you to turn with me in your Bibles to 1st Peter chapter 3. 1st Peter chapter 3. Our passage of focus for tonight's message is going to be verses 8 and 9 as we pick up from where y'all ended last week in your ongoing study of the book of 1st Peter. 1st Peter chapter 3 verses 8 and 9 will be our passage of study tonight. Please follow along with me as I read our passage as we kick off our time together in the Word of God. To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind-hearted, 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. This is the inerrant, inspired, and infallible word of the living God. May he write its eternal truths upon our hearts this evening. It was around the summertime of 64 AD when the experience of being a Christian within the Roman Empire would radically change for the next 200 years. For roughly the first 30 years after Jesus Christ ascended into the kingdom of heaven, life had been fairly easy for first century Christians. Although we read in the book of Acts about how men like Peter, John, Barnabas, and Paul were heavily persecuted by the Jewish religious leaders for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in their midst and throughout Jerusalem, the broader consensus and popular opinion throughout the Roman world was that Christianity was merely an obscure offshoot branch of Judaism. Essentially, it was viewed by many within the Roman Empire that the Christians had their own slice of the pie, as it were, in how they understood the Old Testament, and they just simply differed with the Jewish religious officials on some of the finer details of their faith. Sure, it was bizarre to the ordinary Roman citizen that these Christians believed that a man claiming to be God had been raised from the dead, but it was also strange to the Romans that the Jews rejected the pantheon of Roman gods and religious customs that they promoted throughout the empire as a whole. So for about the first 30 years after Christ's resurrection and ascension into heaven, although Judaism and Christianity were both seen as vastly different religions than that of which was being promoted within the Roman Empire at large, there was still very little conflict between Romans and Christians, respectively. But then we get to the early 60s, and suddenly everything changed for the Christians' experience in the Roman world. Historians have observed that shortly after Nero Caesar's rise to emperor in Rome, a severe wildfire engulfed the city in the summer of 64 AD. This wildfire left roughly three quarters of the city in complete destruction and many citizens who survived the wildfire quickly speculated that Nero himself was the culprit in organizing the wildfire so that he could install massive renovation projects throughout the empire at large. Nero himself was after all obsessed with such architectural projects. But in order to shift the blame from himself and his political office, Nero quickly declared that it was actually none other than those strange, bizarre Christians who had started the fire in order to pose a threat to the Romans' rule over this first century world. And it made sense over time to the majority of secular Roman citizens living in the empire at that time. After all, those Christians were said to have their own king and their own allegiance to a man they claimed to have been raised from the dead and now ruling over the entire created universe. So for the first time in 30 years, the Roman Empire began to see this so-called religious cult called Christianity as a legitimate threat to their empire's well-being and survival. What were the consequences of this transformation of thinking by the Roman Empire? Well, as we look at church history and examine in the context of our book of study tonight, 1 Peter as a whole, it's clear that the consequences could not have been any more severe for the first century church. Christians would begin to be thrown into prison for their faith. Christians would begin to be fed to animals in Roman coliseums for entertainment because of their faith. Christians would begin to be used as human torches in the Roman government officials' gardens during royal dinner parties because of their faith. In a nutshell, Christians would now come to truly know what Jesus meant by the cost of discipleship, as described in Luke chapter 14, verses 25 to 35. I'd encourage you to read that after our time together tonight for further reflection. But it is with this backdrop in mind, this historical context in mind, that we can truly appreciate what the Apostle Peter had to say to Christians who were suffering incredible hardships as they read this letter from 1 Peter together. in the immediate context of our passage of focus tonight, we see that Peter has just spent the first seven verses of chapter three outlining the ways that husbands and wives are to interact with each other within the covenant of marriage. And he did this in order to demonstrate to his first century readers and us, by extension, reading in the 21st century, how God is most glorified in a marriage that is established on how he desires for it to function. In fact, most Bible commentators see this portion of 1 Peter being in a section of the letter that most specifically deals with how Christians are to bear witness to the reality of their faith by conducting themselves in a way that most honors their Lord and Savior while being in the midst of intense suffering and persecution from the world around them. In other words, we're right in the middle of a section of Peter's argument. where he is instructing us in how we are to interact and demonstrate to this sin-cursed, fallen world about what it truly means to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we'll see in our study tonight, and as you can tell through interacting with 1 Peter at large from start to finish, is that regardless of what the world tells us, Regardless of how the world treats us, we are to always conduct ourselves in a way that is in keeping with how God has told us in his word how he would have us to live as his children and as ambassadors for his kingdom. So with this perspective in mind, as we now come off of the heels of Peter's instructions regarding husband and wife relationships in verses one through seven of 1 Peter chapter three, let's begin to unpack verses eight and nine for the remainder of our time together this evening. We're only gonna be in two verses as we interact with 1 Peter chapter three. I have entitled these two verses Guidelines for Godly Character. Guidelines for Godly Character for you note takers that might be here this evening. In these two verses, it is my prayer that we will be able to take away at least two universal observations that we can directly apply to our lives as we leave here tonight. The first observation that I want us to see is the illustration of godly character. And the second observation that I want us to see from our text tonight is the goal of godly character. The illustration of godly character and the goal of godly character. These will be our working headings as we move forward to see how Peter's instructions contained in these verses can inform our Christian walk as we leave this place tonight to witness to the Lord and the context that he has providentially placed us into. At the very beginning of verse 8, Peter ties together what he's about to say in verses 8 and 9, and he connects it with what he has just said in the previous 7 verses. He says, to sum up, or finally, in conclusion, In other words, what we have coming in verses eight and nine is what Peter is going to say in providing a concluding assessment of what he's already said within our context, within our current segment of verses in this passage that we're gonna be studying tonight. And another important thing that we need to know as we study our two verses is who is Peter intending to address in verses eight and nine? He writes, all of you. You see, Peter has just given specific instructions to husbands regarding their contact towards their wives in verse 7. He's just given specific instruction to wives regarding their conduct and interaction with their husbands in verses 1 through 6. And now he wants all of his readers, regardless of their gender and marital status, to pay attention to what he's about to instruct in this portion of his letter. This is for us, too, as we come to the Word of God tonight. Another way of summarizing what we're about to study, Peter is basically saying to his first century audience, to everybody who is reading this letter, now and for all times, by God's providence in preserving the scriptures for us, in light of everything that I just stated, here is my instruction for you to be able to supremely glorify God in your conduct before a watching world as his people. And what we'll see in these two verses is that Peter's going to provide us with six behaviors that he wants his audience to put on display in their day-to-day lives, as well as two behaviors that he wants his readers to abstain from, to prevent from carrying out in their day-to-day lives. Let's take a look at them together and see how these six behaviors collectively provide us with an illustration of godly character. We see in verse 8 that Peter instructs his first century audience to be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind-hearted, humble in spirit, and in verse 9, to give a blessing or to be a blessing to others. These are the characteristics that are to define God's people of every age and their interactions amongst themselves as well as their interactions amongst those they encounter in the culture around them. That is, you and I, friends, we are called as the people of God to be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind-hearted, humble in spirit, and a blessing to others. Now in the interest of time, I won't be able to really exhaust each of these terms for us tonight, but I do want to still provide us with a 30,000 foot flyover as to what each of these characteristics actually mean and why Peter desires us to model them in our lives. We'll start with the term harmonious. This term harmonious comes from a Greek word that is elsewhere translated in the New Testament as having a unity of spirit. In fact, if you're reading in translations such as the ESV tonight, you'll see that's actually the rendition that we have in our English Bibles. As one commentator puts it, being harmonious means to share the same thoughts and attitudes with other Christians about what they believe and how they should live in light of what they believe. Moreover, the characteristics that we see as sympathetic and kind-hearted in our text tonight, they're close parallels to one another. They are behaviors that describe one who has a genuine care and concern for the needs of others. Brotherly here refers specifically to the love that Christians are called to have for one another as members of the body of Christ. But this could also extend to a universal application. In other words, to love your neighbor as yourself. To treat them, as it were, with this brotherly, this kind-hearted love, this genuine care and concern for them as your neighbor and fellow image bearer. And being humble in spirit, quite simply, is to have a low view of yourself and your own preferences, to have a higher view of that of others' preferences, others' best interests, and then an even higher view of God's interests and God's preferences. How do you stack up tonight? How do you stack up? Would those in your lives describe you in this fashion? Now, before I move on here to consider what it means to be a blessing to others and how we ought to view these six characteristics, these six illustrations of godly character, and how are we to interact with those characteristics in light of the other two that we see in this text that Peter instructs us not to model in our personal conduct as the people of God. Before we get there, I want to provide one more additional application, another additional piece for us to consider tonight. Something that is here in this text that is crucial to rightly understanding it. Do you see how these behaviors build off of one another? Do you see how they are all connected and related to one another? It's almost like a domino effect. It's almost like an interconnected chain of behaviors. You see, if one is humble in spirit, if they have a higher view of God and others above themselves, then they're going to naturally be somebody who reflects brotherly and sisterly love to other Christians within the body of Christ. They're going to naturally overflow in compassion and care for others. They will be naturally sympathetic and kind-hearted towards one another. Because if they are humble in spirit, if they have a high view of who God is and what God requires of His people, and what God requires to please Him in our day-to-day life, in our day-to-day interactions with others, then they're going to want to see others how God sees them. They're going to want to see others how they're supposed to regard their neighbor in a love and a genuine desire to treat them as God would have them to be treated. They're also going to be willing to submit whatever personal selfish desires they might have within their own hearts in order to put the better interest of others before themselves. And of course, when a gathering of Christians, like we are this evening, have committed themselves to modeling those behaviors, those six illustrations of godly character, when we have committed ourselves to modeling those within the context of the local church, they will inevitably have a harmony and unity in their midst. You want unity? You want like-mindedness? You want closeness with your brothers and sisters in Christ? Then we need to be a people defined by these characteristics. And friends, there might not be a more powerful testimony to the reality of our faith and to the reality of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ's work within us, then when we have unity and harmony within the church as the people of God, what a testimony that can be to a watching world. Well, as we move on in our study to consider verse 9, as I mentioned before, Peter specifies two actions, two distinctives, that should not characterize the people of God and their interactions amongst themselves and their interactions within the world around them. He does this by way of contrasting those two actions with the sixth behavior that I previously alluded to as being descriptive of God's people. Let's take another look at the beginning of verse 9 and read Peter's exact words in our English Bibles. Peter writes, don't return evil for evil or insult for insult, but give a blessing instead. What we see Peter doing in this contrast, illustrated between verses 8 and 9, is assuming that his audience recognizes that to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, to be a Christian, to be a lover of God, is to, as is elsewhere described in the New Testament, live in a manner that is worthy of the calling that you have been called. that is upon us being saved, upon coming to surrender our lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ as our Savior and Master, we are at that very moment empowered by the Holy Spirit. He comes to dwell within us. He comes to enable us and empower us to conduct ourselves in a manner that is progressively becoming more and more like Jesus Christ Himself. This process of Christians becoming more like Jesus Christ in their character is what theologians call sanctification. Sanctification is a very crucial word to add to your vocabulary as you study God's Word and consider what it means to be His adopted son or daughter in Christ. This idea of sanctification is a process accomplished by the Holy Spirit's work within a believer that begins at the very moment that one is saved and is completed at either the moment they die and enter into God's presence or at the moment in which the Lord Jesus Christ returns to earth to judge the living and the dead. So as you and I are being sanctified, as you and I are being further conformed into the likeness and character of Jesus Christ by the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, we will come to gradually grow in our capability to model those six characteristics discussed in the text that we have before us tonight. We're going to grow also in our ability to not repay evil for evil. or to not trade insult for insult when we are persecuted in this life or treated poorly by our neighbors. Essentially, another way of what Peter's saying is this. Take a look around you. Don't you see how the Romans are treating us and treating one another? They insult, they commit injustice, they commit wickedness without any regards towards pleasing God, and they are committed to tearing others down so that they can just exalt themselves in the place of others, over others at all costs. How true is this model in our own day by those who do not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? Do you see them at school? Are they in your family? Do you see it on social media? But perhaps even more tragically, friends, is how often is this said about you and me in our own lives as professing followers of Jesus Christ? Friends, the central message of tonight, if you don't take anything else from tonight's message, if you don't take anything else from what Peter's trying to emphasize to us in this portion of his letter, is regardless of how the world treats us, whether as kind neighbors or harmful adversaries, whether they allow us to peacefully live in this world as followers of Jesus Christ, or they want to burn us alive at the stake for our faith, We are nevertheless called to model the same character and be the same people, no matter what circumstances come into our lives, because we are called to be God's ambassadors in this world, as we see in texts like 2 Corinthians 5.20, and as Jesus has commissioned us in his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.13-16, we are to be the salt of the earth and a light to the world, bearing the witness to the gospel and kingdom of God. That is your commission, that is my commission as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. No matter what our life circumstances might be, you and I are called to model Christ-like character out of a desire to please God and out of a desire to witness on behalf of God in this fallen world that we dwell in. So Peter reminds us in our text of study tonight, let us not return evil for evil or insult for insult, but instead let us strive to be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind-hearted, humble in spirit, and a blessing to others. And now briefly, as we prepare to wrap up our lesson for this evening, I want us to consider how the second half of verse 9 illustrates to us the goal of God the character, the goal In the second half of verse 9, the Apostle Peter writes that we were called for the very purpose that we might inherit a blessing. What is the goal? What is the purpose behind these guidelines for godly character that we find in 1 Peter 3, verses 8 and 9? Why does this matter? Is this just something that was relevant to the Christians 2,000 years ago? Is it just something that, you know, is just for some Christians who reach a higher level of spirituality or devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ? What's the point? Friends, this matters to us. because our efforts in honoring God with our character is a means that he uses to help us as his people, as Christians, to shift our eyes away from ourselves and the hardships of this life in order to remind us that this world is not our home. Rather, our inheritance, our joy, our hope, our purpose, as the people of God is that we will someday dwell in the house of the Lord forever in heaven and worship Him with a people that Jesus Christ has redeemed from every tribe, tongue, and nation. But let's make no mistake about it, friends. It's very easy for us to lose sight of what God's purposes are for us when things in our lives just don't seem to be going how we would like for them to go. It's so easy for us to keep our eyes fixated on the world that we live in and to think about how hard things can be for us. A loved one passes away, gets sick, you flunk a test at school, you get rejected by the girl or the guy that you like. It's so easy to lose track of a proper perspective as how we are to think and live as Christians in this world. Let's take a look at the First Century Church in light of this. The First Century Church, as I mentioned in our introduction, they suffered incredible trials in the Roman Empire under the tyranny of Nero Caesar, and they could have very well lost hope. I mean, getting fed to animals in Colosseums for sport, getting burned at the stake at Roman at garden parties, at being put on display as a spectacle, being mocked in the courtyards and in the marketplaces for your faith, it could have been very easy for them to have given up on the Christian faith and to have sought to return evil for evil, insult for insult, or seek to get revenge for the horrible ways that they've been treated by their neighbors. That would have been natural. That would have been their fleshly, sinful inclination. And friends, you and I are going to be tempted to respond that way. when we're mocked for our Christian faith, when we're made fun of by our classmates and coworkers. But by the grace of God, those first century Christians that Peter wrote to were able to endure their hardships and keep their eyes on the Lord through perhaps what was the darkest period of time in the first century church. The question becomes, as we wrap up our study tonight, how did they do it? Or better yet, how can we in 2019 persevere through our own trials when everything seems to be falling apart around us and we seem to have absolutely no reason or hope for thinking positively about our future? How can we endure? How can we take this text and apply it to our lives? Friends, it is because of the grace, love, and faithfulness of our Heavenly Father. It's because He has promised us an eternal blessing, an eternal inheritance made ours on the basis of the person and work of Jesus Christ, that you and I can endure through our hardships and persecutions. That you and I can remain faithful to the end of our lives on this earth as followers of Christ. You see, friends, when somebody comes to know God through faith and the person and work of Jesus Christ, God then becomes their greatest good. He becomes their ultimate source of fulfillment, their ultimate desire to live their lives for. When somebody comes to saving faith in Jesus Christ, even the worst of your earthly circumstances will not cause you to break in your faith or fall away from your faith because we belong to a God that will never let us go. We belong to a God that will never let us go. In texts such as John 6, verse 39, we see how Jesus himself promises, he promises that God will protect and preserve his people and their faith, no matter how hard or how difficult their lives become. Because we belong to a God who will hold us fast until the end. Those of you who may be here tonight who are Christians, you know in your heart that you are a follower of Jesus Christ. I'm not sure where some of you come tonight, what you might be going through in your personal lives, but let that be your constant focus and let that be your ultimate source of joy when you face the hardships, trials, and circumstances that will inevitably come into your life at some point. You can have hope because you have a Father who is in heaven, who will hold you fast in your faith, continue to conform you into the likeness of Jesus Christ Himself by the powering of the Holy Spirit dwelling within you, and He will enable you to continue to become the man or woman that God is calling you to be. Although He might not ever remove you from your hard circumstances, you can rest in the knowledge that He will be with you every step of the way, upholding you by His mercy and grace. And furthermore, may we never forget that the Word of God promises that for every Christian, for every follower of Jesus Christ, God is working all things in your life for your eternal good and for His glory. there is not a better truth that we can cling to as Christians tonight. And it is this incredible hope that has sustained the church in every generation throughout history. On the other hand, those of you who may be here tonight and know that you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, For those of you who have not repented of your unbelief and sinful rebellion against God and continue to refuse to surrender your life to the Lordship of your Holy Creator, I plead with you this evening to turn away from your sin and repentance and cry out to God in faith to save you this evening. Romans 10 9 promises that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, then you will be saved. love to yourself, tonight's message can begin to apply to your life. Because if you're not in Christ, you don't have the Holy Spirit of God. And without the Holy Spirit of God, there's not a single sinful human being who could ever begin to truly model the characteristics that we just studied together in our passage this evening. And as we were taught in places such as John chapter three, as I just referenced, only through Jesus Christ, only through salvation can you not only come to possess the Holy Spirit within you, but it's only through Christ Jesus that you can escape the wrath of God and an eternity of punishment in hell that you were deserving of because of your sins committed against your Holy Creator. I plead with you, please do not leave this place tonight. until you have made things right with your Creator, if you be outside of Christ this evening. On the day that Christ returns, or at the time of your earthly death, there won't be a second chance. Philippians 2, 10 and 11 teaches us that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord when He returns to judge the living and the dead. Be sure that on that day you are bowing before him and making that confession as his friend and not in terror as his enemy. Let us now close our time in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us the privilege of having your word in order that we might know you and know how to live a life that is pleasing in your sight. We pray that we will grow in our ability to model these characteristics, these guidelines for godliness in our daily lives so that we can bear witness to your kingdom before a watching world. I also pray for anybody here tonight who does not know you, Lord, help them to see that it is only through Jesus Christ alone that they can be accepted by you and be the men and women that you call them to be as your image bearers. May they repent of their sin. and place their complete trust in Jesus Christ's perfect life, substitutionary death on the cross, and bodily resurrection for the forgiveness of their sins. We commit all of our needs and the rest of our time together this evening to your perfect care. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.