July, 15th, 2012 1 Peter 3:8~12: "8 Finally, be you all likeminded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tenderhearted, humble-minded: 9 not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing; for hereto were you called, that you should inherit a blessing. 10 For, He that would love life, And see good days, Let him refrain his tongue from evil, And his lips that they speak no guile: 11 And let him turn away from evil, and do good; Let him seek peace, and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, And his ears unto their supplication: But the face of the Lord is upon them that do evil. Title: Rather, repay with blessings I praise God who has brought us here despite raining outside. I truly pray that God will pour new power, new peace, new ability and new spirit upon you given near the river of life through today's worship and that all your life burdens will be taken off from you. Today's text was given to Peter in the first century. However, it's not too much to say that this text can be exactly applied to our life in the 21st century as an up-to-date and practical manual for Christian's life. This is so specific. God speaks so specifically and this word is not that impressive when we are in peace but when we are in trouble such as when we are in trouble with our relationship with others. I pray that you will be well ready in your ordinary life and you will be victorious in your life. Do you understand what I mean? You should be well prepared all the time. Today, I am going to talk about two big main points. As we have two big pillars in our main sanctuary building, the first main point is about how to make relationship with other Christians. The other point is about how we should react to those who hurt and attack us outside church. These two points are dealt with in today's text. Now, what kind of relationship should we continue to have with other Christians? As in the verse 8, "Finally" This expression conveys a lot of weight and seriousness. "Finally, be you all likeminded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tenderhearted, humbleminded" This verse, in a way, talks about a checking list that shows what we should do to other Christians. Five things are listed here. But if we narrow them down to one point, it is 'being reconciled'. What is it? Being reconciled. This concept is hard to be found in our worldly life. This word is not often used for the world history. This word is so unique and special that it can be allowed to only those who have been renewed through the gospel and with the power of the gospel. In the book of Romans, chapter 5 verse 10 says this. Let's read it together, "For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life." Amen! Originally who were we to God? We were God's enemies. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! This is a really horrible situation. Being against God! Being an enemy to God! This is so miserable a situation that we cannot explain it with words. However, in this miserable situation we were reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus and the death of Jesus Christ. Hallelujah! The blessing of this reconciliation. Only those Christians who know this blessing can check themselves. I believe that all of you here have already solved all your sin problems because of Jesus and have been convinced about the reconciliation and are enjoying the blessing. Therefore, we are going to check five things briefly. What should we check? First of all, here it says, "be you all likeminded" The first thing we have to check is 'being likeminded'. Why do we need this? We cannot always have the same thought or opinions. That's because all our lives are different. We have a different mindset. We have a different lifestyle. We have been brought up differently. We all agree with the matters of the gospel and the truth of the Bible. But we cannot always agree with all the church matters. We can have different opinions or thoughts about church matters. However, there is one thing we should never lose. What is that? That is being likeminded. We have different opinions or thoughts but we are likeminded. Hallelujah! This is a key. What is the second? ˇ°be you all likeminded, compassionate,ˇ± What is compassionate? This means we suffer together. In other English word, it is sympathy. Sym means the same. Pathy means sharing the hardships. That's why this means sharing hardships together. When others are sad, we are sad. When others are happy, we are happy. Nowadays there are so many shocking incidents in Korea that we tend not to be shocked at a little shocking incidents. We must not do so. Christians must feel the same as others do. What is the third check up? What is written here to our brothers? Love them. We all know the word love. But what is the condition? We should love as brothers. Here the word 'brothers' means 'those who are born from the same womb'. I believe that you and I are born from the same Holy Spirit in God. So you and I form the same spiritual body of Christ. We are born from the same spiritual womb. So what happens when we fight against each other? Even though we sometimes fight against each other, when we are faced with other enemies, we all defend ourselves putting our strength together. Am I right? As for me, I am the eldest son in a family where there are four sons without any daughters. When I was young I was quite tall for my age. So I always play with those who are 2 or 3 years older than me. As a result, I was often beaten up. Then my younger brothers threw stones at those who beat me. Why did they do so? Even though I may argue with my younger brothers, when it comes to fighting other enemies outside family, we should fight for our brothers. We should not fight against our brothers. Even though we may have different opinions, we should help our own brothers when it comes to fighting against others outside family. We should protect our brothers from any attacks from outside. This is the very God's point that the Korean church or our church must apply in reality. What is the fourth check up? That is 'tenderhearted'. In other English expression, we have mercy on others. This word is originally made up of two words. One is goodness and the other guts. This means we should have good guts. The meaning of having good guts is that at that time, the people in Greece and Rome thought all our feelings or emotions such as sorrow, happiness, rage, sympathy, and mercy were located deep inside our hearts. Therefore the meaning of having good guts is that we should have mercy, sympathy and happiness coming out of our deep inside. For example, when we laugh, some people just put on smile on their faces. Others feel happy inside their hearts and still others feel real happiness deep in their bones so that they laugh as if their souls laugh. When we laugh this way our tensed muscles become relaxed and, how can I put this, tensed nerves and muscles become relaxed and we have some healing. Hallelujah! It goes the same for feeling sorry for someone. We should feel sorry for our spouses from deep inside thinking that she has suffered from a lot of hardships after marrying me. Wives should feel the same thinking that my husband couldn't go further in his career because of me who is narrow minded. We should feel sorry for each other. I feel sorry for all of you here. You have come here because you came to church a lot earlier than others. When it rains you have a lot of troubles, I know. I feel a lump in my throat if it rains on Sundays. I don't know why. In the U.S. too, whenever it rains, we had some troubles because of parking. So I pray that please God we will have sunny days on Sundays. It rains today. So a lot of us have had hardships since 6 o'clock in the morning. I feel so sorry for our church members. I feel this from my guts. However, I don't want you to feel sorry for me. The important thing is that this checking list should be based on the reconciliation to God. This can be done only by those who have opened their blessed eyes and who have gone up to the high level of the gospel. What else is there? It's ˇ®humble-minded'. We have heard this word so many times in our daily life. We have heard of the modesty of Jesus. "I am gentle and modest." For us to understand the meaning of modesty we need to know the antonym of this word. That is arrogance. The meaning of arrogance is the heart which has gone up too high. When our heart goes up too high, we cannot control our heart and easily get hurt. Modesty means we know exactly who we are. What is our real self? Psalm 103 verse 14 says this. Let's have a look at it. "For he knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust." What is our frame? We are just dust. We are blowing dust or dirt. This means we should not boast about ourselves. All of us are made of dirt. It says, "God remembers that we are dust." We are made of small amount of dirt put together. What is so great about small amount of dirt put together? Why should we hold our heads up being elated? We have too stiff necks. As for modesty or looking back to ourselves, at that time, people in Greece and Rome didn't think of it as valuable. Roman army emphasized strength and self assertion. They never tried to keep themselves modest. That's why being modest was exactly the opposite idea of the main stream philosophy then. As for the works of art in ancient Greece, they emphasized, looked up to and even admired men's strong muscles. Modesty didn't fit their attitude. As I said before, the modesty talks about God's reconciliation to humans. We used to enemies to God. However, we know what blessings we have received from God. This is our self check ups. This is the first pillar that we need to set up. And then there is one more thing we need to think deeper. What is that? That is how we should react to those who do evil things to us. How should we react to those who attack us and who give us troubles? To this, the verse 9 says this. Let's read it loud together, "not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing; for hereto were you called, that you should inherit a blessing." Amen! What should we do to those who attack us, hurt us, give pain to us and who are like our enemies? We have heard a lot of things. Those who have been Christians for a long time should check themselves up. I pray that you and I will hear today's message as God's voice. I have not made this up just overnight. I am on the process as I planned before. I mean God has something to tell me and tell you all. What is the first? The checking list. What should we do to those who give us pain and who are like our enemies? First, we should not take revenge on them. We should not say swear words to those who say swear words to us. We should not do evil things to those who do evil things to us. Why? We tend to be tempted to do the same thing to our enemies. At that time, Christians scattered in Cappadocia and Asia received Peter's letters and they were mocked and attacked so harshly. How did a lot of Roman citizens and Non-Christians describe the Christians? They called the Christians dogs. The Christians at that time were mocked like this. In this situation, they were tempted to retaliate against them because they were also human beings. They could say "OK! I am a Christian dog. Then are you an unbelieving pig?" Because they were human beings they could have thought of this. This is our instinct. Nonetheless, however, they were told not to do so. If they did so, they might feel happy in the worldly way, but they would be spiritually defeated. That's why apostle Peter told them not to take revenge on them. This command is against the worldly main stream. This recommendation is against our instinct. According to the worldly ways, we should pay back to our enemies; we should take revenge on our enemies. When we are insulted by others, it's hard for us to bear the situation. When somebody attacks and hurts me without proper reasons, it's hard for us to keep calm. It's hard to forgive and forget those who personally hurt us. Nonetheless, however, we should not take revenge on our enemies. We should not retaliate against them. Please repeat after me. Don't take revenge. This is the first thing we should check on the checking list. If we were asked only for this, we would feel good. But we are asked to do a lot more things. We should not render evil for evil and then what should we do as in today's title of the sermon? Rather repay with blessings. It's really amazing. "Rather, repay with blessings" This seems to be the demand of God that we cannot manage. In terms of earthly point of view, not taking revenge can be practiced by those who have been well educated or cultivated. They can bear the situation while having a hard time keeping calm. People from other religions who have well cultivated their minds may be able to do so. However, what does Christianity tell us to do? Rather, repay with blessings. This is a quite difficult demand to follow that is against our physical instinct. This is a hard demand. Yet, this demand didn't come from Peter. He heard Jesus's sermons on the mount. Let's read Luke chapter 6, verses 27 and 28. Peter remembered them, "But I say unto you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." "Bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." Oh! Lord! It's hard to manage it. It's hard to manage it. Peter remembered this and gave us his own way of applying it to our real life. "Bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." This means, "Rather, repay with blessings." It is more than just keeping silent. It's going one step further because we repay with blessings and pray for our enemies. But, is it easy to do so? Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! Is it easy to pray for our enemies? Is it easy to bless our enemies who have hurt us? It's really hard to do so. In fact, we tend to want to curse them rather than bless them by praying "Lord! Please punish them. Separate good people from evil people. Break their chins. Pluck out their beard. You know that they are evil." We tend to want to pray in this way. However, God does not demand us what we cannot manage. Believe that God demands us what we can do. Please think about this deeply. So we can pray this way. "Lord! You know that how they attacked us. You know that how much I got angry with them. You know that I never want to be associated with them and that I never want to pray for them. However, Lord! Grant us the power with which I can ignore this instinct. Please grant us the power with which I can bless them regardless of my feelings. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! If you don't think that God knows everything, God sees everything, and God takes care of everything, you cannot do so. If you don't know God knows your prayers, you cannot do so. I'm going to move further. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! If certain scars from certain people keep hurting you and keep affecting your life, then you have not forgiven them. If you feel bitter or cannot digest well to think of them, you have not forgiven them yet. If you feel angry or painful when you think of them, it proves that your scars have not been cured. That's why Peter gave us a new and weird treatment. That is we should pray for and bless them who we want to take revenge on. Please look at the verse 9, it says "for hereto were you called," Rather repay with blessings. We were called to do so. Please underline here, "that you should inherit a blessing." God asks us to do something really hard. Even if that is painful to us, Peter says that if we do so, we will inherit a blessing. It's really amazing. Here is the way by which we are truly blessed. While preparing for and praying for today's sermon, I hit upon an idea. That is, if I bless others, the blessing is going to be given to me first and then to them later. In more detail, when we bless our enemies, the blessing will be coming back to us if they don't deserve it. Of course, we don't do so to be blessed. We don't do so with such a selfish idea. Anyway, according to today's text, we will inherit a blessing. I repeat it. Despite our difficulties and pains, if we truly bless and pray for our enemies by obeying God's words, the blessings will come back to us if they don't deserve them. If they deserve them it would be good. You don't seem to agree with me. I repeat it. If they don't deserve the blessings they will come back to us. Therefore, the more we bless our enemies, the more blessings we will receive if they don't deserve the blessings. Those who understand what I mean will understand what I mean. However, we don't do so to receive the blessings. This is done as a result. Do you still feel awkward? Do you still feel uncomfortable? C.S. Lewis, a great Christian, said that we should try to do this. Even if it's hard we should even pretend to do so. He suggested that we put on mask for this matter. Putting on a mask doesn't sound good. However, only for this matter he suggested doing so in his book titled "Mere Christianity". I understood his intention this way. Where our heart is there is our body. As for blessing others or enemies, God will bless us so that where our body is there is our heart. The meaning of wearing a mask is this. In the book titled "Mere Christianity", C.S. Lewis talks about a man who always wears a mask. With this story, he gives an example in which a heart follows a body. There is a mask that is much more handsome than his real face. The man always wears the mask for a few years. One day, he took off the mask and found that his face had changed resembling the mask. In this way, his mask became a reality. When we bless our enemies, this principle begins to work. Our heart may not want to do so. But with our mouths, we can bless our enemies. When we do so with prayers, we put on the mask of blessings. This mask is not a bad mask but a good one. We should wear this mask not because of our own will but because of Jesus's commands. When we do so one day, two days, three days, one week, one month, one year, two years, and three years, our face will have been changed into a man of blessings. Please, remember this today. In all cases or situations, if we look at people we are tested by satan. However, if we focus on God's voice thinking that is God's voice and if we obey God's voice, our vision will become the same as God's. When we do so despite it being really hard, our faces will change into the faces of blessings and our situations will become the situations of blessings. I believe so. This is God's idea. C.S. Lewis talks about this. We have some people who provoke us bad ways. We have some people who insult us. When we receive e-mails or letters mocking us, how do we react to them? We tend to answer immediately. When we are insulted we answer immediately. When others hurt us or make trouble for us, we tend to try to find a chance to take revenge on them. When we try to calm down feeling hard against others, we tend not to sleep well for several nights. Then what kind of situation is that where we bless others? C.S. Lewis said this, "Being Christians means we forgive others without any proper reasons. That's because God forgave you without any proper reasons.." Do you understand it now? Because God forgave us without proper reasons, we should forgive others the same." Saint Augustine says this, "When you are being in trouble by being attacked unfairly by an evil person, still forgive him. And there will not be one more evil person." If we attack him or her, we will become evil, too. When we obey God's voice in this matter, if he or she doesn't deserve our blessings the blessings will come back to us. I praise God's grace in this matter. The first checking point is that we should not take revenge on our enemies. What is the second one? Rather, repay with blessings and pray for them. What is the third one? That is we should trust God who has given us blessing for the last thousand years. This is proven through David. Today's text was not devised by Peter. Peter was a Jew. He knew well about the book of Psalm. He repeated the content in Psalm 34 verses 10 through 15. The content there is about David's worst painful situation in which he pretended to be mad by drooling before Abimelec. As for David, he was so frustrated that he said there were five people he wanted to take revenge on. He was so frustrated and his situation was so painful. Then he confessed this there. Let's read them through together, "The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger; But they that seek Jehovah shall not want any good thing. Come, you children, listen to me: I will teach you the fear of Jehovah. What man is he that desires life, And loves many days, that he may see good?ˇ° Please wait a moment here. Do you seek life and want to receive good? Then, as in the verse 13, 14, and 15, "Keep your tongue from evil, And your lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good; Seek peace, and pursue it. The eyes of Jehovah are toward the righteous, And his ears are open unto their cry." Amen! Peter repeats this in his book and gives us as a prescription. What is the first thing to do? "Keep your tongue from evil." Second, "Keep your lips from speaking guile." Third, "Depart from evil, and do good." Fourth, "Seek peace, and pursue it." These are repeated exactly in the same pattern. Now, what is the result? Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! Look at the verse 12. In the verse 12, the result is shown this way, "For the eyes of the Lord are upon whom? Upon the righteous." God knows you. I told about this yesterday dawn. God knows about you. Who knows when you are frustrated and in pain? God does. God sees it. What is the second point? "And his ears unto their supplication." I praise God who answers our prayers. Please look at Psalm 34 verse 15, "The eyes of Jehovah are toward the righteous, And his ears are open unto their cry." Amen! Aren't they the same? Peter added one more to this. Peter explained one more thing as plus alpha. What is that? What is written in the verse 12? It says "The face of the Lord is upon them that do evil." Hallelujah! This means God takes revenge on them. God takes care of them. At least, God takes care of our hearts. And then God takes care of our situations. I am sure that this is our faith. This is God's vision. This is God's way. I would like you to thank God for the prescription given to us through Peter. I believe that when after receiving this word and obey and apply it as God's word, we are going to be servants who are used like David in the kingdom of God. I'll close the sermon. We were born with sinful nature. We were supposed to suffer from God's punishment. However, I thank God who has blessed all of us. When we were not holy, when we were sinners, when we were weak, and when we were enemies to God, God sent Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for reconciliation and let him die on the cross by bleeding and sent the Holy Spirit to let us feel the blessings of God and helped us to reconcile to God. I praise this blessing of God's. In the past, we used to run away from God. However, God chased us until He found us, embraced us and opened our eyes for us to see the power of life. I praise the blessing of God's. God has given us a new life. God let us open our hearts for God. God has given us enthusiasm, helped us realize the cross and let us receive the blessing of the gospel. This is such a bright moment and God blessed us to have an amazing miracle. As a result, we have reconciled to God. This is the miracle of the gospel. Some people may say that it is easy for Jesus to do so. However, it is not the case. This is so important. Even though we live a million years, we cannot pay back for the grace of God's. We sang the song whose words go like this, "Even if we have ten thousand mouths, we cannot thank God's blessings. Even if we praise God all day long every day, we cannot fully praise God. Even if we pray to God all day long all my life we cannot do so. Even if we work without sleeping at all and even if we are righteous and honest, we cannot do so. We cannot pay back for all the blessings of God. We are those who are full of sense of debtors who have to pay for the holy gospel forever. We have to thank God forever. We are debtors. When we become debtors this way, what is possible to us? We can bless our enemies. The core point is this. As God has treated us, we can do the same to our enemies. Even if we were enemies to God, God didn't treat us as enemies. Rather, God reconciled with us. I pray that we can do the same to our enemies who hurt and attack us. I pray that the power of the gospel will be restored to us. There are some people who act like thorns around us. There are some people who are delighted when we are hurt. Even then, please don't get discouraged. When you are discouraged, you fall in the snare of your enemies. In a way, it's not my choice. That is given to us by God. What is the one important thing? When we are in the difficult situation, we can choose how to react to it. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! How would you react to it? That is important. I believe that when we react to those situations properly such as we bless our enemies and we thank God, God is sure to cure all of us who have been hurt. You should believe that God uses our enemies to enlarge our capacity, for us to grow in spirit and trust in God. I pray that you will bless the situations, the attacks and the enemies in the name of God. Sometimes, our church members come to me to say these stories. "Pastor! I am really frustrated." The stories that they tell me are the stories about they were betrayed by so incredibly evil and wicked people or stories about they were threatened, they were beaten up and they felt embarrassed. They were attacked by those who were noneducated at all. The evil people broke their promises, insult them, tell lies and spread malicious rumors. They habitually tell lies to give them troubles. I pray that you can thank God for your enemies given to you when you are insulted. Name them one by one. God gives the difficult situations for us. Whether we like it or not, God gives them to us. Then, I pray that you will react properly. I spent some time with several pastors last week. One pastor said this to me. "Pastor! Your pain through the construction of church buildings is not a hardship but a blessing for you." To this, I said, "I don't want that kind of blessing." Then he said, "Yes, it's a blessing for you. And it's a huge blessing for you. If you go well all the time and you look so great, then you are in danger. Please consider it as a blessing for you." Nonetheless, I don't want that kind of blessing. However, in deeper thought, I came to know that is a blessing for me. Through this I can trust God more and deeper. After that I sang hymn songs with them for one hour. The hymn songs are about the second coming of Jesus. One of the contents of the songs is 'majesty'. We asked God to rule over us. We sang 'how great' God is. God is holy and holy and worthy is the lamb. We kept singing for one hour without stopping. Of course, all of us have the same chemistry. God blessed us and comforted us. Today, dear brothers and sisters in Christ! I pray that all of you will have a breakthrough with today's message. God is sure to lead you to the best. Just one condition is that we have to obey God. Leave all your frustrating matters to God. Rather, repay with blessings. Despite a long Christian's life, those who live according to their own will judge everything on their own. They become judges. Then God is not happy with them. Today, let's become holy God's warriors with today's message in this precious season. There are several insights to see this world. First one is 'Foresight'. Those with this insight see farther away in the future. The second, 'Hindsight'. Those with this can look back on to the past to get some insight. The third 'Insight'. Those with this can look at the future in the frame of present. But, there is the most important insight. That is 'Divine sight'. We should see things through the sight of God. Let's praise God who has given us the Divine sight. Hallelujah!