Always Be Ready

1 Peter 3:8-20 

Common English Bible 

8 Finally, all of you be of one mind, sympathetic, lovers of your fellow believers, compassionate, and modest in your opinion of yourselves. 9 Don’t pay back evil for evil or insult for insult. Instead, give blessing in return. You were called to do this so that you might inherit a blessing. 10 For 

those who want to love life 

   and see good days 

should keep their tongue from evil speaking 

   and their lips from speaking lies. 

11 They should shun evil and do good; 

   seek peace and chase after it. 

12 The Lord’s eyes are on the righteous 

   and his ears are open to their prayers. 

But the Lord cannot tolerate those who do evil.[a] 

13 Who will harm you if you are zealous for good? 14 But happy are you, even if you suffer because of righteousness! Don’t be terrified or upset by them. 15 Instead, regard Christ the Lord as holy in your hearts. Whenever anyone asks you to speak of your hope, be ready to defend it. 16 Yet do this with respectful humility, maintaining a good conscience. Act in this way so that those who malign your good lifestyle in Christ may be ashamed when they slander you. 17 It is better to suffer for doing good (if this could possibly be God’s will) than for doing evil. 

18 Christ himself suffered on account of sins, once for all, the righteous one on behalf of the unrighteous. He did this in order to bring you into the presence of God. Christ was put to death as a human, but made alive by the Spirit. 19 And it was by the Spirit that he went to preach to the spirits in prison. 20 In the past, these spirits were disobedient—when God patiently waited during the time of Noah. Noah built an ark in which a few (that is, eight) lives were rescued through water. 

This passage reminds us of John Wesley’s three simple rules. Do no harm, do good, stay in love with God. This scripture tells us to love others, to be compassionate and humble. The scripture also advises us to do good even when doing good gets us into some hardships. Sometimes doing good will cause others to speak badly about us, and we go back to rule #1, do no harm. We can learn to still love even the ones who do not like us (wow, that is really hard to do). Even when things are difficult, stay in love with God. Maybe, that is the key to doing no harm, and doing good, focusing on loving God and seeing people through the lens of love and grace that Jesus shows us. Let’s talk about this more on Sunday! I cannot wait to see you! 

Pastor, Andy