1 Peter 3:8-12

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.”

God’s Word is often criticized as being a long list of dos and don’ts.  While it is true that the Bible reveals God’s moral will to us, the intent of Scripture is not to squelch our fun but to promote human flourishing.  God created us to thrive in our worship of Him and the joy we were designed to experience.  His will is always what is best for us.  These few verses show us the basics of what obedience looks like.  These dos and don’ts are the best things for us.

RIGHTEOUSNESS TO RECEIVE: When we become believers in the Lord Jesus, we are declared righteous before God.  This is astounding because we all know that we are far from being righteous.  However, the Spirit of God comes to dwell in our lives with the promise that our position will become our possession.  While that reality is reserved for glory, we can begin to receive this transformation towards righteousness in the present. Peter gives us a list of what that should look like in our lives.  We are to be growing in unity with one another.  Progression towards righteousness can never happen alone.  We have been placed in the body of Christ and need one another to become more like Christ.  This unity will result in having sympathy towards one another.  We will grow to understand and care about one another’s hurts.  Believers should have a genuine love for one another as brothers.  There should be a tenderness to our lives that treats others with a gentle spirit while being sensitive to our own failures and weaknesses.  These qualities require an overriding sense of humility where we think of and give preference to others over ourselves.  None of these qualities come naturally to any of us.  They are supernatural gifts from God’s Spirit in our lives.  They are the result of the righteousness of Christ being infused in our lives.

RESPONSES TO REJECT: Lest we forget, we are living in a fallen world where identifying with and practicing the righteousness of Christ will usually bring about suffering.  People will try to provoke us to join them in their evil because misery loves company, and our right living pricks their conscience because of their wrong living.  We cannot get caught up in this way of living where we respond to evil with evil.  When people speak badly of us, we must not reciprocate.  Instead of doing this, we are to bless those who persecute us.  When someone does evil against us, we should respond by doing something kind for them.  When someone bad mouths us unjustly, our response should be to say something good about them.  It should not surprise us when unbelievers act like unbelievers.  Rather, we should surprise them by showing the love of Christ in response to their persecution.  God did not call us into His family for us to act just like everyone else.  He called us to be transformed and become instruments of transformation and salvation for a lost world that desperately needs what God has graciously given us.  The promise of Scripture is that when we live in this way, we will receive a blessing.  I believe that there are immediate as well as eternal blessings associated with a life where we bless others.

REVELATION TO REMEMBER: Peter is basing this call to transformed living off Psalm 34 where David wrote amid life-threatening circumstances.  If we want to be blessed with a good and pleasing life, we must guard our speech.  Angry and untruthful words should have no place in the mouth of the believer.  Besides controlling our speech, our actions must also be under the control of God’s Spirit.  Evil should repulse us not attract us.  Our natural response to that which is evil should be to turn from it.  We should seek to live at peace with our neighbors, even those who persecute us.  The blessing we can expect to receive is having the Lord’s eyes and ears.  He will provide for us and protect us and listen to our prayers.  To the contrary, God will resist and turn from those who practice evil.   

APPLICATION: Allow the righteousness of Christ to flow into and through our lives in a way that produces unity, sensitivity, and humility.  Respond to the sins of others against us with loving kindness for them.  Desire the blessings of God over anything we might think we can gain by standing up for our own rights.