As Christians, we're called to live godly lives, but what does that mean?
How exactly do we do that? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg examines essential characteristics that should be evident in our lives, and we'll see how in the process of living life God's way, we're able to bless even those who hate us. We're studying 1 Peter 3. How can such a diversified group of people, as those to whom Peter wrote and continues through the centuries to write, ever come to a united common interest and outlook?
Well, the answer is actually very, very simple. Turn to Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 13. The only way that men and women in our day amongst the family of God can ever come together in this harmony will not be upon the basis of a human agenda but will be upon the foundation of divine authority.
Verse 13 of Ephesians 4, he's talked about the responsibility of the various functions within the church to evangelize and to edify. And he says, when this begins to happen, when the Word of God is communicated in truth and is brought home by the Spirit, then, he says, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. So we need be in no doubt as how we come to this harmony. We come to this harmony under the headship and authority of Jesus. The unity to which we come is not uniformity.
It is not the negation of diversity either of gift or of background or of outlook. It is a unity which takes all of that diversity, recognizes it, and brings ourselves under the truth of the Word. Then, he says—and only then, verse 14—we will no longer be infants. But until then, we will always be infants, until a church family gets about the part of harmony in this way, we can continue to be tossed back and forth by the waves, blown here and there by every wind of teaching, and we will be susceptible to the cunning and craftiness of man in their deceitful scheming.
It's just a fact, he says. Unless you come to this like-minded commitment to Christ and to his Word, you will be up for anything. But when you do, when you, verse 15, speak the truth in love, then you will in all things grow up into him who is the head. That is Christ. And from him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. Do you see the picture?
Do you understand it? It's not that we're all singing in unison. That's not the key to wonderful singing. There is a strength in singing in unison. But the real beauty of singing is when they were broken out into the various parts, but not into five different songs. Not somebody's playing jazz over here, and someone's playing something else over here.
No! But that we are under one conductor, Jesus, we have one score open before us, and we take the part which God has given us. Then we begin to enter into what Peter refers to here in one word, which is simply harmony.
Just an old-fashioned love song, coming down in three parts harmony. Your part is not my part. My part is not your part. Quit telling me to do your part, and I'll quit telling you to do my part. Find your part. Who told you where it was? Jesus did.
How would you find out? Read your Bible. In any doubt, talk with those who are spiritually mature. Take your part, sing your song, and let's go. Harmony. Okay? Second word, sympathy.
Spent too long on the first one, but you're used to that. Sympathy. Be sympathetic. It doesn't say, Be pathetic.
It says, Be sympathetic. In other words, we should be sensitive to the same spiritual emotions. If we have the same common mind, then presumably we will be stirred by the same things.
Unless, of course, we're out of our minds, right? But when we have the mind of Christ, Philippians 2 5, then if all these people, all of the mind of Christ, and they're all submitting to the same head, then presumably there will be a stirring in the heart which is shared. That's why, you see, that the singing of God's praise should produce fervor.
Why? Because we're sympathetic with one another. You hear the guy singing next to you, you understand what this phrase really means, huh? I've got to be sympathetic to it. If he hadn't come here, we could have used him as a foghorn, but bless his heart, there he is.
That's okay. But far and beyond that, what is this? That when we take a hymn that extols Christ, Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts, thou fount of life, thou light of men, from the best bliss that earth imparts, I turn unfilled to thee again. Jesus, thy truth hath ever stood, thou savest those that on thee call, to them that seekest thou art good, to them that find thee all in all, and suddenly beg is going on the hymn, but he's not alone, because his brothers and sisters around him are saying, That's right! Amazing grace! That's why we don't do all our things alone.
That's why there is value in coming together. I can go sing in the park, sure, and so can you. But I want to sing with you.
I want to hear you sing. I want you to sing out and sing up, and I want my heart to be warmed and stirred as sympathetically I bow beneath the same truth. And we don't often think of it in that way, but maybe we will for a moment or two after this morning. I can never be sympathetic towards somebody else when I'm preoccupied with myself. Preoccupation with me and sympathy for you cannot coexist. If I'm stuck on myself and what I'm doing and where I'm going and what I'm buying and what I'm getting next, I will have no interest whatsoever in who you are and where you're going and what you're doing and what you're getting next. Therefore, it means that I must somehow begin to get under the burden of who you are. This is what it means to bear another's burdens, to get down underneath their load, as it were, to walk into that hospital room and to look at that individual as if they were your own. For in a very real sense, they are your own. That's what he's saying.
Hebrews 13.3. Remember those in prison. Well, how am I going to do that? I never was in jail. Not for longer than an evening. Remember those in prison?
How? As if you were their fellow prisoners. How are you ever going to empathize with a prisoner unless you suddenly start and say, Can you imagine what it would be like to walk in, get stripped absolutely naked, everything taken from you, your watch, your change, the whole kaboodle, and they give you some unglorified pair of pajamas? They march you around, they shower you, they put you in a room, and they bang the thing behind you. Can you imagine what that must be like?
Well, think about it for a wee while, because once I think that through, then I'm going to be able to begin to understand what it means. Look at that poor guy. Time magazine this week. Thirteen years ago, he killed somebody. Finally, the justice system gets real. Thirteen years later, he's now thirty years old.
He was seventeen at the time. And finally, they take his life away. Whatever we want to say about capital punishment, which is not our subject this morning, the delay in justice is a disgrace in our society. A total disgrace.
But when I read that in Time magazine, and I looked at that young man's face, and I thought about some of the things that I did when I was seventeen, I said, Yeah, I could have been that man. This is what sympathy means, dear ones. It means getting under the burden of those whose load is heavy. It means rejoicing with those whose hearts are light. Thirdly, the word love.
Philadelphia. What does it mean? Well, it's almost a reiteration of what we've been studying in 1 John. Let me use what he says from Psalm 34 to describe what love means here. Let's use his Bible teaching from the Old Testament to clarify the phrase love as brothers.
What does it mean to love as a brother? One, when I love my brother, I will not use my tongue to harm him or to mislead him. That's verse 10. I'm going to keep my tongue from evil and my lips from deceitful speech. I'm not going to use my tongue to harm my brother.
I'm not going to use my tongue to mislead him. Secondly, when I love my brother, I will do a body swerve from evil so that I might encourage him in the paths of righteousness. That's verse 11.
He must turn from evil and do good. So if I really love you, I'm not going to take you down the broad road that leads to destruction. I'm not going to compromise your morals. I'm not going to interfere with your life and the purity that God intends for you—not if I love you. Thirdly, when I love my brother, I take the initiative in repairing the breaches which exist between us. That's verse 11b.
He must seek peace and pursue it. So in other words, there is something vigorous about this kind of love. It's loyalty. It's not a mealy-mouthed sentimentality. And it's a recurring theme of Peter, because he knows that while you can choose your friends, you can't choose your relatives. And what it must have been to be amongst the believers in Thessalonica to hear from Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 9 and following, that he could write to them and say, I don't need to write to you about brotherly love, because you're a great gang.
Must be nice to get a letter like that. Fourth word is the word compassion. Compassion.
Harmony, sympathy, love, be compassionate. The word in its English transliteration is eus-splag-chnoi. Eus-splag-chnoi.
Say that three times quickly. And it has a kind of internal organ sound to it, and justifiably so, because that's what the word is all about. When you come across bowels in your King James Version, it has to do with this splag-chnoi stuff right here. For the Greeks, they used the word as an expression of intestinal fortitude. Guts.
Does a guy have it? For the Hebrews, they used the word as an expression of mercy and concern. And it is in that way that Peter uses it. He says, I want you to have compassion for one another.
Ephesians 4, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as in Christ God forgave you. It's not sentimentality. The sentimentality which has a moment's comfortable sorrow and then does nothing? It is love in action.
It is the good Samaritan that we considered last time. It is the Father welcoming his son home. And when he saw his son, who was a great way off—what does the very next phrase say? He was filled with compassion. And he wrote a book.
No. And he ran, and he grabbed his boy, and he hugged him real good. Fifth word is humility. Be compassionate and humble. How could we ever be like-minded unless we're humble-minded? Genuine humility revolves around recognizing, first of all, who God is, and then we see who we are. When we see who God is, then we say with the psalmist, What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him? When I see who God is and who I am, and when I see how great my offense against God has been, then it helps me to minimize the offenses that others have committed against me.
But when I only compare myself with other people, I might find grounds for increasing pride. And the blessings of God do not grow in the soil of pride but rather in humility. If you drew all of these things out—and we have one to go on, we'll just finish it—but if you drew them all out, harmony and sympathy and love and compassion and humility, and you drew them out, forming them in a circle in the final word, if you drew into the center just lines from each, then you would find that every line ended up in Jesus Christ. That if we were in any doubt about what it meant, we just needed to look at Jesus. The one who said, For I am humble and lowly in heart, and you can find rest for your souls.
The one who left the glory of heaven to be born in that strangest of environments, so that we who have been born in the strangest of environments might go and share the glory of heaven. The final word is blessing. Blessing. Verse 9. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. Sounds like Jesus in Matthew 5, doesn't it? Let me quote it for you. Matthew 5 and verse 44. You've heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you, love your enemies.
Oh, come on! And pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his Son to rise on the evil and the good. The same sun is shining over bad people in Cleveland this morning as is shining over good people. He sends the rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. And if you love those who love you, what reward will you get?
Don't even tax collectors do that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Don't even pagans do that? So Jesus said, Let me give you a new standard. Be perfect, even as your Father is perfect. You see, it's one thing if it's stopped with Do not render evil with evil or insult with insult.
That way we can close our car doors, drop our garage doors, close our front doors, close our blinds, close our curtains, close everything, and say, I will not repay evil with evil! Good! Now I have obeyed the Scriptures.
I've got on with my life. No! Wrong! Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. But we're not finished. But with blessing! Oh, no! No, it doesn't say that!
Yeah, it says it! Because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. In other words, you were called under God into a blessing, an unbelievable blessing. Did you deserve it?
Did I deserve it? Not for a moment! Is it more than we can handle?
Yes, it is! Every day, fresh evidences of his blessing upon our lives. So we are to take some of that blessing, as it were, and to use it to bless others. It is not enough.
Things have never been dealt with simply by avoidance. Rather, we are to bring blessing to bear. Let me finish with two illustrations. Let me take you, first of all, to a jail cell in Philippi. A jail cell in Philippi. Acts chapter 16, you'll read it there. Two guys, Paul and Silas, had a bad day, big time. They're all beaten up, smashed up, bloodied, hauled in, chained up, stuck down, dungeon city. Okay? Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. Okay, so we know that they're not down there in the dungeons going, If I get my hands on you, Mr. Jailer, you're a dead man!
Why? Because that would be to contravene the Scriptures. But they're not lying there licking each other's wounds either. What are they doing? Singing! Why would they sing? They are blessing the jail with their singing! And as they sing, people are going, This is not what we expect!
What is wrong with these weirdos? And then the earthquake! And then the final scene with the jailer about to take his sword and stick it right through his middle! And Paul's shouting, Hey, hang on, don't do that!
We're all here! And then the jailer going, What do you mean you're all here? And then the jailer's saying, What must I do to be saved? You see, if Paul and Silas had done what everybody else does in the jail and screamed murder and maligned the system and spat at the guards and grumbled through the night, there would be no story of the conversion of the Philippian jailer.
But they blessed instead of cursed. Finally, Acts chapter 7, a cruel scene. A horrible scene. A lovely man getting a beating. Not a physical beating, but beaten with stones. Hammering down on him, cruel blows. And as the stones begin to ebb his life from him, verse 60 tells us of Acts 7 that he fell on his knees and he cried out—what? A word of curse? No, a word of blessing. Listen what he cried out. Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And when he had said this, he went off to sleep. He died. And look in your Bible and notice the very next four words.
What are they? And Saul was there. Saul, who had seen so many people imprisoned and martyred, Saul, who had the potential of becoming one of the most hard-nosed, hard-bitten characters of his day, stands and waits for the screams from Stephen. Says to the people, I'm not gonna throw stones, but you just put your clothes down here.
I'll take care of them. You just get yourself well oiled up, and let's get rid of this character. And as he stood and watched the final scene, he heard Stephen pray a blessing upon him. And then you turn to Acts chapter 5, and the light shines, and Saul of Tarsus looks up into the heavens and says, Who are you? Lord?
Why? From a human perspective. Because Stephen applied the instruction given to us by Peter here to bring blessing into another person's life. I hope that as you go to lunch you might think about these things, you might talk with one another concerning them, and you might think of some illustrations of how you and I might live a blessing in the lives of those who are around us. For it's one thing to manage to stop ourselves from responding and from retaliation. It is, in my experience, a quantum leap to seek to bring a blessing to bear on the life of someone who has maligned us and accused us and vilified us and hated us. And yet, says Peter, these are the essentials of genuine Christian living. Who is sufficient for these things?
None, save by the power of the Holy Spirit. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Well, today's message wraps up our study in 1 Peter. If you'd like to hear Alistair teach all the way through both of Peter's letters, you can hear the complete series for free on our website at truthforlife.org.
Or if you'd prefer, you can purchase the five-volume series on a single USB for just five dollars at truthforlife.org slash store. It's simply titled, A Study in 1 and 2 Peter. Well, the Advent season begins December 1st this year. Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas, also a time to anticipate Jesus' second Advent. And we have a special book written by Alistair we'd love to put in your hands.
It's titled, Let Earth Receive Her King. It's a newly released collection of 24 devotions, one for each day of Advent. The daily devotions help you view Christmas through a wide-angle lens, beginning with the Old Testament's anticipation of the Messiah, and then exploring the fulfillment of those prophecies in the Gospels and the Epistles. You'll even consider the risen Christ as we look forward to his victorious return.
Here's a sample from the devotional that Alistair wanted to read for you. Most of us spend, or at least aim to spend, a good portion of each Christmas season reflecting on the fact that God dwelled among us in the person of our Lord Jesus. But having lived, died, and risen again, Jesus is now physically present at the right hand of the Father on high.
How then does God now dwell on earth in time and space? God has graciously poured his Holy Spirit into those for whom his Son came and lived and died and rose. Those who have trusted in him, those who love him, those who've been assembled as living stones, gathered to Christ our cornerstone, are now the very place where God dwells.
Now in addition to Alistair's insights, the book Let Earth Receive Her King includes hymn lyrics from authors like Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, and John Newton, as well as lyrics from much-loved Christmas hymns, and each reading wraps up with questions for reflection. Request Alistair's Advent devotional today when you donate to support the Bible teaching ministry of Truth for Life. Go to truthforlife.org slash donate. Thanks for joining us. Tomorrow we begin a series about Thankful Living. We'll kick it off by considering the key to genuine contentment. And if you'd like a deep dive into the Thankful Living Study, download a free study guide that accompanies Alistair's teaching. Visit truthforlife.org slash thankful. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
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