This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) This is day four of our look through 1 Peter chapter three. And
in the verses we're going to look at today, we're going to see one thing to never do
and one thing to always do in your relationships. Let's start with the never,
one thing to never do.

In verse nine, nine to 15, Peter writes, do 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. For whoever would love life and seek 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. Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?

But even if you should suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not
fear what they fear. Do not be frightened.

But in your hearts, set apart Christ as Lord. So what do I never do? Never,
never pay back evil for evil.

This goes to the question of how you respond when you're wrong, when someone
does some evil or gives some insult towards you. And the truth of our human
relationships, the way we think, is that you're going to be wrong from time to
time. You're going to be hurt by words, you're going to be stung by insensitivity,
you're going to be overlooked, you're going to be misunderstood, you're going to be
sinned against.

The church is filled with people, and people make mistakes, people sin. And so
you're going to be wronged. And the question that Peter is addressing here is when
you're wrong, what are you going to do about it?

How are you going to pay in that moment? Someone has said that these verses teach
that we should not only love God's people, we should also love our enemies. I
think they missed the point.

This says that sometimes it seems like God's people are our enemies. So how are
you going to love them then? And Peter says, never take revenge.

Never repay insult with insult. Revenge has no place in your relationships.
Revenge will escalate the slightest insult into a full-scale war.

She did this to me, so it's all right for me to do this to her, so she did this
to me, so revenge doesn't have to be a knife in the back. It can just as easily
take the form of a cold stare or an unwillingness to speak or a loss of care for
somebody else's welfare. Let me just ask you, who are you paying back in your
heart or your mind or your actions right now?

God says, never. Instead, he says, this one's going to blow your mind, give a
blessing. Bless the person who's trying to insult you.

Instead, give a blessing. Because he says, that's what you're called to. You're
called to be like Jesus.

Now, the only way to do this is to recognize how deeply you're loved by God. You
don't need that person's love. You do not need that person's love.

You'd like it, it would be a good thing to have it, but because you're loved by
God, you have a freedom in your life that those who do not understand the love
of God will never have. So instead, you have the power through Christ to give a
blessing. Instead, he says, he just goes through this list, you refrain your
tongue from evil.

Specifically talks about the tongue. Our tongue is the biggest hammer we have in
breaking fragile relationships. That old advice, if you can't say anything good
about anyone, don't say anything at all, it's sound advice, it is biblical
advice.

And if we spent half the time praying for each other, that we do talking about
each other, we'd strengthen our relationships by 1,000%. So you watch what you
say very carefully. He says, how do you make sure that you never take revenge?

You take the opposite direction. The only way to make sure you never do the
thing that he's telling us to never do here, the wrong thing, is to always do
the right thing. He says you pursue peace.

You not just want it, not just hope that it happens, pursue it, choose it. Peace
does not just automatically happen in a relationship. It is something that has
to be pursued and worked for daily.

Who's pursuing peace in your relationships? If you're expecting other people to
do it, you're not following the direction of Christ here. Pursue peace.

Pursuing peace, that means, you already know maybe what I'm going to say, that
means that sometimes, you're going to have to let other people have their way, as
shocking as that might sound. We fight sometimes. The reason we don't pursue
peace, we fight, we argue, is because it actually does get results sometimes.

If you can be argumentative enough about it, if you can make it unpleasant
enough for the other person, you might just get your own way in the end. So we
throw a tantrum. You don't call it that, I know, but that's actually what you're
doing.

We throw a tantrum so that we can get what we wanted, just like a three-year-old
does. It works in families, it works at jobs, it works in school, it works even
in churches. The problem is, it destroys relationships.

You get what you wanted, but you destroy the relationship. So you choose
instead. No matter what tactics the other party is using, you choose to pursue
peace in a relationship.

Now that doesn't mean you always let them have their way. Sometimes pursuing
peace is honestly sitting down and saying, I see what you're doing here, you're
arguing with me, so that you can get your own way. And maybe that's right, maybe
that's wrong, but could we get to a different place where we could have an
honest conversation about this?

Shock the person by pursuing peace. How do you get to this place of never taking
revenge? Peter says, here's what you do.

You set apart Christ as Lord. That's the key. The only way, the only way to
pursue peace with someone who's insulted you or done you an evil is to recognize
that Jesus is Lord.

They're not Lord. They don't control the relationship. They don't control your
life.

Jesus is Lord. Now they may seem to have control for a moment. I understand
that.

But in the end, Jesus is going to be Lord. In the end, he's going to bring justice. So
when you think of being wronged, when you think of an injustice that's been done
to you or an insult that's come your way, and you think, well, what should I do
with it?

Sometimes you'll hear the advice, well, just let it go. It's more than that.
Just letting it go, what does that mean?

Where does it go when you let it go? It's more than just letting it go. It's
taking that wrong, that injustice, that evil, and it's placing it in the hands
of Jesus and recognizing, I can trust it there.

I don't have to take my own revenge. If revenge needs to be taken, he can take
it. If justice needs to be done, he can make sure that it's done a lot better
than I ever can.

You place it, that injustice that you're thinking about right now in your life,
place it in the hands of Jesus. Never pay back evil for evil. Never take
revenge.

That's what to never do. And then there's a thing, beginning in the last half of
verse 15, to always do. Always be prepared, he says, to give an answer.

Always be prepared to talk about hope. Let me read these verses, beginning in
the last half of 15. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks
you to give the reason for the hope that you have.

But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience so that
those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed
of their slander. It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good
than for doing evil. Always be prepared to tell people about why you have hope.

Now, Peter not only says what we're to do here, he tells us very clearly the
attitude to have as we do it. Do it, he says, with gentleness and respect. A lot
of people, when it comes to defending the truth of the Bible, they defend the
truth in these loud capital letters, in loud overbearing, even angry attitude.

Sometimes the way that people talk about the truth of the Bible, you don't want
the truth of the Bible in your life as beautiful as it is, because they make it
look ugly with their attitude. The Bible tells us to be reverent towards God, to
be gentle towards others as we defend the truth. You will discover, if you
haven't already, that people who are confident about the truth, people who have
built a good foundation in their lives, they're able to defend the truth with
gentleness and quiet reverence.

It's those who are unsure about themselves or about the truth who have to yell
the loudest. Gentleness is actually to mark everything we do in our lives as
followers of Jesus. It's not, well, we better deal with this situation gently.

We have to deal with every situation gently. That's our attitude as followers of
Christ. So the attitude is you do it with gentleness and reverence, but he also
talks about your lifestyle in this.

He says you keep a clear conscience. You have a life that matches your words.
Now, having a clear conscience does not mean that you've never made a mistake or
sinned.

Otherwise, none of us could possibly have a clear conscience. The apostle Paul
often says he has a clear conscience, although he also often admits that he had
sinned, that he was one of the greatest of sinners. So how could he have a clear
conscience?

To have a clear conscience means that you admit your mistakes and your sins, and
you trust Christ to continue to transform you. Having a clear conscience, Peter
tells us here, does not mean everyone's always going to speak well of you. He
says even though you have a clear conscience, there will be some who slander
you.

Some will see a light in your life that makes them painfully aware of a darkness
in their life that they're not willing to change. And so they're going to push
against the truth by attacking you personally. Peter tells us here that in the
end, they're going to be ashamed of doing that.

They're going to be ashamed that they pushed against one of the invitations that
they had for real life, for real joy. So in relationships, you want to have
healthy relationships, one thing to never do, one thing to always do. Never try
to take your own revenge and always be ready to talk about hope.

Jesus, as we pray, we ask that you help us to trust you with both of these, that
the hurts that we have in our lives, the insults that we have, that we trust
those into your hands. We place them in your hands right now. We know you are
trustworthy.

The hope that we have in our hearts, that we trust that into your hands too, by
sharing it. Whenever we have an opportunity, always being ready, always being
aware. Help us not to get so caught up in the negatives of life that we miss
opportunities to share hope with people that need to hear hope.

We need you for that, Jesus, and we ask for your strength to do that. In your
name, amen. Tomorrow, Peter again is going to focus us on Jesus, and we're going
to look at one of the most difficult to understand passages in the entire New
Testament.