Believer’s Obligations (Part B)

Think of all the things you cannot do in Jesus' name.

Quite a few of them. When you hate, when you retaliate, you cannot say, I hate you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. You would be preaching the devil's sermon if you did.

So these snide behaviors, these petty little criticisms and meanness that we are very capable of doling out. May God save us from it. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Peter. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching.

Today, Pastor Rick will continue teaching through the book of 1 Peter chapter 3 and his message called Believer's Obligations. Verse 9, he says, not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, blessing, knowing that you were called to this and that you may inherit a blessing. What about justifiable retaliation? I mean, they pulled on my cape. They had it coming to them. They asked for it.

Well, that might be true they had it coming to them and they asked for it, but it is not for you to answer. Have you heard the expression, when animals attack? How about when Christians attack?

Isn't that marvelous? Isn't that something to honor Jesus Christ when Christians attack and bite and scratch and claw and snarl in Jesus' name? Well, self-exaltation is only avoidable when we shrink in the presence of His commandments. He must increase, I must decrease, I must not be inflated with myself justifying my rude carnal behavior because they had it coming to them. The Christian life is to be spirit-filled. If you are spirit-filled, I promise you, you will be devil-tempted.

No way around it. But you're spirit-filled so that you will be able to respond to those temptations. People will provoke you. And it is harder when it comes from those who name Christ as Lord. Again, because we don't expect it. We expect those who are Christians to be on a higher level, to exhibit a higher behavior.

And they will let you down from time to time, and it will be hard, but we are still not to return evil for evil. I would not want to stand before God, as some Christians will, and explain to him why I felt it necessary to visit a church and just not care for it. Though no doctrinal heresies were preached, and then feel obligated to go online and tell the world why I gave them less than five stars, because my opinion is so important. It is vital that the world knows my criticisms.

I think it's shameful. I mean, I think it's good if you like a church, you give it five stars. If you want to voice something. Whatsoever things are good.

Whatsoever things are lovely, of good report, meditate on these things, said the apostle. Not, wait till they get a load of me. Wait till the world finds out that I did not care for something.

My rights were offended or whatever it may be. So I encourage you, don't do that. Some of you may have already done it.

Oops. You repent, don't do it again. Think of all the things you cannot do in Jesus' name.

Quite a few of them. When you hate, when you retaliate, you cannot say, I hate you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. You would be preaching the devil's sermon if you did. And so these snide behaviors, these petty little criticisms and meanness that we are very capable of doling out.

May God save us from it. Not once, but twice, David could have ended his misery of that maniacal, bloodthirsty, crazy king Saul of Israel. Both times he let him go.

Why? Why did he not retaliate? He certainly was justified.

This man was not trying to kill him. Because David was always mindful of God. He lived in the fear of God. Yeah, I know he had weak time. When he sinned with Bathsheba, he knew he was wrong. He was caught in the vortex of the flesh and he lost that battle.

But the battles he knew he could win, he was gallant. And no one can take that from him. Christ does not take him.

Christ is careful to associate his throne with the throne of David. Magnificent. How encouraging it is. He says, Peter does, but on the contrary, blessing. How do you bless an enemy?

Wait for them to sneeze. There, I did it. Some of you, I'm not doing it.

Gesundheit. All right. By praying for their salvation if they are not saved, by praying for their Christ-likeness if they are, it's very hard to do this when your feelings are invested, when you feel justified, when you are offended, when you've been stepped on or someone you love has been hurt. It is very hard to pray for an enemy with any seriousness.

What I have done is I've prayed just in a check-the-box sort of way. And Lord, may you save them. But I mean it. This is war, but I know what's expected.

I know I am obligated to do this and it is better to force myself to face it and to sweep it under a rug where someone can trip and stumble because of it. Otherwise, we become like Islam. We justify those whom we retaliate against and murder for not agreeing with us. That is not how we're supposed to be as Christians and you know it and should never be satisfied with anything less. Again, those who heard the Sermon of the Mount that day that Jesus spoke, they never forgot it.

They got it. They may not have understood every single thing He said, but they understood enough to know that they had their hands full, that there was work cut out for them if they were going to claim God as their God. The Sermon of the Mount, it rattles us, every single one of us. No one reads the Sermon of the Mount and walks away feeling good about themselves. You say, I got work to do. The apostles said to Jesus, well then who can?

Who can? Why bother getting married if this is what we're going to face? Jesus said, listen, you're stuck, so you better learn to fight. You put up a perimeter, dig a foxhole and trench complete with grenade pit because you're going to need it. And in the end, in the end, you will find out that my word does not return void, that it will be worth it. When you think Christianity is not worth it but you are doing it anyway, what can hell do against that?

What weapon formed against that exists? None. That's when Christ will say, well done. I don't want him to say, okay, you did all right. I am after that, yeah baby, that's what I want.

I want there to be some emotion in it. Now, the truth be told, of course, as I hope I always tell up here, that means when I'm not up here I can lie. The truth be told is that I always feel I'm not getting it right.

I'm not doing enough. I mean someone could get their car stuck on the moon and I would feel like I didn't do enough to help them get it towed. Scripture, it rubs us the wrong way when we are facing contrary to Christ. I like, you know, you take a dog, if you rub his fur in the direction that it goes, it's very nice, and then you rub it the other way. It's rubbed the wrong way.

It stands up. That's being rubbed the wrong way. And we need to turn around and face the other direction. Romans 12, therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink, for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head. Give me a picture of that, Paul, because I'm not clear. I mean, what do you mean? I want to feed him lead.

Would you like a, you know, a hemlock shake? Stephen, that great man of God, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, the Bible says of him and six others. His last words were prayer, that God would forgive his enemies, those who were stoning him to death. This enraged Paul, who was then Saul of Tarsus. He heard that sermon. He hated every line, every precept upon precept. He hated it. He hated it. He hated the guts of Stephen. And he couldn't shake it. He went on a rampage, arresting and persecuting Christians.

Why? Because the truth disturbed his conscience, that the likeness of Jesus Christ bothered him to the point that when it came time for God to confront Saul of Tarsus, his repentance was instant and it was forever. Judas Iscariot, on the other hand, didn't see it so. Isaiah 26, verse 10, let grace be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness in the land of uprightness. He will deal unjustly and will not behold the majesty of Yahweh. Well, that's the life of Judas Iscariot. He saw it all.

He was there to see the look on Jesus Christ when Jesus Christ did everything that he did. And it did not register. Christ, what is the last word that Judas heard directed at him from Jesus Christ?

Friend, have you come out against me, friend? It did not register. But Christ did it anyway, leaving us the example. And so we had read earlier in Peter, for this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as slaves of God. Slaves of God. See, that bondservant, it means something to us because we understand, we've been around Christianity a while, we understand the bondservant is the willing slave, but again in the Greek, the word is simply slave. We're slaves of Jesus Christ. We have no say so. He is sovereign over us. Thank God he is also loving.

We'll come back to that in a little bit, but one more picture of not reviling for reviling. In the days of Naaman, Naaman was a man that men loved and people did not mind following. It comes out in the story, there's so many people under his authority that were encouraging him. You should go see the prophet. The prophet, they loved him. Well, Naaman had led a raid into Israel and taken slaves of the Jews with him and one lass, one young woman, or girl, he had a sign to serve his wife. Do you know what that young Hebrew daughter of Abraham said to Naaman's wife? If my master would only go to see Elijah the prophet, he would be healed.

How many of you would say, I hope he drops dead the way, I hope he gets worse? That's not what she did. She pointed the one who enslaved her to the cure, to his diseased body.

What a picture. What a magnificent hero of scripture. She didn't even know it.

She's just telling the truth. She believed in the power of God through the man of God. It was legendary. What is legendary of me? Those who aren't throwing rocks at my casket, the ones who love me, what will they remember?

I hope it is a man of God. Every one of us should ask ourselves that question. Not about me, not all about me, but it should be all about me.

No, it should not. Knowing that you were called to this. Now our business is to love others without a need for them to love us back. That's it. Knowing that Christ loves us.

That is something to think about. I will love you without demanding your love in return. That is agape love.

That is not phileo, that is agape. Your mothers, you know that. Sit up with a child all night long when they're little and in the morning when they feel better. Tell them do they come in and say thanks mom. I don't remember. I was thanking my mom as a little guy. That's her duty. I didn't think that way.

I was just off to play. Gratitude. That word thank is related to our English word think. He says knowing that you were called to this, but I say Jesus speaking on the Sermon on the Mount, love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. You're going to need to pray up for that one. We are going to need to run after, pursue, chase the Christian life in the spirit to achieve any of that. And thus we pray, leave me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory. Christianity is not a religion for angels. It is a religion in its strict sense for sinners, souls banished from the presence of God. Is that not what happened to Adam and Eve? Get out of the garden.

He put a century there. Sentinel, a spiritual being with a flaming sword. 2 Corinthians tells us that we banished souls can be reconciled. That's the kind of faith. This is our reality. It's beyond religion. It is our reality.

It is the real thing. Now, all things are of God, Paul wrote to the Corinthians, that beautiful 2 Corinthians letter. It's hard to teach 1 Corinthians. It's just spanking guilty Christians for the first nine chapters, of which I am one. But that second one is reconciliation because enough of them pledged themselves to get their act together.

You can work with that. You can't work with one that is just insistent on staying in the flesh and still claiming Christ. Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, of fixing the problem. That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Four times, reconcile. Get it fixed as much as is in you.

Fix it. Romans 5-11. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received reconciliation. Banished souls can come back through the way of Christ, the truth and the life, and there is no other way. And if you believe there's another way to heaven, you've been lied to and you've fallen for it. You've been suckered and sold a bag of, you've been sold a bucket with no bottom.

It's useless. He says here, Peter does, that you may inherit a blessing. Were it not for my own failures, were it not for my own failure, I would point my little preachy finger at you to get your act together. But I've got mine too. And so this makes it very real. I cannot claim everybody except me.

I'm in it too. Everything I preach is for me too. First Peter, again, since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the spirit and sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but through the word of God which lives and abides forever, the incorruptible. You can't mess with God's word. Since you've purified your souls in obeying the truth, how many Christians think it's cool to not be reverent?

You will make yourself a fool with that kind of cool. Verse 10, for he who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. A general principle. He's not giving an absolute guarantee. He says as a rule, if you want to see good days, long life, then work to be righteous. He's quoting Psalm 34, which is a psalm of David.

David wrote this psalm after he behaved as a fool in the presence of the king of Gath, the Philistine ruler, and he survived it, and he went and he wrote about it and he put music to it. Psalm 34, verse 12, who is the man who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good.

Seek peace and go after it. The eyes of Yahweh are under righteous and his ears are open to their cry. The face of Yahweh is against those who do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

That's a pretty stiff penalty. As Peter learned in the upper room, if Christ does not wash the sinner, the sinner can have no part with Christ. And so, as prayer of the psalmist and the sinner is, Psalm 51, too. This psalm, again, as you know, David survived an egregious sin with Bathsheba. And he writes this 51st Psalm and he says, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

See that deep, that iniquity, that deep down dirt that plagues us. He wanted out of it. He didn't want it in his life. It's the mark of a believer. I want it out, not only because it's bad for me and for others, but it is against my God. Verse 11, let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. Again, he's quoting the psalm. We are obligated to go after peace.

Blessed are the peacemakers. They shall be called the sons of God. Verse 12, our life characterized by turning away from what is evil, going for what is good. He says, for the eyes of Yahweh. It's the Lord here in the Greek, New Testament written in the Greek, but he's quoting the Old Testament, the covenant name of God to the Old Testament righteous Jews.

Yahweh, but to the Christian it is Jesus Christ who is the Yahweh of the Old Testament. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. Here's a man, Peter, he's applying scripture. He's saying, look, what we read in the Bible is real stuff. Yeah, God, he sees what's going on, his children, the righteous, not to smack them over the head. We often respond, well if he sees, why is he delaying?

Why does God appear to be inactive when I need him most? The final answer is he sees beyond everything we see, and that's good enough for him, and in the end we'll have to wait, it will be good enough for us. This life will be the only agony we will have. The Oxford martyrs, Ridley, Latimer, and Chambers, they were scholars. Two of them were old men, and they were burned at the stake because they loved the word of God. Latimer says to Ridley, because they were burned together, Kramer would be burned later, Latimer says, we're about to light a candle in England that will never go out.

What kind of courage is that? Later, Chambers, he recants against his outcry against Rome on Catholicism, and then he is given, he takes it back. Well, he's not believed, and he's sentenced to be burned at the stake several months later, and he gets to preach a sermon before his death that day, and of course he lets it all out. The people loved these men because they were preaching God's word to them and they weren't getting God's word prior to them in England. This is the English Reformation. Well anyway, Chambers, he goes to the stake, and the hand that he used to sign his recant, he puts it into the flame, he screams out, Bernhand! In other words, you, you who signed and betrayed your Lord, you perish. Courage. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous. Those men died knowing God saw them, would receive them, as did Stephen and so many other martyrs, men and women alike. That's what faith does. It sees beyond what's up in my face.

Sees to eternity. We're so glad you tuned in today to study the book of 1 Peter on Cross Reference Radio. Cross Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia, and we're blessed to bring you God's word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information about this program or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast, so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. We hope you'll tune in again next time to join us as we continue our study through the Scriptures, right here on Cross Reference Radio.