10-25-09 To Sum Up...

The last time I was with you

we finished a two week study

of Peter’s comments to husbands and wives.

And what we saw in that passage

may have surprised some of you.

It was not what I’d expected before I began my preparation for those studies.

But then that’s so often the way it is in our discovery of God’s truth -

we so often have to fight our way through 2000 years of accumulated religious sewage

and our own misguided assumptions

before we can hear what’s really being said.

And what Peter said to us about husbands and wives

was clearly designed to equip us with practical tools

for building a strong, healthy, growing marriage relationship.

And it shouldn’t have surprised us

to find that his comments had the ring of truth about them

because we know Peter was married

and we know that his wife traveled with him

and that what he shared was rooted in his own personal experience.

Back in my now very distant school days

I had a professor I deeply admired

who was fond of telling us, “If it doesn’t work at home, don’t export it!”

Sounds like simple advice, I know,

but his words have had more impact on what I offer you each week than you would ever know.

They have stayed with me through 40 years of Bible teaching

and have remained a constant personal test

of everything I share with you.

I know I sometimes fall short of my goal

to communicate clearly or accurately some principle I’ve seen in Scripture,

but I can assure you

it has been many years since I’ve attempted to teach anything

that I haven’t tested in my own life.

And Peter’s words come to us

with the same credibility.

And I can’t help but think

that Peter may not have been the easiest man to be married to.

He was definitely the blast-first-and-think-later sort of fellow my nature.

And to hear the instruction he offers now, near the end of his life,

is a powerful testimony

to the rebuilding work of the Spirit of God within him.

Remember where we were two weeks ago?

1PE 3:7 You husbands likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Now really, does that sound like the Peter we remember from the Gospels?

And it isn’t just because he’s older, you know.

Apart from the working of the Spirit of God within a person

we don’t really change.

In fact, the pattern is that the older we get

the more fixed in our ways we become.

Every year we live

it takes more effort, more determination, more commitment, more courage

to bring about real change in our lives.

And apart from God’s intervention

and His Spirit’s work within us

people simply become more of what they’ve always been as they grow older.

But when our God enters our life

He begins a reconstructive process

that, if we will trust Him,

truly will break the power of lies that have kept us in bondage.

And Peter is such a great example

of the kind of rebuilding work God seeks to do within us.

Peter remained perfectly PETER,

charging through with a boldness and fearlessness

that was at the core of who God had designed Peter to be.

But the Peter we see in this letter

has a sensitivity to the people near him

that we never saw in Simon the fisherman.

He has learned

that his words and his actions

have both the power to heal and the power to crush,

and that he can use his strength

either to overpower and dominate others

or to guard and protect them where they are weak, or in pain, or confused.

Strength of personality

can be used either to heal or to destroy those around him.

And the Peter we meet in this letter

clearly has a longing to bring healing and protection.

And this becomes abundantly clear in what Peter says next.

Immediately after sharing with us

his closed-circuit communications

to both husbands and wives,

he steps back and says, “To sum up...”.

His clearly stated intent

is to give us a concise picture

of what our relationships with one another will look like

if we have correctly heard the instructions he’s just given us

and then applied them to our lives.

And let’s take a look at that picture.

1PE 3:8-9 To sum up, let all be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit; not returning evil for evil, or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.

And right there is such a powerful picture

of the rebuilding work of God in this man...let all be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit...

This is Peter proclaiming

what forms the very heart of the Good News of God,

and yet the one thing

we find it hardest to learn

and easiest to forget,

that the ultimate proof of our faith

is not found in what we say

or even in what we claim to believe,

but rather it is found in how we relate to the people in our life,

one relationship at a time.

The primary focus of his words, of course,

is in the marriage relationship - let all be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit.

But the broader application

is found in every relationship we encounter each day.

And I need to tell you

that when I reached this point in my preparation for today

I got stuck.

I didn’t get stuck because I had any confusion

about what Peter was asking us to do,

or because I was unclear about why he was asking us to do it.

Both of those are obvious.

Let’s start with the what.

He’s asking us to make five specific types of choices

both with our marriage partner if we’re married

and also with every other significant relationship in our life.

The first choice is that we choose to be harmonious.

And let me just say

that I am certain all five of these

come directly out of Peter’s own life experience.

I’m convinced of that in part

because four of these five

are unique to his letters -

no one else uses these words or calls us to these goals.

This word harmonious means to be agreeable.

It’s the opposite of contentious.

It’s the opposite of that all too common compulsion

to prove that you’re right.

Peter is telling us

that when we walk in the door

or when our mate walks in the door

our goal should be

to make those choices in the relationship

that will create harmony.

And do you think that is a small thing?

If so, then you do not understand what Peter is saying.

I do very little marriage counseling

mostly because I’m really bad at it.

I have neither the skills nor the training

to know how to help couples rebuild a damaged marriage,

and when asked

I refer struggling couples to others who are better qualified to help.

But having said that,

I will say that I can spot the characteristics

of a disintegrating relationship

and one of the first huge signs

is a compulsion on the part of one or both partners

to catch and correct their mate in spoken errors.

“Last Tuesday evening we went to a show that...”

“No, no , dear I believe we went to that show Wednesday.”

“No, I’m sure it was Tuesday because...”

“No, you’re mistaken, I’m certain it was Wednesday because...”

Folks, WHO GIVES A RIP?!!!

And of course, when those type of exchanges begin

it has nothing to do with the actual facts.

It has everything to do with seeking dominance,

and control,

and power in the relationship.

And as long as those goals are in place

the relationship itself will rot from the inside

as each person reinforces their walls against the next attack

and watches for the next opportunity

to prove the other person wrong.

When Peter calls us to bring an attitude of harmony to a relationship

he’s telling us that our goal is not to win or to dominate,

our goal is to protect the other person where they are weak, or wounded, or confused, or afraid.

What we hunger for most in marriage,

and in every significant relationship we form

is the security that comes from knowing that here we are safe,

safe enough to allow some of the pain or confusion or ignorance or fear to come out.

What Peter is asking us to do, of course,

is simply to model our relationships with one another

after God’s relationship with us.

When we come to Him

and He comes to us

what does He bring?

GAL 1:3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ...

ROM 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

ROM 5:1 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...

And when our Lord calls us to learn how to love one another

He offers us the perfect pattern for that learning process

through His own relationship with us,

and then asks us, well... JOH 15:12 "... that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

No condemnation...no games...no attacks...no concern about who wins or who loses

or whether the show was on Tuesday or Wednesday,

or whether it was 10 miles or 20 miles,

or 3 years ago or 4 years ago that uncle Jake came to visit.

But it only happens if we choose to make it happen

because we choose to bring this goal into the relationship...let all be harmonious.

The second goal Peter gives us

is that we are sympathetic.

And this one takes us beyond just being harmonious.

This one requires us to enter the other person’s life,

to care enough about them

to listen and keep listening

until we can hear where the pain is.

It requires us to see life through the other person’s eyes,

and then allow ourselves to feel what they feel.

And that will only happen

if we can offer the other person

a relationship in which they feel safe enough to let us in.

Every one of us here this morning

are carrying around with us

some areas of emotional pain -

things we don’t know how to fix,

things that terrify us,

things we’re even afraid to look at

because we don’t know what to do with the feelings that come with them.

And we also all have a lifetime of relationships

in which we know the people around us are so bound up in themselves

that they simply don’t care what we feel or where we hurt,

or if they do care

it’s only so that they can then use our pain against us.

But Peter is calling us

to grow in a whole new way of relating to one another,

choosing to take our eyes off of ourselves long enough

so that we can see what’s going on in the other person

and then go through it with them.

And the remarkable thing about sympathy

is that it has the power to heal

without fixing anything.

Sympathy has nothing to do with offering answers

or fixing what’s broken.

It has everything to do with telling the other person

with our words and with our attitude

that, whatever they’re going through,

they will not have to go through it alone.

And I’ll tell you, there is an incredible fringe benefit to this kind of compassion,

one that changes the quality of our life experience forever.

You see, once another person has allowed us into their pain,

once we have succeeded in creating a level of trust with them

that gives them the courage to let us in,

and then they have found us trustworthy with that pain,

and once we’ve gone through it with them

it creates a depth of friendship

unlike anything else we’ll ever experience in life.

And at the same time

it has a way of validating our existence,

telling us that our being here has made a difference,

allowing our spirit to rest in the assurance

that we are finding and fulfilling the calling given to us by our God.

Of course the opposite is true, too.

If they have taken the risk of letting us in

and then have found out we are less than trustworthy with what they’ve shared,

or far worse, if we have used what they’ve shared to give us power or dominance in the relationship,

or even if we have responded by simply not caring,

it will create barriers in the relationship that are sometimes impossible to overcome.

To be sympathetic is to care enough

to share their pain.

And just one more comment here before we move on.

This kind of soul-to-soul communication never just happens,

not even within the marriage relationship.

Those marriage vows never, in themselves,

create deep emotional trust between a husband and wife.

It takes time, and courage, and risk-taking in marriage

just as it does in any other growing friendship.

And it will only happen

if you choose to build regular times of honest communication

into your life together.

As tragic as it is,

it is not at all uncommon for a husband and wife

to look at one another after 20 or 30 or 40 years of marriage

and realize they are emotional strangers,

or even worse - emotional adversaries

because they removed emotional compassion from the relationship many years ago.

Well, Peter mentions three other qualities as well,

and I at least want us to touch on them before we completely run out of time.

The third one he mentions is brotherly.

And with this Peter is reminding us

that within the family of God

the rules really are different because it’s family.

It means the relationship is always more important than making a profit

if those two goals are in conflict.

It means the relationship is more important

than winning the debate or proving we’re right and they’re wrong.

And I means we are called to protect and guard and care for one another

at a level that simply does not happen outside of the family of God.

The fourth goal given to us by Peter

is that of our being kindhearted.

This is the only one of these five goals

that’s mentioned anywhere else in Scripture.

Paul uses this same word in Ephesians 4:32 when he writes,

And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

That phrase that’s translated tender-hearted

is the same word used by Peter when he calls us to be kindhearted.

And Paul’s words make clear

at least part of what it means.

It means we choose not to take into account a wrong against us.

It means we choose to forgive.

We are going to fail one another.

Sometimes the failures are willful -

because our flesh takes over,

or our we’re tired,

or we’re hurting ourselves,

or we completely misread the situation.

And sometimes the failures are totally unintended,

and maybe we’re even unaware of them

until we discover the other person’s response.

I learned a very long time ago

that being a pastor means that you automatically inherit

everybody else’s pastoral expectations of you.

And I also learned a long time ago

that what that means

is that I have the potential of disappointing every one of you

because there will be places where I fail to measure up

to your pastoral expectations.

And there have been more than a few people during the past quarter of a century

who, when I have failed to meet their expectations,

when I have failed them in some way,

have walked out and never returned.

But to be tender-hearted

is to choose to bathe our relationships with one another in forgiveness,

letting go of the expectations

and then accepting with gratitude what our Lord gives us through one another

while not demanding from them

what they are not able to deliver.

And of course the vital necessity of that approach in the marriage relationship

is essential to the extreme.

Nowhere are we more vulnerable to a mental list of expectations

and nowhere are they potentially more destructive

than between a husband and wife.

And Peter’s final relationship goal is crucial here

as he calls us to be humble in spirit.

To be truly humble in spirit

is to choose to honor the other person above ourselves,

to seek to honor them

rather than demanding that they honor us.

It means we let go of our determination to win, to rule, to control.

And when we began this morning

I told you that when I came to this list

I ran into major problems from a teaching perspective.

It wasn’t because I didn’t understand what the words meant.

We’ve just spent the past 20 minutes

looking closely at what they mean.

And it wasn’t because I didn’t understand

why Peter wants these qualities in our relationships with one another.

The why is obvious.

To live in a marriage relationship

or in a church fellowship

where those involved are harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit

is as good as it gets on this earth.

It provides us with a truly safe place, a protected place

in the middle of a world that is hostile to the extreme.

But the reason I ran into trouble

is because at their core

all five of these qualities

are not so much actions as they are heart attitudes we bring to our relationships.

And in more than 30 years of Bible teaching

I’ve simply never found an effective way to teach anyone into an attitude.

It is a work that only the Spirit of God can accomplish within us,

which in the end

is the way it is suppose to be

because it keeps me utterly dependant upon the working of the Spirit of God in each of us.