Sermon: Surviving the Drought by Being Submissive I Peter 3:8-12 September 22, 2002
I. Introduction
A. Weather Report
B. But it takes more to survive a drought then a few days of rain. It takes perseverance and change, lifestyle changes. We don’t know how long this drought is going to last. But in fact it is not about when the drought is going to end but about facing the reality of being in a drought and changing our practices, changing to get the most out of what we have. Changes that will be beneficial even if there is no drought. Changes that make sense. Changes in the way we do things like:
1) Turn the water off when you brush your teeth
2) Only run the dishwasher and washing machine when you have a full load. Don’t run the water to rinse your dishes, fill the sink with water and then rinse all the dishes in the same water.
3) Instead of letting water “run to get hot”, heat it up in the microwave
4) Make changes that reflect a new attitude about water and living in the face of a drought, changes that are just good common sense for responsible living anytime not just during a drought
C. Once again we find that life in this world imitates our spiritual lives. For whether we are in a spiritual drought or not we too need to make changes in our life to reflect a new attitude, an attitude of change that reflects the reality of living life out as a Christian changes that are just good common sense for living as God would have us to even in times of drought.
1) When people are going through difficult times, the meaning of life becomes tainted by a desire for less responsibility, a sense return to the good old days, a yearning for a life with no stress, a life where nothing is happening, a life that is boring and uneventful.
2) But the reality is that we live in a world that if full of sickness and desperate needs. Many are hungry, homeless, dressed in rags, diseased, and physically and emotionally ill. And to top it off millions are lonely, empty, and unfulfilled. They feel they have no significant purpose in life. They do not love or enjoy life: life is more routine drudgery and disappointment. People are tired of living life just getting by
3) We are tired of living this way. We want to enjoy life, instead of just enduring it.
4) This is the subject of I Peter. It is a message of how to enjoy life by loving it – even when you might in the midst of pain and suffering. It is a message about how to turn your life around and find peace, not just for the moment but for a life time, for an eternity.
D. Last week we stopped after the introduction into Chapter 2 and so today we find ourselves at the beginning of some rather, shall we say, controversial verses. Verses that many would argue are not about learning to love life but about oppression and inequality for they speak of submission. People submitting to the authorities of the land, slaves submitting to their masters, women submitting to their husbands, husbands submitting to their wives. All this submitting makes us uncomfortable, makes us feel as if our human rights have been violated. We speak the word, submission with distain and distaste.
1) In fact I tried to soften the word by titling my sermon “Surviving the Drought by Loving.” But that is not being true to this scripture and I must change the title to reflect the truth of God’s Word. And so my sermon this morning is “Surviving the Drought by Submitting One to Another.”
2) Peter is writing to those who are persecuted, suffering, who feel lonely abandoned, abused to those who are living in the midst of a drought of life and he is saying submit. Submit to one another.
3) We think of submitting as giving up all that a person is to be restricted and forced into things we don’t want. But that wasn’t the way Peter saw submission and he didn’t want his words to become misconstrued or misinterpreted and so he summaries what it means to submit in Chapter 3 by restating, rewording what he said, what he meant for people to understand about submitting
E. Turn with me now if you will to that summary. I Peter 3:8 begins this summary of Peter’s thoughts and goes through to the end of the chapter. Our focus passages this morning are verses 8-12. Read with me if you will.
II. Finally…in conclusion, to finish up, ultimately, to sum up! Peter summarizes what it means to submit with five distinct things:
A. First, by living in harmony with one another
1) The greek word here is homophrone. (Be careful I didn’t say what you thought I said, I said Homophrone.) Homo means together or alike and phrone means mind. Peter is exhorting Christians to submit by being like-minded, together in their thoughts and ways.
a) Identical twins find this easy. They seem to share the same thoughts, the same likes and dislikes, the same desires and longings. One can start a thought and the other can finish it. At times they don’t even need to say anything they already know what the other is thinking. They have the ability to communicate with out ever speaking a word. They are like-minded.
b) That’s what peter is calling us to be. Like-minded with one another.
c) I know, I hear you, you’re saying “Yeah preacher its easy for twins to be likeminded. They are genetically predisposed to think alike. But what does that have to do with us The church, our lives, are made up of all kinds of different people, with all sorts of backgrounds, lifestyles and opinions and ideas.”
d) As Christians we are called to be like-minded with the body.
i. I Corintihians 12:12, 13: “The body is a unit, though it is made of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free – and we were all give the one Spirit to drink.”
e) We are to be identical twins with Christ! Peter is calling us to live out our lives by saying, thinking, and doing the same things as Christ. And when we do them each of us will be like-minded, we will think and act as one. As God would have us to.
f) Imagine what it would be like if you and your spouse had the exact same goals, desires and longings in life. If you were so in tuned with each other that thought as one – no more disagreements, misunderstandings. What if we in the church thought as one mind, like minded. Thought only the thoughts that Christ would have us to think. Imagine what it would be like if our children were like minded with
g) What a blissful and happy life it would be. Peter is challenging us to be like-minded, to think like Christ so much so that there is no room for disagreement, and selfish intent. He is reminding us that there is enough disparity in the world that we don’t need to be fighting and in disagreement amongst ourselves. That we need the security and comfort of being like-minded with Christ.
B. Secondly, we are to be submissive by being sympathetic.
1) Peter was very careful with his words. He chose words that were unique and descriptive. “Sympathes” is not found anywhere else in the Bible, it is unique in that it relates back to the previous thought or statement. In one word Peter is saying if you are like-minded with someone or of the same body, you will feel the same pain and experience the same joy as that person.
2) To be sympathetic means to feel for others so much that you suffer with those who suffer, you weep with those who weep, you rejoice when others are honored, you understand the pressure that a leader is under when he has to lead, you hurt with those who are criticized and attacked; you grieve with the sorrows of others. And so you don’t tear them down, you don’t add to their burden and heart aches, you share in them.
3) There is a relatively new product on the market called a “Sympathy Suit.” It is designed to help men to be more sympathetic to the realities of pregnancy, the reality of what it is like to walk around with a 30 pound bowling ball sitting on diaphragm and bladder. ….the idea is a good one, however, I for one don’t think it begins to give a man a sense of what it is like to be pregnant.
4) But to be sympathetic means to put one another’s experience, situation or circumstances so much so that you experience it with them.
a) Gal. 6:2: “Bear one another’s burdens.”
5) Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ came to earth and humbled himself by “putting on” the presence of a humanity so that he could know what it was like to feel human pain and experience human life. Our attitude should be so like-minded with Christ that we seek to be in touch with the experiences of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
C. Third, we are to be submissive by loving as brothers
1) Peter again uses a word that is not found anywhere else in the Scripture, philadelphos. Though Greek, a word we are familiar with, you know the Home of the Eagles, Flyers, Phillies and 76ers, the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and the beef, onion and Swiss cheese sandwich. Philadelphia the City otherwise known as the city of what….Brotherly love.
2) Brotherly love. To love one another as we should love are own brothers. Notice I said should love our brothers. I mean I remember times when I wasn’t so sure I even liked my brother much less loved him. But there is something about being related, I can say something bad about my brother but you better not. Brotherly love is a love that says no matter what, I love you, no matter difficult it is or how difficult you are, you are still my brother and I love you.
3) I John 4:19,20: “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”
D. And so Peter continues to build on his thought, of relating one another in submission by calling us to his fourth point, we are to be submissive by being compassionate and humble.
1) Now this is an interesting word. Eusplagchonos (yoo-splangkh-nos) Eu means to be fit, strong, healthy and spalgchonos means bowels. So Peter is telling us to have strong bowels. I don’t think that means we need to use Pepto Bismal instead of grape juice for communion. He is saying we need to be have strong supportive emotions. You see the Bowels, as we have discussed before, in biblical age was considered to be the seat of emotion, passionate, deep emotions
2) It means to be extremely, excessively tenderhearted, sensitive and affectionate toward the needs of another means. Not by just being like-minded, experiencing the same thing as another, loving them as a brother but so moved and so in tune with another that you act in order to reach out to meet their needs with no concern for self importance or self elevation.
3) There is a legend of a man so much beloved and respected by the angels his saintliness that they asked God to bestow upon him special gift or talent. They were permitted to ask the man to choose which gift he wanted. Did he want to be a preacher, teacher? Did he want to demonstrate great love, kindness, or charity, walk on water, heal by the slightest touch? The man thought for a moment and said he was content and wanted nothing. But the angels persisted urging him to make some request and so he asked that he be able to do a great deal of good in the world without ever knowing it. Afterwards his shadow, when it fell behind him where he could not see it, had wondrous healing power, but when it was cast before him where he could see it, it had no such power. What an example of compassionate humility.
4) To give so unselfishly to others, so willingly so submissively without thought of elevating self.
E. And lastly, to react to adversity and adversaries with blessings. Vs. 9
1) It is so easy to want to get back at those who hurt and insult us, to treat them as they treated, I mean we all know the golden rule “do unto others as you would have them to do unto you,” They have treated us badly so that must mean they want us to do the same to them. We justify inappropriate unacceptable behavior when people do wrong to us.
2) If we are a young person growing up in a family, and our parents are harsh and unloving, it is easy for us to justify rebellion. Or justify our ill behavior If our husband, wife or mate hurts us, cheats on us responds in the wrong way to us, we justify ourselves to misbehave like them, to speak ill of them. If our government is unrighteous, we think we can justify a little cheating on our income tax. If our employer not fair in his business practices, in our compensation, we justify cutting the corner, taking longer lunch breaks, taking office supplies, using the phone or copier for personal business.
3) Peter is emphatically saying as Christians do not retaliate – do not return evil for evil- but bless those who strike at you. Not “bless them out” but bless them.
4) Bless them by showing them Christ through your reaction!
5) Don’t give them the opportunity to use your actions against the image of Christ. To allow them to point to you as a hypocrite, as a laughable example of Christ.
6) Find something commendable about them, speak well of them – do not tear them down in order build yourself up; pray for them and forgive them
7) What will they have to argue with you about, what will they be able to say bad about you if all you ever do is bless them with the kindness of Christ. Oh, I know – I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking, “Right! Even if we don’t do anything wrong they’ll find something to complain about and if they don’t they’ll make it up.
8) Have you ever been around someone who was saying the most outrageous things, who was saying something about someone that was so obviously wrong that it made the accuser look ridiculous.
9) Don’t give those who attack you persecute you, belittle you, ammunition – bless them with the Spirit of God – or as my momma would say “kill with kindness”
F. VS 10-12
1) Peter is quote Psalm 34. He is saying you want to love life, you want to see good days. You want to look on this day, this life and say “This has been a good day instead of saying life is a bummer.” Then live this life, in the realities of the drought of this world by lovingly submitting one to another. By being like minded, sympathetic, loving, compassionate, humble, and blessing those around you.
2) Loving submission can change things when nothing else can.
a) Aledia Hussine was 78. She had been smoking for 50 years. And for 50 years she has been trying to give up her harmful habit. But she had not been successful – that is until recently. She has now given up cigarettes, cigars and pipes. The secret? Leo Jansen. Leo is 79 and ast year he proposed to Aledia but refused to set the wedding date until she quit smoking. Says Aledia, “Will power never was enough to get me off the tobacco habit. Love did it.”
III. Closing
A. Will power, working harder, retaliating against the wrong done against you, complaining whining about the injustice of life, complaining that God has abandoned you in the midst the drought you are experiencing, won’t change a thing.
1) But lovingly submitting with the like-mindedness of Christ, by being sympathetic, loving, compassionate, humble and blessing those around you – won’t change your circumstances but it will change you!
