Church In The World Vs World In The Church Series

“Church in the World vs World in the Church”

1 Peter 3:8-12

Pastor John Bright

1 Peter3 “8 Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; 9 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. 10 For

“He who would love life

And see good days,

Let him refrain his tongue from evil,

And his lips from speaking deceit.

11 Let him turn away from evil and do good;

Let him seek peace and pursue it.

12 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.”

If (when?) you begin to study God’s Word, there are some questions that need to be answered. Some of these deal with context, like I was talking about last week. One aspect of context is this: ‘Who is that message written for?” A good Study Bible can help with this. btw – Bible Study on your own is one of the Spiritual Disciplines that leads to growth in Sanctification.

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Let’s answer this context question first – what is Peter talking to the folks about?

There are four options back then and today for these exhortations/encouragements:

• How we treat each other in the church

• How folks in the world treat each other

• How folks in the world treat us

• How we treat folks in the world

Jesus Followers in the house churches of Asia Minor were openly persecuted. We live a world/culture that is openly hostile to our Judeo-Christian Faith. This is a different context than when we grew up in a culture that was mostly open to Christianity. When did it change?

I want to share a personal theory of mine. The big change came in the 1960s when there was a huge shift in the culture. Prior to that, it was easier to manage the dividing line at the front door of the church. We could step out into the world from the church and it was comfortable for most Jesus Followers. When the culture shifted – hippies, sexual revolution, psychedelic drugs, and our soldiers were the bad guys – all those shifting lines made Jesus Followers uncomfortable when they stepped out into the world. Most of the mainline churches came up with this remedy – bring the world into the church. This led to the birth of renewal movements in our Methodist denomination that tried to warn the larger church about drifting away from God’s Word. I guess most of us know how that all ended. ?

Peter is showing them and us a way to navigate being “in the world, but not of the world.”

Life Inside the Church, v. 8

“8 Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous;”

Peter is speaking to all the Jesus Followers, not just a few like in the verses on submission. He is giving them clear directions on how we treat each other in the church. At first glance, that should be easy, right? Should be, if everyone in the church was easy to get along with and never rubbed folks the wrong way. What? Too much honesty? We have talked about not having to look too far to find folks that are hard to love. We have also talked about being of one mind back in Philippians 2:2 “fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” Back then, I asked you to consider the image of the church as a boat with folks all rowing. When everyone is heading in the same direction, all rowing together, that’s when the church can move forward. If some folks row this way and others row that way, the church will flounder and even fail.

We are called to be compassionate. What does that look like? Think about last week when we moved around to find a couple of people and prayed for each other. One of the great passages in our Bibles on compassion is found in Hebrews 4:14-16 “14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” If we can sympathize with the weakness of another and offer that person grace instead of judgement, we will be so different from the world that our congregation will be like a lighthouse in the storm. You can’t even imagine how many folks need to experience that kind of compassion!