Introduction
Zig Ziglar tells a story of a successful big city business man named Mr. B. who ends up being late to work one day because of traffic. In the process he misses an important phone call. Irritated at traffic, Mr. B. calls in one of his managers into his office and yells at him about some missing reports he needed YESTERDAY! And guess what....the manager leaves the office noticeably upset.
He stomps right past his secretary and closes the door. She rings into his office and tells him she has an urgent message. He snarls at her, “My door was closed! Can’t you see I’m busy? Leave me alone.” The secretary doesn’t know what hit her. Now SHE is upset and she spends the rest of the day stewing about it wondering what she did that was so wrong.
When she gets home she is still upset. She passes her 16 year old son’s bedroom. It is a grand mess. She hunts him down and finds him planted in front of the television set playing a video game. And she snaps. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you 1000 times, clean your room. Your grounded from electronics until your room is spotless.”
The teenager storms upstairs and heads to his bedroom. And guess who should cross his path but the family pet, "Fluffy" the cat. Without warning the teenager swings his foot back and lets’ fly. He gives Fluffy the cat a swift kick across the room. Fur flies as the cat skitters under the table wondering what it did that was so wrong.
Has the scene ever played out in your home? Zig Ziglar asks this question. He asks, “Wouldn’t it have been a lot easier on everybody if Mr. B went to the secretary’s home and kicked the cat himself?”
Common Ground
In this world, bad feelings tend to transfer. If you are like me, you have also been guilty of kicking the proverbial cat. I think its human nature that when things go from bad to worse to want someone to share in the experience with us. And if someone else needs to feel bad in the process so be it. So we each kick the family cat.
Scripture
As we continue our series, Living Out Salvation in a World That’s Suffering, the apostle Peter seems concerned about this tendency.
Turn with me to 1 Peter 3:8-12 as we look at this tendency and as we explore what we should do about it. Do you remember the context of Peter’s letter? Peter is writing to a group of Christians living in Asia Minor who have fled government sponsored persecution in Rome. The have lost family members, homes, and livelihoods. To put it succinctly, they have had the mother of bad days. And Peter urges them, “Don’t kick the cat.”
Listen to what he writes. Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. (3:8)
Illustration
When I hear, “In harmony”, I think of car trips with my family. My wife and my daughters like to sing. And God has blessed them with beautiful voices. Sometimes when they sing, one will keep the melody while the other drops to harmonize. It’s beautiful to hear.
If you are like me, songs with a harmony blended in are so much better than the melody alone. Two voices are better than one. But this isn’t always the case.
On our trip to Worlds of Fun, we had 14 teenagers in the van. 14 people could have made a beautiful choir. But there were on more than one occasion several different songs being sung. Rather than beautiful harmony, voices conflicted as different people vied for their song to be heard.
Peter is urging the believers in Asia Minor to live in harmony with one another. Don’t be different voices fighting for the airwaves. Instead, blend your voices together in a beautiful song. Good harmony requires those participating to know where the other singers have been and where they are going.
Peter isn’t talking about worship music though. A study of the original language reveals that the word “harmony” combines two words in the original language. The first word means “the same.” The second part means, “Understanding on an emotional level”
Peter is urging the church to have the same understanding of one another on an emotional level. It’s not a choice to simply try and get along. This interpretation only scratches the surface of what Peter is imploring the church in Asia Minor to do. Peter is urging Christians to be of one feeling toward one another. It’s not just a mind thing, although understanding is involved. He wants us each to understand the emotion or purpose behind the thought.
Illustration
Fathers, have you ever had one of your daughter’s have a bad day? She comes home from school distraught or crying. As a good father you listen, and you gather all the facts, and when you think you have heard enough of the facts you interject your sagely advice. You think to yourself, “This advice is REALLY GOOD!”
But then your daughter turns to you and stares and finally says, “Dad, you don’t get it. You still don’t understand.” Fathers, let me assure you, your daughter is not talking about facts. What she wants you to understand is her emotions, how she feels. She is reminding you that you need to try to understand where she is, not factually, but emotionally.
It’s the same urging that Paul is giving to a church in Asia Minor. Share the same emotional understanding. I suppose that’s why Peter uses feeling words after he says live in harmony with one another. Be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate. These feeling words protect the rich harmony and fellowship of the church. That fellowship is important.
Peter wants the church in Asia Minor that is hurting from outside pressure and persecution to draw together in understanding and purpose.
The church is having a bad day. He doesn’t want church members kicking the proverbial cat. So he urges them, “Be sympathetic” – Put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Make yourself stand in their place.
Do you know what the opposite of the word “sympathy” is? In light of the context of Peter’s letter, the opposite might be “Apathy”; not caring; indifference. The insidious thing about apathy is that it can seem innocent. It doesn’t do anything bad; it just doesn’t do anything at all; apathy ignores things; avoid things; let’s others handle the load. And it usually starts with a phrase. “I really don’t care.” And it’s so dangerous to understanding, compassion.
I know from my own life that in the midst of personal conflict and trouble it’s easy to throw our hands up in surrender and to say, “I don’t care”; “I don’t care about you”; “I don’t care what happens when ____________” And yet I think we all hope and pray that when the day is going bad that someone will understand and care about us, don’t we? Do we see the conflict?
As the church in a world that’s suffering, we are called to care for one another and understand one another on a deep intimate level as family.
That’s why Peter writes, “Love as brothers.”
Illustration
My brother and I used to fight one another. But if anyone messed with him, they found themselves messing with me too. My brother knew I would stand up and fight for him. My brother knows that if something happens to him and his wife that we have his back. We are family. And my brother has on more than one occasion demonstrated that he had my back as well. Love as brothers.
Be compassionate and humble. Compassion is having a fellow feeling for. It’s allowing our heart to ache when someone else’s heart aches. That’s compassion.
Then Peter mentions “be humble.” Do you find it strange that in this list of emotions, Peter gives a state of mind word? Humility is more a head thing – a decision rather than an emotion. Why humility? Because humility helps us place ourselves in right importance. Humility protects us from believing our emotions are the most important.
Let me illustrate from context. There would be those who heard this letter who would be tempted to say, “Yes, people should really think of my feelings first.” “I’ve lost my home and livelihood” “Think of me first.” There would have been others who were offering true hospitality who would eventually think “I’ve provided food and shelter to these people who have fled from Rome”; “I’ve really sacrificed” “Think of me first.”
Human nature doesn’t change without Jesus. I would guess that the same might be thought today. And I think Peter is suggesting that his readers, in humility, should consider the feelings of others above their own. He is urging them to meet the emotional needs of those who are hurting rather than the other way around. Compassion and humility work hand in hand to put us on the same page and the same mission. They put us in harmony. We understand where each other has been and where each other is going because we seek to do so.
Picture this situation again in light of the context of Peter’s letter. These are Christians who are hurting. There are many of them like the family cat who have been kicked. And they have run under the kitchen table wondering what they did wrong. Do we see how important harmony is to the healing that the church could provide in Jesus Christ?
We live in a world that is suffering from a curse; the curse of sin. People have bad days. And they too will be tempted to come home and kick the family cat. And they likely have been kicked as well. What if they found a people who sought to heal, to understand, and to restore rather than to harm?
Peter turns his attention this way when he writes in I Peter 3:9 “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”
The gut reaction is to fight fire with fire, evil with evil, insult with insult. We repay pain with pain. But to fight fire with fire, evil with evil, insult with insult is to continue the destructive curse of sin on the world; the curse that wants to wreck the most intimate of relationships and the curse that destroy lives. By repaying evil with evil and insult with insult, we simply PILE ON the suffering the world experiences because of sin.
Peter writes, instead of fighting fire with fire, we are to smother evil and insults with blessing. The blessing is Jesus Christ. How do I come to this conclusion? Listen to Peter’s words as he preaches in Jerusalem in Acts.
Acts 3:25b-26 (God) said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.’ 26 When God raised up his servant (context indicates this is Jesus), he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”
When we are insulted and evil is perpetrated upon us, instead of piling on the curse of sin by kicking the cat, we respond with the blessing we have, Jesus. We share Jesus. The cornerstone … The living hope … The one who guaranteed our inheritance that is being safely stored in heaven for us
And by sharing the blessing, we keep it. This only works in God’s economy that when something is shared something is kept. We share the blessing of Christ in order to keep it. Peter drives this point home with an O.T. Psalm.
1 Peter 3:10-12 -- For, “Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. 11 He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
Can I finish that Psalm for you? I think it’s important. Psalm 34:16-18 -- The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. 17 The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. 18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Do you feel crushed? Is your heart broken? Do you sometimes feel like the family cat wondering what you did wrong? God will soon rescue us and comfort us when we feel like we’ve been kicked. We can celebrate that. We may not understand the world’s motives but that doesn’t matter. God still fishes us out from under the table and gathers us up in his loving arms.
Application
As we consider the text today, I have to ask a question. Are we on the same page? Are we in harmony? Are we seeking to understand one another and to live like family? Or are we each fighting for the airwaves singing a different tune?
Can I be frank for a moment? This is not easy for me to do, but I don’t know if that is the case. I understand that every church has issues. Every church has issues because every church has sinful people in it. The Bible tells us we are all sinners, myself included. And as sinful people we cause problems. This is not a condemnation on this church.
But Dee and I have been here two full years now and we see a conflict that is unresolved. Rather than rich harmony, we see a conflict that continues largely based on a person’s age. (Old vs. young. Hymn lovers vs. contemporary praise song lovers. Formal church vs. casual church. Old guard vs. new pups.)
And we often blame the lack of harmony on this mysterious generation gap or we say we can’t change. And then we come to church, we look at people on the other side of the aisle, or up at the stage, and like that teenage girl says to her father, we say “You really just don’t understand me. You don’t get it.”
I know I have not been immune to participating myself. I’m pretty sure there are people who can even look at me and say, “John doesn’t understand.” And church, the conflict breaks my heart. But infinetly more important is it break Jesus’ heart. If you are that person that I have hurt, let me start off by saying, “I’m sorry.” And then let me give you a new pledge.
My Pledge:
* I pledge to personally own the conflict rather than excuse it. .
I will not use the generation gap as an excuse for not getting along; for not understanding.
I believe through the power of Christ, we can overcome the generation gap.
* I pledge from this day forward to try to understand your feelings; not just the facts.
I don’t want you to look at me and say, “You don’t understand.”
* I pledge to replace apathy with sympathy as I wear your shoes.
I want to walk with you rather than against you.
I will strike “I don’t care from my vocabulary.”
* I pledge to love the people of this church as my precious family
I want you to know I want you to be my brother; I want you to be my sister… In Christ.
Vision
What would happen if in humility before God, instead of trying to protect our own feelings we began to try to understand others feelings? Young or old? What would happen if we loved like brothers instead of like associates? Old guard or new pup.
What would happen if we struck “I don’t care” from our Christian vocabulary? What would happen if each of us turned away from apathy and towards sympathy and compassion for one another?
Decision
Today as we sing the hymn of decision, the decision I want you to consider is joining with me in the pledge.
