And what does Satan do? He comes along and says it would be better if you were God. You would love life more if you could eat that fruit.

God doesn't really want what's good for you. That's how Satan started in Eden. And he does the same thing he says, wouldn't it be better if you didn't have to deal with that health problem right now?

Wouldn't you love life more if God didn't run your life and instead you patted your bank account?

If God really wanted me to see good days, then my relationships would be better. So Satan will say, If God really wanted you to love life. Then he'd give you a different sexual experience.

Satan will bombard you with that lie. Satan's lies come in questions very often, by the way, because he's sneaky.

And he'll say, If God really wanted you to love life, he would do fill in the blank.

And Satan's just pointing at the fruit in Eden, saying, wouldn't it be better if you ate this?

Satan uses the same tactics he used in Eden over and over and over again. But this passage is God's boundless goodness to you. He says, if you love, you want to love life and you want to see good days, I'm going to tell you how to go about it. I'm not going to hide it from you. He says, I'm pouring out this goodness for you.

Will you take it? So much of our battle against sin is against this temptation. Does God really want what's good for me?

Sometimes it's ignorance, and we don't know what we should do. But most of the time we know what God wants us to do. We're just not convinced it's actually good for us.

God is pouring out his goodness. And he says in these ways, start enjoying the blessings that you'll enjoy to the fullest in heaven. Start enjoying them now. That's his list because only God's Spirit can do these things for us. Let him keep his tongue from evil. Every evil word, every unkind comment. Every self-righteous statement about how good I am.

Every passive aggressive comment about people around me. Every evil word. Keep your tongue from evil.

But Satan says you will love life so much more. If you just lash out and speak whatever's on your mind, that's a lie. God says if you want to love life, guard your tongue.

Not only keep your tongue from evil, but speak truth, his lips from speaking deceit. How many different ways do we shade the truth? And Satan says, if you really want to love life, you really want to see good days. You can't tell the truth about this. God says, no, I love you. Here's my goodness. If you want to love life, speak truth.

Turn away from evil and do good. Not only turn away from the evil in my heart, but in this context. When someone has done evil to me, like Jesus says, turn the other cheek. Someone's done evil to me. Turn away from that. Don't. Don't pursue it and fight back. But say no. I'm going to do good. Satan wants to lie to you over and over and say, you will see better days if you keep chasing evil actions.

God says no, you won't. His goodness to you is to say, this is the way you love life. Seek peace and pursue it.

Satan will tempt you in so many ways and he'll say, if you really want to love life. Fight for yourself.

If you really want to love life, here's how it gets to be better. Satan will lie to you and God says you really want to love life. Seek peace and pursue it.

Since only God spirit can do that in you, if those things are happening in our lives, we are experiencing the blessings of heaven. Right now, in a small way. In an imperfect way. Sure. But it's the first fruits of it. Blessed because you were called to get the fullness of that blessing. So start enjoying it now. By seeking peace.

Pursuing it by loving truth. By a unity of mind, by sympathy, by all of these things. And God could have sat on his throne. He could have stayed on his throne. Said, here's what's good. Here's how you love life. Trust me. And he could have waited and watched us fail. Again and again and again and again. To Satan's lies.

And we'd cry out, God, I want to see good days. I want to love life. And maybe we cry out with Paul, who will deliver me from this body of death.

But like Paul, we can say I thank God through Jesus Christ, my Lord, because God didn't stay on his throne at a distance. Jesus laid that aside. He came to earth and he was tempted like we were. Remember when Jesus is tempted, what does Satan do? He comes and says, hey, Jesus, you're hungry right? You love life a whole lot more.

If you turn this into bread. You see, he does the same lies. He'd say, you want to see good days, eat this. He said, wouldn't it be better? Wouldn't you love life more if you saw the father miraculously protect you as you jump off of this cliff? And then he shows his real colors. Because all those lies of Satan.

Here's what's behind all of them. Satan says, worship me. Every one of Satan's lies behind every one of them is that temptation. Worship him.

But Jesus never believed that lie. He believed while sweating drops of blood in Gethsemane. He that the father wanted good. He perfectly followed it all the way to the end of his earthly life. He said, I want to love life. I want to see good days. And here is how I will do it for the joy set before him.

He pursued the cross. And he is highly exalted.

That's what he has done for us. He perfectly fought that temptation to call us as his people to an eternal blessing.

So that means we can come to him when we fall and say, I fell, but you never did, and I trust you. Praise God, but it also means right now we can fight Satan's lies because of His Spirit, and we can love life more and see good days more because he is at work within us. God calls you to an eternal blessing and you can experience that now because of his boundless goodness to you.

So he says, if you truly want the good life, you really want to live your best life now. Not your best life ever, by the way. The best life you can have right now.

Have a unified mindset. Have sympathy for one another. Have brotherly love. Have tenderness. Have humility. If you really want your best life, that's how you do it.

Pursue edifying speech and truth with one another. Seek peace. And if you pursue those things, no matter what your earthly situation right now, no matter your bank account or your health or any of those other things, you will be experiencing the blessings God promises in your soul now and one day you'll have them to the fullest. I want to invite you just to take a moment and pray.

Specifically, ask God to open your eyes to Satan's lies, to fill you with trust for his goodness. Let's respond to His Word.