Welcome to the Weekend Sermon. I hope that this day finds you all well. Thank you for your prayers. The storms were not bad in my area. However, some of the folks just west of me had some pretty bad hail. I feel bad that anyone had to have problems from the storms. Let us all pray for those experiencing storm damage that they might soon recover.
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I have some important financial decisions to make in the next few days. Please pray that I will be able to make the right decisions. Also, please pray that I will be able to keep going in my job. I received my quarterly review, and everything went well. I thank the Lord for this.
Let us continue to pray for peace in this troubled world. Pray for peace in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and other troubled areas of this world. Let us not forget to pray for those still effected by Ebola in Sierra Leone.
In last week's message, we continued in our series on the book of I Peter. We went through some rather controversial sections of the epistle. Today, we will continue to make our way through this important and informative work.
I Peter 3:8-9 states, "Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing."
In these two verses, Peter is asking his readers to live out in their lives the teachings of Jesus in the Golden Rule. As brothers and sisters in Christ, we should be filled with love and compassion for one another. The Bible says that one of the ways that people knew who the early Christians were is that the believers had great love for one another.
When we were studying in the book of Acts a few months ago, we saw that the early Christians shared all things in common. When any person in the church had a need, the other members of the church worked together to meet the need of the brothers and sisters.
If people today could see Christians caring about each other and helping each other in love, I believe that more people would be drawn to the church and the message of the Savior's love. Sadly, many people only see the feuding and meanness in the church, and they are repelled and they do not see the real Jesus in the face of His followers.
In general, those of us who are followers of the Lord Jesus should do all that we can as we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do as much good in the world as we possibly can. We should be a blessing to society by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and standing up against injustice and oppression.
When others criticize us or do wrong against us, our response should be to seek to do as much good for them as we possibly can. We should be a blessing to this world and to those within it.
In verses 10 and 11, Peter gives a prescription for seeing good days in this life. He urges his readers to be people who control their speech.
Our words have the power to do great damage to other people. There is an old rhyme that goes, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." This is so untrue. The nasty things that people say to us can stay in our minds for years bringing up pain and hurt. When we know how much we have been damaged by the evil words of others, let us be the people who speak words that heal not words that hurt.
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin has written an excellent book entitled, "Words that Hurt, Words That Heal" which gives a fine discussion on the power of words.
We all need to be careful of the words we speak. Words have great power. We can use our tongues to speak encouragement, blessing and healing, or we can use our tongue to spread bitterness, lies and hurt.
It is especially important to watch our speech around our children. When we speak negatively to our children, it can have devastating consequences later in their lives. If we continually criticize them, it can cause them to become discouraged.
Let each of us always strive to be those who speak words of hope and encouragement. Let our words be loving words patterned after what we know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ would say.
Peter goes on to urge us to be people who seek peace. Jesus stated in the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the peacemakers". It troubles me greatly that so many Christians promote and speak well of the violence that is in our culture and in our world. today.
In my country, many of the most vocal supporters of guns are evangelical Christians. I just can't imagine Jesus having a God and guns rally at His local synagogue.
One of the catalysts that caused me to make the final break from the fundamentalist churches of my youth had to do with the issue of peace. When the first Gulf War was about to take place, the fundamentalist church my family was attending would not even pray for peace. I could not understand this at all. At that point, I broke with my family on church attendance, and went to a church where they prayed for peace in the world and where they stood up for reconciliation and against injustice in society.
Christians must be peacemakers. We should promote peaceful relationships in our families, with our friends, and in our neighborhoods. On a national and international level, we should be at the forefront of promoting and working for peace among people and nations.
Why should we do those things that Peter mentions? The Lord is watching us. One day, Jesus will come again, and we will have to give an account of how we lived for Him in this world. Let it be our desire to live for Him that we may hear Jesus say to us, "Well done thou good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of the Lord."
Next week, I will post the verses on Monday and a review of an animal book on Wednesday. The Weekend Sermon will be posted on Saturday, and we will continue our study in I Peter. May God bless you all. Amen.
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