1 Peter 3:8-12

8 Finally, all of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters.[a] Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude. 9 Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will grant you his blessing. 10 For the Scriptures say,

“If you want to enjoy life
    and see many happy days,
keep your tongue from speaking evil
    and your lips from telling lies.
11 Turn away from evil and do good.
    Search for peace, and work to maintain it.
12 The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right,
    and his ears are open to their prayers.
But the Lord turns his face
    against those who do evil.

 Second we are called to:

2. Submit to serving others over self – Vs 8 “Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude.”

Cultivating a heart of harmony will cause us to care and serve others over self. Peter tells us that serving others involves:

·       Sympathizing  with them

But in order to be sympathetic you have to see others which requires us to stop focusing so much on self. It forces us to face and struggle with our selfishness and also to face our feelings. Some of us are afraid of emotion, we are more comfortable containing our emotions. But Jesus calls us to have a sensitive spirit. Romans 12:15 says: “Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep” Don’t just be interested in peoples happiness but also their heartache. When it comes to sympathy would you say you are more caring or calloused? Second

·       Love lavishly

Christian love is not only seeing and sympathizing but showing and sharing love. This truth deals with how we treat each other. Whatever differences we may have the lack of love for one another should not be one. Are you lead a life of love?  When it comes to people many of us are playing the power ball, we are putting in a little and expecting a lot. But love takes work, it requires showing up and serving that’s why many of us are stingy with our serving.  But let me ask you why would you pursue a plan that offered you a slim chance of success when you could have a sure thing. Are you settling for society’s shady offer or pursuing God’s perfect plan? Along with loving lavishly we are called to:

·       Cultivate compassion

Compassion takes what sympathy sees and seeks to serve. Where sympathy recognizes the need compassion responds to it. It doesn’t just look it loves. You see we need both sympathy and serving, because you can’t respond to a need you don’t recognize. Now in order to live out this truth we have to keep our hearts tender. In the cruel Roman world in which Peter was writing tenderness was not seen as a virtue and neither is it in the day in which we live. Today we are constantly bombarded with bad news and its easy for us to become callous and uncaring. Our hearts need to be broken over that which break the heart of God. When we cultivate a tender and compassionate heart we conform to Christ and live out His character.

·       Humble heart

What holds it all together is a heart of humility. Humility helps us to see ourselves rightly. Humility is the pendulum between pride and putting ourselves down. Between being in love with self and loathing self. Pride puffs up and causes us to put others down but humble helps us to put others ahead of self. Humility starts in the heart and shows up in the hand. Humility is the virtue that Jesus taught while on his knees serving the stinky feet of His disciples. Jesus saw our condition of sin and didn’t just sympathize but humbled Himself, coming in compassion to lavishly love us on through the cross. The truth is caring costs and it doesn’t come naturally, Peter had to cultivate a heart of compassion. In His early days with Jesus he was loud, aggressive and strong-willed. But when he surrendered to the Spirit of God Christ changed him, channeling his powerful personality and causing him to pursue God’s plan. When we give God the reins we will go from running over people to restoring them.