Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:08] This is Rick. Welcome back to the Nomad Pastor Podcast.
[00:00:11] Hey. This week we're going to jump into the third episode in the series on First Peter. We're going to talk about First Peter, Chapter three.
[00:00:22] The last two episodes were First Peter, Chapter one, and First Peter, Chapter two. And in chapter two, we talked about living stones and that we are placed by God right where he wants us.
[00:00:37] It talks about how we shouldn't become bitter when our life isn't what we think it should be, or people treat us unfairly, or they're not treating us how we want to be treated.
[00:00:51] So if you haven't listened to those again, you should go back and listen to them. And then we're going to jump into chapter three now, because this week, chapter three gets a little bit personal.
[00:01:01] And Peter's going to talk about marriage and about how to treat people who are hard to live with and about the suffering that might come for doing what's right instead of doing what's wrong.
[00:01:16] And in this chapter, I think he's going to give us what I think is one of the most quoted verses in the New Testament about hope.
[00:01:23] So whatever relationships you got going on right now, whether it's a husband or a wife or an ex or a roommate or it's your sponsor or you're sponsoring somebody, somebody you're trying to make peace with, I think this chapter's got something that you need to hear, so I just want to dig into it.
[00:01:41] So as Peter opens chapter three, in this opening, he's talking to husbands and wives.
[00:01:49] Now, I recognize that not everybody who's listening might be married. You might not be married, right?
[00:01:58] And some of you have been going through marriages or you have been through marriages that either are ending or have ended. And a lot of times they end bad. And let's just be honest, because things don't end because they're good.
[00:02:11] Or maybe you're going through relationships right now that you're not proud of.
[00:02:16] So I'm not going to skip this section, because even if you're not married right now, the principles apply to every relationship where somebody close to you isn't where you want them to be spiritually, or they aren't where you are, right? And so we have to hear these things.
[00:02:39] And so verse one and two, Peter jumps in and he's telling wives that if their husbands aren't walking with God, that they can be won over without a word, but by the wife's behavior, by her purity and respectful conduct.
[00:03:01] So let's just think about that for A second if we just flip that around. Because I think it applies the other direction, too.
[00:03:09] It applies to all of us. In any relationship, sometimes the most powerful thing we can do for somebody we care about isn't having another conversation, not another lecture, not another attempt to convince them.
[00:03:28] It's how you live your life.
[00:03:30] It's the difference that they can see in you without you ever saying a word.
[00:03:39] And I think that's hard for us to recognize sometimes because we want so badly for people to get it, for people to be. To just feel the love. I want so badly for people to feel the love that I feel from Christ.
[00:03:57] And I don't understand how they can't recognize it, how they can't see it.
[00:04:07] But another conversation and another lecture isn't going to help.
[00:04:11] Just live your life and let them see it.
[00:04:17] You know, I think about people whose families wrote them off years ago.
[00:04:23] You know, I see it a lot at the Nashville Rescue Mission or ministering to the homeless.
[00:04:31] And frankly, I see it a lot in the biker community sometimes where their club brothers are their family. And because of choices they've made, their families wrote them off.
[00:04:42] They stopped believing anything people say. Right?
[00:04:47] And the thing that started to turn that around wasn't some big speech or some big apology tour.
[00:04:56] It was time.
[00:05:00] Time that those people started living differently, showing up differently, being consistent in a way that they had never been consistent before.
[00:05:12] When Peter says, without a word, that's what he's pointing at.
[00:05:19] Without a word, you can change people's mind and perception of you.
[00:05:25] And as we move to verse three and four, it talks about not letting your adornment by be merely external things, but the hidden person of the heart, a gentle and quiet spirit which is precious in God's sight.
[00:05:44] So I want to be.
[00:05:48] I want to be careful because I think this gets misused sometimes.
[00:05:53] You see, this isn't about being a doormat or having no voice. And I think that word gentle here is closer to.
[00:06:02] To strength under control.
[00:06:07] See, gentle is not weakness.
[00:06:10] Gentle is a strength that doesn't have to prove itself by being loud or aggressive.
[00:06:18] But I think when some people hear that, they're like, I'm not going to be a doormat. I'm not going to be treated this way.
[00:06:25] But that's not what it's saying. It's saying, strength under control.
[00:06:29] See, that's a quality that is very precious to God in both men and women.
[00:06:36] And even though Peter here is specifically addressing wives, that's not what he's saying.
[00:06:45] And then in verse Seven, Peter tells husbands to live their life with their wives in an understanding way.
[00:06:55] Showing honor, treating them as fellow heirs of the grace of life. Saying that their prayers won't be hindered.
[00:07:06] See that phrase? So that your prayers won't be hindered. That's deep. That's heavy.
[00:07:12] You see, Peter's saying how you treat people closest to you actually affects your relationship with God.
[00:07:22] You cannot mistreat somebody at home and expect your prayer life to be unaffected because those things are connected together.
[00:07:34] So if you've burned relationships, whether that's through addiction, through anger, through just not being present, this specific verse is not meant to pile on the guilt.
[00:07:48] It's meant to show you that, and I don't even mean you to show us that the connection is important.
[00:08:01] Showing you the connection between those two.
[00:08:05] That your prayer life can be affected by how you treat the people closest to you. That connection, that's critical and Peter is showing us that so that we can do something different going forward.
[00:08:26] If we want a closer relationship and a closer walk with God.
[00:08:32] Part of that path directly runs through how we treat people in our life right now.
[00:08:41] And I don't think a lot of people recognize that.
[00:08:44] And then in verse 8, Peter gives this list for everybody, right? Not just married people, for everybody. Be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind hearted and humble in spirit. Five things that he says, harmonious.
[00:09:01] That means don't create chaos everywhere you go.
[00:09:05] And I know people who do that.
[00:09:07] They create chaos everywhere they go, but then on Sunday they're in church. Praise God.
[00:09:13] I know people who don't go to church and create chaos everywhere they go. But Peter says right here, right, for everybody, harmonious, sympathetic, sympathetic is actually feeling what other people are feeling.
[00:09:32] Not just waiting for your turn to talk.
[00:09:36] You know, it's kind of listening to hear, not not listening to respond. I know a lot of people listen to just respond, okay, it's my turn. I'm going to respond to whatever was said. But they didn't actually hear what was said.
[00:09:49] That's what this is, right? Actually feeling what other people feel. Actually hearing what other people say.
[00:09:55] Not just waiting, not just listening to reply, not just waiting for my turn.
[00:10:02] Then he talks about being brotherly.
[00:10:06] Brotherly is treating people like family.
[00:10:09] Being brotherly is treating people like they matter.
[00:10:15] Then he talks about kind hearted and humble in spirit.
[00:10:20] And what I want to do is I want to focus on humble for a second because I think that's the hardest one for a lot of people, especially men, especially men who, you know, had to be Tough to survive. Had to, you know, rub some dirt on it, walk it off. You know, men don't cry. Whatever. Whatever you were told growing up, you know, I was growing up. You know, if you got in a fight, did you win? Well, if you didn't win, you better go finish it.
[00:10:49] You had to be tough.
[00:10:53] But humility, I think, in men, I know, for me, being humble, having humility felt like weakness.
[00:11:02] I spent my whole life defending myself.
[00:11:07] And so I wasn't about to be weak by being humble.
[00:11:12] That's how I thought.
[00:11:15] But humility isn't thinking less of yourself.
[00:11:20] That was a really hard thing for me to learn, because if I thought I was humble, then I was weak. And I wasn't this man. I wasn't strong.
[00:11:27] I couldn't take care of my family. Whatever lie I told myself, I told it.
[00:11:34] And there have been plenty of times in my marriage with Linda that she'd be like, who are you talking to?
[00:11:43] I know you.
[00:11:45] But I felt like I had to defend myself my whole life. So this was no different. I'm going to defend myself.
[00:11:54] Humility, it's just not needing to be right all the time.
[00:12:00] Not needing to win every conversation, not needing to prove you're not the problem.
[00:12:09] That was so difficult for me because every time I wanted to win every conversation, I wanted to prove that I was right and she was wrong.
[00:12:22] That wasn't humble.
[00:12:26] Being humble is not weak.
[00:12:30] You got to remember that.
[00:12:34] And as we move on to verse nine, talks about not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead.
[00:12:46] So someone comes to you, and they will.
[00:12:50] And your instinct. My instinct, especially if you've lived a rough life, is to come back harder.
[00:12:58] Somebody bows up, wants to throw down.
[00:13:02] And it happens in our lives.
[00:13:03] I mean, I'm in my 50s, and occasionally it still happens.
[00:13:07] And my first instinct is like, let's go.
[00:13:11] But what Peter says here is the exact opposite of that, right? Not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead.
[00:13:23] Not because the other person deserves it, because they probably don't.
[00:13:28] In my mind, they probably do. But it's still a hard, hard thing for me.
[00:13:34] But because that's who you are now, right?
[00:13:37] And because that's what we're told to do.
[00:13:47] You were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.
[00:13:51] That's what it says as verse nine continues.
[00:13:56] So when someone comes at you, don't follow your instinct, no matter how hard a life you've lived.
[00:14:06] Bless them instead, because that's who you are. Now then, we go to verse 10 and 10 through 12, and Peter continues, you know, he quotes from the Psalms about keeping your tongue from evil, your lips from speaking deceit, turning away from evil and doing good, seeking peace and pursuing it.
[00:14:28] And I want to stop at that word pursuing it, because pursuing is an active word.
[00:14:33] Peace doesn't just show up.
[00:14:37] I know that. I have prayed for peace, and it doesn't just magically appear.
[00:14:48] I have to pursue it. I have to actively pursue peace. I have to. I have to go after it, because if I don't go after it, I don't have peace.
[00:15:01] And I think that's something that we miss a lot, right? That this peace that everybody's seeking, that we have to take an action to get that peace. That action is the pursuit.
[00:15:17] We're not going to receive peace passively sitting on the couch.
[00:15:25] So now here's where the chapter gets to something that I think a lot of us really need to hear, and that's verses 13 and 14.
[00:15:37] Who will harm you if you prove zealous for what is good?
[00:15:43] But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed.
[00:15:49] And so that saying, even if we do everything right, we might still suffer because doing the right thing doesn't guarantee an easy path forward or an easy outcome.
[00:16:05] Some people have done the hard work, right? Some of you have done the hard work. You've got clean, you've gotten honest. You try to make amends, and people still don't trust you, still hold the past against you, still treat you like the old version of yourself that you were.
[00:16:25] That by itself is suffering for doing right.
[00:16:32] You're suffering because people haven't forgiven you.
[00:16:37] You're suffering because people still don't trust you, because people still treat you like who you were, maybe who you were when you were in active addiction.
[00:16:51] But right here, Peter says, you're blessed in it, not despite it.
[00:16:59] So you got to remember that, right?
[00:17:03] Even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you were blessed.
[00:17:10] That's a verse that I have to tell myself all of the time.
[00:17:19] And then the second half of verse 14, do not fear their intimidation and do not be troubled.
[00:17:29] He's telling us, don't let other people's reaction to how your life has changed control how you feel about yourself.
[00:17:43] I spent countless minutes, hours, days thinking about my past life and being troubled by it.
[00:18:07] But here in the second half of verse 14, Peter is saying, don't be troubled.
[00:18:13] Don't let these people's reactions dictate how you Feel about yourself.
[00:18:22] Be proud of how you feel about yourself.
[00:18:25] Be proud of the things that you have done to turn your life around.
[00:18:36] And then in verse 15, I think this is probably one of the most well known verses in the whole letter of First Peter, where it says, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always being ready to make a defense to anyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.
[00:19:00] You see, I love this verse.
[00:19:03] I love this verse because it assumes people are going to ask you about your hope.
[00:19:11] That's key. Your hope.
[00:19:13] Give an account for the hope that is in you.
[00:19:17] They're not asking about your religion, they're not asking about your rules. They're not asking about your church attendance.
[00:19:25] They're asking about your hope.
[00:19:28] Because if we are walking around with the kind of hope Peter described in chapter one, right, a living hope, people will notice.
[00:19:39] And they are going to ask, you may hear something like, how are you not falling apart right now?
[00:19:48] How are you still standing after everything you've been through?
[00:19:55] And right here Peter says, be ready for the question. Have an answer.
[00:20:00] Not a memorized speech, but a real answer about why you have hope.
[00:20:08] And give it with gentleness and reverence.
[00:20:12] And what he's saying there is give it. Not arguing, not trying to win, just telling the truth about what God's done in you.
[00:20:25] And you can do that without reading a single verse of Scripture to them, without quoting a single verse of Scripture.
[00:20:37] You're just telling them your story with gentleness and reverence.
[00:20:46] Don't forget that.
[00:20:49] Why do you have hope?
[00:20:51] Pray about it. Think about it. Why do you have the hope you have?
[00:20:55] So that when somebody asks, and they will, you have an answer.
[00:21:01] Because I'll tell you right now, if somebody comes in and they're like, man, how are you not falling apart?
[00:21:07] Why do you have so much hope for the future and you don't have an answer? They're going to question whether you really have hope.
[00:21:16] And it can't be just because of God.
[00:21:21] What happened in your life, what changed? What turned around to give you the hope that you have?
[00:21:31] Don't forget that. Because it can change somebody's life.
[00:21:36] And I'd be willing to bet that somebody else's hope changed yours because it changed mine.
[00:21:47] So as we move to verses 18 through 22, it's a lot of theological deep stuff, right? Peter talks about Christ suffering for our sins.
[00:21:57] His proclamation to spirits connects it to baptism and Noah's Ark.
[00:22:04] I don't think we should get into theological debates about this because, honestly, there are theologians and scholars who have argued about parts of it for centuries.
[00:22:18] But the core thing that I want us to walk away with is Christ suffered once for our sins, the righteous for. For the unrighteous, to bring us to God.
[00:22:33] That's the anchor of the whole section.
[00:22:36] Whatever else is going on in verses 18:22, that truth stands at the center of it, right?
[00:22:45] Christ suffered once for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God, period.
[00:22:58] So as.
[00:23:00] As we get ready to close and kind of land this plane this week, if you've got a relationship right now that feels impossible, a spouse, an ex, a family member, someone who hurts you, someone who doesn't trust you anymore, Peter is telling us that we can't fix it with words.
[00:23:26] He's saying that our changed life lived consistently over time with gentleness, with humility, without returning evil. For evil has the power that arguing doesn't have.
[00:23:44] And if people are looking at your life right now and wondering how you're still standing, be ready to tell them why not with pride, with gentleness. Because you didn't do it because of you. You did it because of God.
[00:24:00] If you did it because of you, that's pride.
[00:24:04] So do it without pride and with gentleness, because your hope is real and somebody around you needs to hear it.
[00:24:15] So as I get ready to close, I want to challenge you this week to think of one person in your life that you have been at odds with.
[00:24:25] And it could be years of tension. It could be something recent.
[00:24:29] And instead of trying to win that relationship back with your words, do one quiet act of kindness toward them.
[00:24:39] No explanation, no agenda, no watch how good I'm being now.
[00:24:46] Just one quiet act.
[00:24:48] Let your life start the conversation.
[00:24:55] Next week, we're going to go through chapter four. Peter's going to talk about suffering. He's going to talk about how we use our time and about what it means to live like the end of all things is near. And if you, you know, in today's society, I think that that might be pretty close, Right?
[00:25:12] That one's going to challenge how we spend our days. So I don't want you to miss it, but until then, I want to remind you that this is Rick with the Nomad Pastor podcast. You can like us, subscribe, give us a thumbs up, share it with your friends. We're on all the different, you know, podcast platforms and social media.
[00:25:34] And if you got a question or you want to hear about something, send me an email. @helloomadpastor.org I would also say if you're looking for a church family and you're struggling to find one, send us an email and we'll help. We'll do some research in your area of a good Bible believing Christian church and we'll point you in the right direction.
[00:25:57] But until then, I want to remind you to love God and love people.
