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May 8, 2005
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Unity
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Home: Some Keys to Unity"
1 Peter 3: 8-12
8Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. 9Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10For,
“Whoever would love life
and see good days
must keep his tongue from evil
and his lips from deceitful speech.
He must turn from evil and do good;
he must seek peace and pursue it.
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous
and his ears are attentive to their prayer,
but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
NIV
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Words carry weight.
If I were to ask you to tell me what the word "home" brings up for you, how would you respond?
How many would say the ideas that come into their minds when they hear the word "Home" are mostly positive (games, laughs, joy, good relationships)?
How many say the connotation of the word home is mostly negative (abuses, hurts, injuries, fears, demands)?
How about words like "mother" or "mother's day"? When you bring up a word like home all kinds of things happen inside us. The same happens with the word "mother" in the name "mother's day". For some their home experience with mom was so bad that the very thought keeps them away from the idea of mother's day.
For others again the image is positive.
I remember a Dear Abby column from years ago in which the writer complained that most of the church recognitions of this day include only those women who have bore children, and leave behind all the other noble women who though single have contributed to the lives of others significantly. She signed her letter to Abby, "Nameless and Hurting".
I wonder how many here this morning even though you are sitting in church surrounded by brothers and sisters feel like that woman felt, "nameless and hurting." You are not alone, I tell you. I remember that Mother Teresa years ago upon a visit to America said the great poverty of America is loneliness. Somehow with all our celebrations of days like today, and the emphases upon family, still, we end up lacking what we need: real relationships with God and others.
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Peter was speaking to people who needed the same. So often I think we approach passages like Peter's as if he was writing a "to do" list for us to keep. We read it and think, "Okay, I am to have the same mind, or live in harmony with everyone" and we make this something we are to achieve somehow on our own.
Martin Luther whose times you had a great introduction to last Sunday, struggled with the idea that he had to "do it all on his own". Before he fully discovered the grace offered him in Jesus Christ, when asked if he loved God would retort, "Love God? Sometimes I hate him," for it was God who was placing all the impossible demands upon him (quoted from web address www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/martin-luther.html).
And we too can have that mindset. Here in this book, Peter is not saying, "Brother and sister as you are hurting and beaten up, add one more burden to your life." No to say this was his message is to cut this passage out from the rest of the book.
Peter had sat down to write Christians like yourselves living in less than perfect circumstances. These brothers and sisters were living under terrible times of persecution. Peter was not writing to burden them, but to encourage them. If you look at the end of the book he says that is his purpose in his brief letter to encourage them to stand fast in the grace of God!
- And he was writing out of personal experience.
Think about it. The same Peter who penned these words with the help of Mark and Silas to encourage these Christians, is Peter we can all relate to.
Big, tough, burly, fisherman Peter, whom Jesus promised would be catching men. Peter who when Jesus calls to him from the water, says, "Lord, if it is really you, tell me to come to you on the water." After Jesus says, "Come," Peter walked out on the water until he took his eyes off Jesus and then sank like a stone. (Matthew 14 28-29).
This is Peter who when Jesus told of his death and resurrection, Peter rebuked him for speaking such things and received a rebuke himself. This is the Peter who promised Jesus he would die with him only to deny him three times that same night. This is Peter you and I can relate to, who would have related well to this day and age. Peter was a Microwave and McDonald's kind of guy: impatient, give it to me now, impulsive, driven, always tripping on his tongue. That was what he was like before the Triune God really got a hold of him (Matthew 16:22-23; 26:32-34; 27:69-75).
But then came the experience of the Father's forgiveness through Jesus at the lakeside, the spirit's filling at Pentecost, and this same Peter is a changed and changing man. His first sermon brings 3000 souls into God's Kingdom. Then walking into the temple one day he and John pass by a man lame from birth, and Peter reaches out and speaks healing in the name of Jesus and the man's ankles and strengthened and he is next seen leaping and praising the Lord. This is Peter who receives visions from the Lord, is obedient to the heavenly message, preaches go Cornelius' household and sees the entire gentile's family saved.
So now as an old man, Peter writes his letters. His life is a testimony of the grace about which he writes. We can see what the Triune God can do with a man's life in Peter. No longer is he impetuous and impatient, but compassionate, full of sympathy and brotherly love. He is a man of deep humility and deep wisdom. Peter's character has been impacted by the character of God upon him.
So he writes his letter not to lay a burden on these burdened believers, he is not giving a "to do list" to these faithful Christ-followers. But he is telling them: "Look what the Triune God has done for you…"
He introduces this focus upon the action of the three-one God in the first chapter. Look at the second verse. There he says the letter is addressed to those who have been "chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and cleansing by his blood." God the Father, the Spirit and the Son are together involved in the work of salvation. God has done something so magnificent the Christians can "live out of it".
The great gift is salvation - a work which unites us with all of God, the triune God. Jesus said this in John "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (John 14:23). Sounds like Father and Son dwell in us! He tells the apostles to wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them and bring them power needed for ministry (Acts 1:8) - so the Spirit of God also is within us. And the true life we experienced is then birthed in us through the "living and enduring word of God" (1 Peter 1:23).
After such a beginning, the predominant word in this letter is not the word "do" but the word "be". He calls the believers to "be holy" - for look it is God the Spirit who has already sanctified them as holy. He is saying, "Be who you are called to be". He says to "be" the nations, the priests, the people God has called them to be (2:9). You once were "not a people but now you are the people of God," he tells them (2:10).
Be encouraged. God has changed you, Peter says. "You are something different in this world!" So, he tells them as he builds to the passage we read this morning to "be" submissive to rulers in authority over them, slaves to masters, wives to husbands, husbands to God in cherishing and offering themselves for their wives, and then climaxes in saying, "finally, all of you…"
In all these Peter says to live as Christ lived, for you have been cleansed by His blood. It is the true grace of God which enables us to make choices in relationships. We can choose not give insult for insult, we can choose not to retaliate, we can choose to speak a blessing instead.
Wise, old Peter is speaking to encourage them. Don't allow anything from the world around you to corrupt what God has given you. So, "be" all God has called you to be. And in this section of chapter three he rounds out the description of the character of God upon all their relationships saying, "finally all of you" which includes both those relationships at home and all other relationships the people may have, he says, finally all of you manifest these aspects of being in your lives. What do these words in 3:8 describe? They describe how God in trinity relates to God. They are a picture of the fruit of God's work in our lives. We already have everything we need so that God can so shine through our lives.
This passage is no "to do" list, but a "to be" list. Notice the verbs he uses.
As you dwell with the Trinity you are living in a dynamic relationship with the living God. You are relating to the Father, the Son through the Spirit day by day. And so your relationships with others will be impacted by this primary relationship.
God will be God through your life.
And that is how we can pray this passage. This is how we can desire for God to work through this kind of passage. We can pray, "Help yourself to me, Lord" so that the character of God, the sympathy, the compassion, the harmony of relationships, the love can be made known as we live with one another.
This is the key to unity at home and abroad. This is the gift of God to the people of God, the living reality of God lived and expressed through His people.
So, stand back, pray "help yourself to me" and remember from Peter's life just what God can do when someone allows the greatness of God to flow through His life.
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