Believer’s Obligations (Part A)

If you've ever struggled with something, and someone comes along and says, I understand. I know, I've been praying for you, and we're going to get this victory. It helps.

Because when you don't have it, you notice it very quickly. I'm all alone. No one's with me. You become like, you have an Elijah complex.

I'm the only one. We don't want to say that. And you also know that there are times when someone is just going through so much junk in this life.

You suffer with them. 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 First 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 begins a brand new message called Believer's Obligations in First Peter chapter 3. First Peter chapter 3 verses 8 through 17 we'll take this morning. By showing up here this morning, you've asked for it.

You're going to get it. Some might not feel so warm and snug about themselves after our reading, and then, of course, the delivery of the Word. Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, love as brothers, tenderhearted, courteous, not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing. For he who would love life and see good days, let him refrain 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 Yahweh are on the righteous and his ears open to their prayers, but the face of Yahweh is against those who do evil. And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. And do not be afraid of their threats nor be troubled, but sanctify the Lord God in your heart. And always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear, having a good conscience that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. Instructions, obligations for believers. These are instructions and they obligate us to comply with what is being said. In fact, that Sermon on the Mount with which once you hear it, once you read it, you never forget its impact.

Instructions for us. It's not uncommon to find Christians degrading these things, trampling them, discarding them, ignoring them, covering them up, denying them. May it not be any of us. Entire churches which often expand but do not grow in Christ, do not grow, remain stunted though they may expand because the obligations that Christ has put on us as believers are dismissed by those who claim to believers. It is a problem that has plagued mankind since sin. The prophet Isaiah in writing to Judah mainly, but to the Jewish people, the people of God.

Isaiah 48 verse 1, he says, Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel and have come forth from the wellsprings of Judah, who swear by the name of Yahweh and make mention of God, the God of Israel, but not in truth or in righteousness. That's what he says. It really helps, it helps us tremendously to be again confronted, our flesh, with these great truths that are so necessary for the work of ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ, to the preaching of the truth, to sanctifying the Lord God, Jesus Christ in our hearts, that we could be effective instruments in his hands so that on that day which is going to come, we'll hear him say it. Well done.

Just to hear him say well done. Verse 8, so Peter says finally, All of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, love as brothers, tenderhearted, courteous. That finally where he says here doesn't not mean, well, I'm ending up the letter now and then we'll continue for what we know as two more chapters.

That's not what's happening. He is referring to not the conclusion of his letter, but the list of various Christian submissions that he has already shared with them. Remember from chapter 2, submit as citizens, submit to your employers, submit husbands and wives. And now something for all of them.

He says finally, you too. He continues in verse 8, All of you be of one mind. What is so difficult about us as Christians in the body of Christ, rowing in the same direction at the same time? And that's what he is saying to them because it was a problem in the early church also. There are enough reasons to keep believers at each other's throats.

You know when you go for the throat, you're going to do, you're trying to do, the intention is to do serious damage to the one that you are opposed to. So may we not go at each other's throats. Sometimes we have to defend ourselves against those who claim Christ, but don't act like they believe in Christ.

I'm going for our own juggler. There will always be areas amongst Christians to disagree on. Eternal security or once saved, always saved. Prophecy, for example. Tongues, that's always a hot bed for contention, but not to the point of anger and wrath. If I were to take, I'll use my own self as an example, all my favorite Christian authors, if they were alive and put them all into one room together and then join them, we would all agree on the essentials. There are a lot of things we wouldn't, we would disagree on. Of course, as you know, I don't have to tell you, you know it's coming.

Might as well, you know I'd be the right one. It's just so easy to think you're right and the other person's wrong. Well, you're wrong if you think that with me. But anyway, always something to disagree on. Paul, Paul was a cut ahead of so many of those early Christians. Even James, the brother of the Lord, never rose to the level of Paul as a scholar and servant.

That's just a fact. It's not meant to, you know, belittle James, but Paul found himself tolerating James and the things that came out of the church in Jerusalem. But he would not budge, not an inch, on a critical issue, on an essential issue. When they came up to the church in Antioch in Syria, Paul did not, he said, I didn't give an inch for an hour, not for a moment did I yield. And so we have to learn this. It's a craft, not craftiness, it's a skill as a Christian to learn to dismiss the smaller things and to lay hold of those things that are important.

Now, of course, a church is supposed to have more things in line together so that we can row together. He says, having compassion for one another. That Greek word translated compassion, sympathio from the Greek, where we get our English word sympathy. And its meaning in the Greek, the root meaning is to suffer with someone, to feel what they're going through. Hebrews 4, verse 15, we do not have a high priest, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness but was on all points tempted as we are yet without sin. So just knowing that Jesus understands what we go through is big help. Well, it's so, if you've ever struggled with something and someone comes along and says, I understand, I know, I've been praying for you and we're going to get this victory, it helps. Because when you don't have it, you notice it very quickly.

I'm all alone, no one's with me. You become like, have an Elijah complex, I'm the only one. We don't want to say that. And you also know that there are times when someone is just going through so much junk in this life, you suffer with them. Love is brothers, he says. There's a warmness, this is that phileo love, not that spiritual love, though that is what creates all our loves as believers, the agape love. This warmness towards fellow believers because we have the identical Father in heaven.

Identical. Tender hearted. Some of you feel that, well it's just my way, I'm just rough. Well, that ain't good enough. That's not going to cut it with God. Oh, okay, well then don't be tender hearted, you can be a brute.

You can be the fool because you just don't have it. See, this is an obligation laid upon us. Now not when we're, certainly there comes a time when it is our place to administer correction, and we can do that in a tender way, to a point, and then we have to get firm up if the other person provokes. But as a rule, tender heartedness, to understand that the other person is struggling, and that is not my cue to shoot the wounded, as we are notoriously known to do as lovers of Jesus Christ, is to shoot our wounded. Not our obnoxious and disobedient and imposters, I mean those who are genuine believers who may have been tripped up or caught in something. It's not for us to judge them in their plight. Yeah, well that would have never happened to them if they took my advice. Oh, may God not have to corner you and say that to you.

Paul used the same word in the Greek, tender hearted, writing to the Ephesians, from jail, incidentally. He said, well you might want to get that. Tell them you're in church and why aren't they next to you? In fact, let me have it. No, I'm kidding. That's enough. I just, well whose phone is it?

What we know now because they're red. All right. Just having a tender hearted fun. Be kind to one another, like I just, you know. Forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. The Holy Spirit always gets personal with us.

He always taps us and gets us, look at me, eye contact here, as God forgave you in Christ Jesus. He says courteous. Now let me ask a question. I'm not going to ask any of you to stand.

Joke joke from last week. All right. On a report card, what grade would you give yourself on being courteous?

You can couple with that. What grade would you give yourself on being humble to? What grade would others give you on being courteous? I mean, a lot of people here, all that I know, I find to be courteous. In fact, visitors always tell me. They make two comments that just all the time.

One, how clean the place is and how friendly the people are. Would to God that all houses of God would be recipients of such an honor and hold it and not lose it because once you have it doesn't mean you're guaranteed to keep it. You've had to fight to get it, you've had to fight to keep it. That's the law in a cursed world. But apparently some translations say be courteous when you are in the mood to be courteous.

When you feel like you're having a good day or when there's something in it for you. I can't tell you how many times people have come to me after certain, some have left the church after been, not all of them for sure, but every now and then there's some that will leave the church and people will come and say, tell me the things that they did. And one of them is, is how snide and mean they were to them. How they would never even say hello. It's unfortunate. Incompatibility is no reason to be rude. Maybe, maybe you are, I'll use myself as an example.

What if I go out and I'm shopping, buying myself a new hair piece, for example, like to replace the one I have now. And I see someone who used to come to the church. Well, I'm not going to be rude. The love of Christ compels me.

It's awkward, it's unpleasant sometimes, but it doesn't, it doesn't grant me now the right to be anything less than courteous. And I know all God's people say that's right. 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 and 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. Alright. 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, but I'm, 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 could 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. Verse 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. 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.