Dennis Tuuri

statement in covenant document and from the text this morning in 1 Peter 3. I want to really kind of center the whole thing around the first word in the text: likewise. And so my outline will show that all of what follows in chapter 3 relating to husbands, wives, and all of us being in correct submission and servantthood as it were to each other is based upon that phrase “likewise.”

So our outline this morning is what that “likewise” consists of. It really takes you back to the verses before that talking about Jesus Christ as our example. And he’s our example in three ways. One, we’re to trust God. Two, we’re to serve one another. And three, we’re to be victorious on the basis of that. So that’s my outline this morning: Trusting God, serving another, and being victorious. And that’s what “likewise” means here in this context. It takes us back, as I said, to the work of Jesus Christ.

This is very similar to last week’s talk which is based upon three words: trusting, doing, and delighting. But in a way, I guess we’re reinforcing somewhat of what we said last week. Plus, last week my talk went a little long and I didn’t really get to the last section of that I wanted to speak to, which has specific application to applying meekness and humility in the context of the church. So, that’s what we’re going to be talking about primarily this morning.

First of all, trusting God. In the last [sermon], as I said, we’ve been talking about humility and meekness. And we’ve talked about humility begins with a proper understanding in terms of God. There’s a God orientation that must occur first before to be humble before other people. We must recognize our humility with God. And that means to acknowledge our poverty in spirit. “Blessed are the poor in spirit. Those who admit that they’re poor in spirit, know of their own poverty, and rely upon God’s grace.”

The Hallel, which is Psalm 113 through Psalm 118, as some of you know, that’s the psalms that we sing during the offering in this church and there’s a reason for that. The Hallel was sung during three specific festivals in Israel and their festival schedule as part of the liturgy and the first time it’s sung is at the feast of first fruits and they would bring forward their first fruits to God. They bring forward their offering to God and they would sing the Hallel. Additionally, later on the Hallel became sung—these set of verses that was sung during the communion—the Passover rather, which then became our Lord’s supper of course.

And this the Hallel—Psalm 113 through Psalm 118—is probably what our Lord sang at the last supper when it says that they departed the room singing. Well, anyway, the point of that is that the Hallel begins with Psalm 113, which we’ll be singing today during the offering. And verse 7 of the Hallel in Psalm 113 says, “He raiseeth up the poor out of the dust and liftth the needy out of the dunghill that he may set him with princes.”

Bring your offerings to God and recognizing his victory which is incumbent in that same procedure begins with a proper understanding of ourselves in relationship to God. And so the Hallel or the praise—the praise and specifically “hallelujah,” praise God—begins with a proper appreciation of our humility before God. And so that set of psalms begins as well emphasizing that God has raised us up out of the dust, raised us up out of the dunghill and given us grace that he may set us among princes.

So we have to be humble first of all in relationship to God. And we use the example then of the publican and the Pharisee praying and the Pharisee rather saying “I’m glad I’m not like other people.” Comparing himself first and foremost with others and to compare yourself with others is frequently very beneficial to your ego. But to compare yourself to God and his requirements of righteousness is what the publican did. And he went away justified before God with a justification that came from a recognition of his standing before God and not comparing himself first and foremost to other men.

So we must be humble and have humility in relationship to God.

Additionally, meekness, as we said last week, is taking Christ’s yoke upon us to be broken as it were to his harness. He said, “Take my example. I’m meek.” Said, “Be yoked. Take my yoke upon you. Take my example. I’m meek. I’m broken to harness. I’m broken to the father’s harness doing his will and obeying his law.” And so we’re to bow the knee to God’s decree and his providence and also to his law. We’re not to chafe against that bit that God has put in our mouths no matter what comes along in the day. We’re to thank God for it.

These things begin with the trusting of God. However, and in today’s verses in 1 Peter 3, it’s preceded by 1 Peter 2:23. Very important when we talk about submission of wives or husbands or servants to their masters, whatever. In 1 Peter 2:23, we have Christ who when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.

The submission of Jesus Christ, which is the basis for our submission in all relationships to other people, and to him as well, is contingent upon the fact that we know that we’re trusting ourselves to the one who judges righteously, the sovereign God of all creation and all history. In this context, then to espouse submission and yet have a perspective on God’s interaction in the world that is something less than acknowledging his sovereignty—in other words, saying that things happen outside of the will of God, outside of God’s decree and his providence—and yet to call people to submit to that is ripping out the very roots that are necessary for biblical submission, which is acknowledging that God has brought situations to pass in our life and he will judge righteously. We entrust ourself to him and that’s why we can submit to some people as Jesus did who are ungodly rulers.

Very important then that we understand that this passage of scripture dealing with submission and serving one another begins with trusting God because it says “likewise.” In the same way, wives be subject to your husbands in the same way that Christ submitted himself to the ungodly rulers by entrusting yourself ultimately to God who judges righteously.

But Christ’s example doesn’t just stop with entrusting himself to the one who judges righteously. No, Christ’s example goes on in verse 24 of 1 Peter 2, whose own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. He submitted, trusting himself to God. For what purpose? So that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness. He did that to serve us. He did that for our benefit. Okay? Self-sacrificially, he died. He took the sins in his body that we should have life unto righteousness. He yielded his rights that he might serve another—the elect of God.

In the same way then the wives are called upon in First Peter 3 likewise to be in subjection to their husbands. For what purpose? One purpose may be that the husband would be won by the conversation of the wife without the word be won by the conversation of the wife. Wives are to submit to their husbands so that their husbands might be brought to obedience of the faith in the same way that Christ submitted himself to the will of the Father so that we would receive salvation. Wives then are called to serve one another trusting God but serving one another as well. In this case, serving their husbands and hoping to bring them to salvation or at least to an obedience of the faith.

This is very important as well because we don’t ultimately want to center up on the fact to the wife’s submission to the husband as first and foremost being for the sake of the marriage. You don’t submit to your husband so that you can have a good marriage, him being pagan or disobedient. That’s not the ultimate goal of that. We’re told here that the purpose would be hopefully the husband brought to an obedience of the faith.

Husbands likewise are to serve their wives. It goes on to say that in the middle of the passage here. “Likewise you husbands dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife.” Well, how are husbands to serve their wives? In the same way, likewise to Christ. Christ loved the church. That’s the example for the husbands to their wives and gave up his own life for them. So, husbands also serve somebody else. They serve their wives so that the wives may be benefited by their sacrifice in the plan of God.

Now the scriptures give us examples of course and in this specific case in case of the wives submitting to the husbands to give us the example of Sarah and Abraham. Another good example though to see that this whole thing has taken off into the church in general is Paul’s submission to other people and trusting God and yet laying down some of his rights as it were so that others would be served through that.

Paul in meekness served. Now Paul was a tent maker and a lot of times we tend to think well that’s a good thing, you know, for people to be tent makers the way that Paul was. But Paul didn’t say he was a tent maker as some sort of great example that’s the way it should be. He became a tent maker and supported himself so that he wouldn’t be a burden to the churches he served. Why? Because he wanted to serve them by being to their benefit. He didn’t want to have a rock of offense there as it were. He didn’t want to have a stumbling block that was anything other than Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ came to serve.

So Paul when he went to the churches frequently would serve them by not being a financial burden upon them. In other words, Paul submitted in meekness so that others might be taught. Now, it’s important to recognize in the context of this that when Paul did this and when eventually people would say, “You should be a tent maker forever and ever,” and they wouldn’t share their things with Paul after he had labored for them—that wasn’t for their benefit, was it?

When they became disobedient to the teaching of God, and rejected the importance of supporting those who brought them good things out of the word of God, he would correct them. And so this is one of the caveats we talked about before in terms of humility. You might see that Paul was a doormat initially. He laid aside some of the prerogatives that he had in terms of support. But he was a squeaky doormat if he was a doormat. He was a doormat that as soon as the other people’s feet were clean, he would instruct them, “Don’t step on me anymore.”

Now, why would he do that? Out of his own self-interest. No, because it’s not in the self-interest of others to serve them and continue to serve them when they violate the commandments of God. You’re hoping to bring them to obedience is the whole point of what I’m trying to get here.

Christ served us. He entrusted himself to the Father and died for our sins serving us. Wives are to be submissive to their husbands so that the husband might be benefited in one. Husbands are to serve their wives so that they might be brought to obedience of the faith and a fuller life in Jesus Christ. And we in the church are to serve one another so that we’d be benefited. That’s what serving each other is all about.

This is summed up, of course, in the verse we talked about a couple weeks ago out of Philippians 2:3. “Look not every man on his own interests, but every man also on the things of others.” Simple teaching out of God’s word. You just deny yourself. You help other people. What could be simpler? Calvin said a very plain statement out of Institutes. Calvin—I’m not mean to say it’s not plain. It’s certainly a plain book, but this is very plain spoken statement.

Calvin in relationship to serving others said this: “In seeking to benefit our neighbors, how difficult it is to do one’s duty.” Exclamation point. It’s very simple. Simple call by God and the simple fact that we’re sinners and we don’t want to do that and we will fight with all we have to not serve one another apart from the grace of the Holy Spirit. And yet that’s what we’re really talking about right now in the midst of our confession statement that we’re talking about supporting. We agree with the doctrinal statement of the church. We agree with the confession statement and we oblige to support it and this fellowship of believers.

You’re coming into this church acknowledging that first line of the actual covenant side of that you want to help other people in the church. You’re going to serve one another. You’re going to help that this body and that’s what we’re called to do. Well, the scriptures tell us clearly to do it. They tell us clearly it’ll be difficult to do. Remember when we started this a couple of weeks ago, we gave a warning that Paul said, “Be diligent to do these things. They won’t be easy to do.”

And the scriptures give us more information, too, on how we’re to know if we’re doing that or not and how we’re to go about doing that and what are some of the problems we encounter. What actions are there that demonstrate this meek and humble attitude toward others? We’re going to be talking about some of those actions now based out of First Peter 3 for the bulk of the rest of the time.

And I’d like you, as I mentioned earlier, to have the roster from the church there, which is should be fairly current in front of you. And for this purpose, what we’re talking about this morning are a whole series of actions and attitudes we’re to have one toward another in this church. And I want you as you hear about some of these things as we go briefly over various aspects of this to think about the people on that list and think: Am I doing that in relationship to this person? Is there somebody in the church that I’m not doing this with? Is there somebody in the church I’m not acting in this way toward?

And remind yourself of the people on that list. The scriptures use many examples of the church symbols as it were. Scriptures say we’re one body and that’s certainly a good illustration of the fact that we have work together as a unit that each individual contributes his part and yet his part isn’t more important and nor can it be done without the participation of the other parts of the body. The scriptures tell us the church is a building brick by brick being built up upon the foundation of Jesus Christ and the apostles and their teaching the correct doctrine. That’s another good illustration.

But as we talk through these things, I want us to keep in mind the illustration of the family, another illustration of the church of God that he uses and to sort of set the what I’m going to say from 1 Peter 3. I want to read from First Thessalonians 2, verses 5-12. “For neither at any time used we flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness, God is witness. Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others. We might have been burdensome as the apostles of Christ, but we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children.

So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. For you remember, brethren, our labor and travail, for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. Ye are witnesses. And God also, how holy and justly and unblamably we behaved ourselves among you that believe. As you know, how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you as a father doth his children, that you would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom in glory.”

What’s Paul saying here? He’s using that illustration of the family again. And he’s saying that his labor, his serving one another—another person, another group, and context of the Thessalonians here—is typified the relationship of a mother to her child or a father to his child. The context of the family again as a nurse cherisheth her children sustaining them a nursing mother is what he’s talking about here that’s how Paul was in terms of sacrifice for the people that he was dealing with laboring travailing—obvious references to birth—that they might be born in Christ and might continue to walk in obedience to his scripture.

And then he talks about as a father you know exhorted the exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you as a father doth his children. Now there’s a lot of us here—most of us here, not all of us, most of us here—have families and even if you don’t have a family you’ve been around families you’re part of another family may not have your own children but you’re somebody’s child.

I don’t think you can really appreciate fully what children mean to people until you have your own children. I don’t want to make that a cast an iron or anything, but I think that’s probably true. But those of you who do have children can recognize what Paul is talking about here. Recognize the depth of his commitment to the people at the church in Thessalonica. Very important. We have children and we know how much we cherish those children and are hurt for those children and want to help those children. Want to bring them in the obedience of the faith. And that’s the attitude that Paul served other people with.

And that’s the attitude that we should have toward one another in this congregation as well.

So let’s go through some specifics now and keep in mind this idea of the family and how it would relate to your own children and your other members of your family.

First of all, in this context, we’re told in 1 Peter 3 we are told to give up honor—is being heirs together of the grace of life. Now the specific references to husbands and their wives, okay. In verse 7, “giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life.” An American Standard translates that “grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life.” But Paul isn’t just talking about husbands and wives here because a couple of verses later he says finally in verse 8, “Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love his brethren, be pitiful, be courteous, not rendering evil for evil.

This same thing of honoring the wife as a joint heir of the gift of life and of the blessing of Jesus Christ is important to recognize that should be our attitude to other people in the church. We try to make this point various times to communion. When we go downstairs and have communion, we sit around the king’s table with the king’s friends, okay? And to esteem somebody in our church as somehow less than a friend of the king and as one saved by him is very bad.

We’re to have honor for one another. We’re to be serving one another because we honor them because we know that God has saved them and made them elect in Jesus Christ and they’re part of his household. Now, Romans 12:10 says, “Be kindly affection to one to another with brotherly love in honor, preferring one another.” Putting other people’s interests before your own in honor is you’re honoring that person. It’s extremely important to esteem other people in the household of God with the honor that God has given them truly in Jesus Christ.

Now, as I mentioned, there’s many qualities we’re going to be talking about here that do have relationship to the family and they’re quite easy in the context of the family. Normally, this one necessary—this one is not. We know that it isn’t necessarily because the husband is specifically commanded here to have that attitude toward his wife, which means he won’t have that attitude a lot of times. Why? Because he tells us that the women are a weaker vessel in some ways. In some ways, they’re weaker than men. And men can take that and compare themselves to their own strength, their own abilities, and somehow look down upon them.

And so, God goes out of his way, even in the context of the family where we have a great deal of God-given love already. Yet, in that context, he commands the husband to treat the wives with respect as joint heirs of life. Children also. It’s very easy when we have children not to honor them as presuppositionally members of the covenant family because they’re weak. They can’t do things and you can sort of make fun of them. You can sort of get impatient with them. You can get impatient with your wife.

Yet God tells us not to do that but to honor them as joint heirs of the gift of life. The Pharisee, remember that illustration we talked about? He looked at other people rather than getting his perspective from a correct understanding of the person of God. And he didn’t honor those around him. He compared himself to them and said, “I’m glad I’m better than them.” And we could have that attitude in our household. “I’m the one who’s keeping this house together cuz I’m better than my wife and better than my children.”

Yet God says, “Don’t do that.” He commands us here to give them honor and esteem them because of their joint inheritance, the gift of life in Jesus Christ. I suppose the opposite of that would be to publicly humiliate somebody. We probably don’t do that too much in this church. Shouldn’t do it at all in this church to publicly humiliate other people. But when we do that or when we tend toward that in the context of the church, we’re denying this law of God to honor them and to esteem them as joint heirs of the gift of life.

We never want to publicly humiliate people in this church. We may not do it publicly, but a lot of us would probably have in our mind “this person doesn’t have ability. This person isn’t particularly good at anything I can see” and somehow hold them in lower regard for whatever reason. And God says, “don’t do that. You count them as fellow heirs of the gift of life.” And that’s one of the proofs. That’s one of the ways we can understand whether or not we’re truly serving other people here in the congregation.

And you might say that this attitude is the most important of all the ones we’re going to talk about. If you keep that in mind—that when you talk to people in this church, you’re talking about friends of King Jesus that he gave his life for and know he has put a crown as a prince now upon. After all, remember that Hallel of Psalm 113 says God lift us out of the dunghill to put us among princes. So God has made that person a prince. You treat him with that honor and you’ll do far. You’ll go far in fulfilling all these other things we’re going to talk about as well.

So with your list of vis list of the church there in front of you, you know that’s what you should do. You should honor all the people in that church. If they’re in this church. If they’re on that list, they are presuppositionally elect in Jesus Christ. They are invited to the table of the king and we should treat them as friends of the king.

Secondly, this verse goes on to talk about being all of one mind. Verse 8, “finally, be all of one mind.” But other translations say, “Let all be harmonious, be like-minded, be united.” And we talked a lot about that the last couple of weeks. Our unity and the basis for our unity being one Lord, one faith, one baptism and we’re then to be like-minded as well as being as a result of this unity that we have.

This also goes back to 1 Peter 2 in verse 25. It says, “Ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned under the shepherd and bishop of your souls.” The implication is you were out there wandering around, but now you’ve returned to the one shepherd. And by returning to the one shepherd, you become one flock. In one kinship. It’s implicit in these verses.

Now, notice it’s one flock that we’re talking about, not one big sheep. And we don’t as we talked about last week—we don’t have relationship with one another by getting rid of all differences in the church or all personality types and this kind of thing. We don’t try to blend into one big Christian. God has called us to a flock. Okay? And he has called us to have covenantal relationships with one another, not through smudging up against one and getting rid of differences as Jim Jordan talks about, but through allowing those differences to be developed in obedience to Jesus Christ.

You know, it could be said that uh people here in the church, Vic becomes more Vic as he grows in obedience to God. And John becomes more like John, restored to his correct image in Jesus Christ. And Bob is more like Bob. We don’t become necessarily like one another. We’re one-minded because we focus on the one purpose that God has called us to, which is to follow the one shepherd, Jesus Christ. That’s what one minded means being here. It doesn’t mean becoming automatons all like robots or clones.

God didn’t make us that way. He made us different, but he made us different for the purpose of serving him with one purpose. Now, in this church, we should understand this. And I think that we’re becoming obedient to this much more than many churches I’ve ever been in because we talk about a thing—a biblical world and life view to use a buzzword. We know that everything we do should center around Jesus Christ and his revealed word in the scriptures and the covenant that he’s made in which we have covenant grace through his covenant mediatorship with God.

And we know that whatsoever we do, whether we go down to Oktoberfest, we some did this last Friday night, whether we sit at home with sick kids, the way I did Friday night, or whatever you did Friday night, you know that in some way it should relate to the purposes of God and that’s what you’re trying to devote yourself to. And that’s being one minded, centering on the one purpose that we’ve been called to do, focused on one will.

We’re also told to have compassion. Verse 8, “be all of one mind. Having compassion one to another.” The word compassion here comes from sympatheia or something like that. I don’t know Greek that well, but I can read these things in books. And it’s very obvious that sympathy is a good coral a good way to translate that term as well. And so some translations do that.

“Be sympathetic with one another with feeling okay with passion as it were.” That’s what you should be toward one another. You should be affected similarly as those around us in the church by being kind and tender-hearted to them. In Romans 12:15, it tells us to rejoice at those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. And in the church, we have to do that. We have to learn to be one minded. We also have to be learned to be sensitive to each other and compassionate in terms of our feelings one for another.

The good Samaritan is given as an example of one who was compassionate. He looked with compassion upon the person lying there on the road and was moved to action. On the basis of that Jesus Christ with so many of the miracles he did it said he had compassion on the person that he healed. He had compassion on the crowd and so gave them bread. Compassion brings forth into actions for those around us.

This is very similar in the text here to pitiful—which is another couple of words down the line to be pitiful. Could make a joke about that I suppose we’re pretty pitiful but you know what it’s obviously what it’s talking about is being full of pity. The word actually refers to the bowels or the inward parts of somebody. We would call it being well-hearted, tender-hearted toward one another. And we know we’re called in other scriptures to be tender-hearted to one another. Are forgiving each other just as God for Christ’s sake forgave us.

So these two things go together to be pitiful and to be compassionate. Now this is very important to keep in mind because this another—it’s a very difficult thing to do again you look at most humor that we engage ourselves in even in the context of the church I suppose and what we usually laugh at are other people’s problems you know other people fall or trip or something we laugh our natural—see, just the reverse of being compassionate toward one another to being having feelings that go out to them. We make fun of them and we laugh at him. That’s carnal man. And that’s where we’re coming from as we begin as we seek to grow in grace in obedience to this truth.

So, you have to work real hard to root that out. Now, also implicit in this, of course, is the fact you’ve got to know people in order to be compassionate with what other troubles they’re having right now. If you look down that church roster, you know how many people you’ve had over to your house. You know how many people you’ve gotten together with or have even shaken hands with here in the church.

We’re a small church and we’re going to be a big church. I’m convinced of that. But, you know, if we can’t exercise compassion as a small church, how are we ever going to do it as we continue to grow? Should be easy now to reach out to other people. There aren’t that many of us here. And to know where we’re coming from, to have compassion one to another, to be tender-hearted toward each other.

You know, another example of what this isn’t is—I used state fair as a lot of examples last week. When I was down there, the band that was down there was Quarter Flash. They had that song, “Harden My Heart.” “I’m going to harden my heart.” And that’s exactly what we should not do in this church. We should soften our hearts toward one another. It’s easy to harden your heart towards somebody for a lot of reasons. Cuz you don’t want to be hurt, because you’re prideful, whatever.

But God says, “Don’t do that. Have a tender heart toward one another here in the church. Don’t say that’s his problem. Nothing to do with me. That’s your problem, too. You should at least feel for him as he goes through whatever problems he’s going through or her, whatever she’s going through.” And that compassion should, as it did with the Good Samaritan and Jesus, should yield forth in action toward helping people in this church.

Don’t shut up, as it says in 1 John 3, don’t shut up the bowels of compassion and mercy one toward another. Here you remember I a couple weeks ago when we got into this particular section, I decided to lengthen it rather than do it all in one week. We talked about a church down south where the vis guy I had talked to over the phone had come from and they were real concerned about Sabbath keeping, but they didn’t help his wife, the problem she was having with homeschooling didn’t care. They weren’t compassionate. They didn’t think about what it what she was going through, and so they were denying and being disobedient.

Even though they may have called themselves theonomic, they were being disobedient to this law of God to have compassion one for another. And by the way, there’s a homeschooling is one area in which you should be praying at least for the particularly the mothers here in the church. That’s a very difficult thing to do in the context of everything else that we’re doing in the renewed vocational calling that their husbands feel themselves urging on to do.

These are very difficult balls to keep balancing or juggling as it were. And so we should be compassionate one toward another and praying for them. And if we have ways to might think of that might help them or might be able to actually help them in some other way—whatever it would be, try to think of those things as you look at people around the church who are really struggling with teaching their children or other ways.

I had a lady yesterday call me. She goes to another church. Just wanted counsel so badly. She just has some real problems and wants to—she’s getting some pressure from an ex-homeschooler to put her kids back in public school. She doesn’t want to do that, but she’s got a lot of problems. You know, a husband who’s working, I don’t know, 80 or 90 hours a week, never sees them. And then the next thing after that, by the way, is the husbands want their wives to help them in their business, which puts even greater time pressure upon their ability to help with the kids.

And we, you know, I think probably she called us because maybe she’s not getting that compassion from other people in her church. They’re telling her, “Put her back in public school. Gosh, why hassle this?” She knows that’s not right. We should know each other here in the church and we should be moved by compassion to helping them. Simple truth, hard to do. That’s certainly true in the context of the family, though, isn’t it?

When we see our kids are having a troubles, we’re compassionate. We feel for them. When Elijah just came back here and had gotten lost with the other kids, came back crying. I didn’t make fun of that. You know, I took him back and tried to tried to help him because we have a natural compassion for our children. That’s the attitude we should have toward other people in the church. We’re to love as brethren.

In verse 8, “having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be brotherly, be a Philadelphian city of brotherly love.” This implies action in 1 Corinthians 13. Love is defined in terms primarily of actions one to another. Love is not an emotional response. That’s proper, but that’s probably more like compassion. But love says we should actually go out of our way to do things for people, to think the best about them, to talk good about them and not evil about them. Love is action.

In Romans 13:9, Paul cites the second half of the decalogue to say that love is law. We are commanded not to steal from our neighbor. We’re commanded not to bear false witness against our neighbor. Well, there’s one we probably hear in many times over the course of a couple of months: bearing false witness one toward another, at least in our minds and unfortunately all too often in our speech.

Vic gave a real good communion talk I thought a couple of months ago. Thought it was just excellent talking about our limitations toward one another and we’re limited by the law of God. We can’t put extra biblical criteria upon other people in the church. That’s a burden that’s too heavy for them to bear. We can put God’s burden upon them and help them understand how God’s law calls them to certain actions. But to put extra biblical standards to denial of having brotherly love one toward another because it denies God’s law as the standard by which we judge.

And of course, it obviously implies self-sacrifice. Again, context of the family. This isn’t always seen. Brotherly love, sisterly love. I’ve got four children girls eight and seven who’ve been at home for the last week sick end up in the same bedroom pretty much together and there’s been a lack probably of sisterly love they have cabin fever now my wife she just got sick with this same cold I am much better today than I was yesterday I was real sick yesterday so now she’s getting sick they’re getting better they’re having cabin fever they’re going and she’s going however, if all you have to do though in the context to see if there’s real love and concern for each other there is to introduce a foreign element into that household through somebody else putting down or attacking one of the sisters and you’ll see that the other sister or the brother will come to that person’s aid.

They’ll rally around themselves as it were. We should be the same way in this church. If other people take pot shots at individuals in this church, we should rally around and be supportive of those people, not be silent or even join in on the criticism that we have that they have rather people here in the church.

Courteous. “Love his brethren. Be pitiful. Be courteous.” Pitiful we talked about already with compassion. Be courteous. This is a hard one because the King James, the word it uses in this in the receive text has a different word here than the Westcott Hort. And so you don’t know which term you should deal with, you know, at least I just wasn’t exactly sure. But the term that the Westcott Hort uses is translated normally “humble”—to be humble in spirit. Again to esteem with honor and that would take in being courteous to one another as well, wouldn’t it?

So I guess we’ll we’ll approach it from that way to be humble one toward another. And after all this humility that we’ve been talking about for the last couple of weeks, it’s not as if we have to make it up. It’s It’s a fact of life. We should see ourselves as humble one to another. Why? In 1 Corinthians 4:7, Paul says, “What do you have that you didn’t receive?” And if that’s true, that you don’t have anything that you didn’t receive from God, why then do you boast as if you had not received it?

If you have ability to speak well, a good speaking voice, where’d you get that? You got it from God. There’s something to be prideful of as if you didn’t receive it from God. And so, not be humble towards somebody else. Well, of course not. Well, that’s true of everything that we have. So, the gift of God, the grace of God through Jesus Christ. So, our humility is not God isn’t calling us here to make up something that isn’t true. He’s stressing to us that we were in the dust in the dunghill as it were.

And God raised us up. And if we’re raised up, we shouldn’t be pride being glorious or puffed up about that in relationship to other people or character qualities or whatever. We should be humble and courteous is to them. You may be better at some things than somebody else, but that’s the gift of God. You can’t claim that as you’re right upon it or anything. It’s a gift of God. We should be humble one to another and courteous.

As you go through that church roster, again, there probably people there that you haven’t been humble toward necessarily. You might be prideful in terms of their abilities or their particular calling in the church. Correct those actions.

Then finally, we’re told that we’re to do everything in word and deed in a positive way toward the people around us. In verses 9 through 11, “not rendering evil for evil or railing for railing, but contrary wise blessing, knowing that ye are there into call that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him assue evil and do good both with tongues, our with our words and with our deeds.”

We’ve been talking primarily about inner character qualities, if you will, feelings we have for one another, this kind of thing, intentions we have. Now, we’re actually talking about the physical deeds themselves, our speech, and the things that we do. We should be blessing people and not cursing them. And we’ve talked in the past about the terrible sin that can come out of one’s tongue.

This, by the way, is a quotation from Psalm 34 and demonstrates again what I tried to answer in last week’s question and answer time. There’s basic continuity in this humility and meekness we have going out from us horizontally as we get it from God vertically through the old covenant and the new covenant. There’s not a distinction there. Psalm 34 that talks about that meekness toward one another, refraining your tongue from evil and actually doing good for other people. Psalm 34—that’s old covenant.

So there’s basic continuity here. And I mentioned last week in the question and answer time that Moses—we were told that Moses was the meekest man on earth. And the context of that in the book of Numbers where that’s found is people grumbling against his leadership and God saying, “Hey, they’re grumbling against his leadership. He was meek.” In other words, he was serving them. He was meek horizontally. Okay? So, there’s continuity in the testaments.

But many of them were to refrain our tongue from doing evil against our brother. We talked about that a year or so ago when I talked on Psalm 15 during communion time—how important it is to not gossip or to slander other people with our tongues. We teach our kids, you know, the kids are this little ditty: “Sticks and stones will break my bones with names will never hurt me.” Well, it just isn’t true. It just isn’t true. Our tongues can do great evil. So we have to be very careful what we teach our kids about their tongues as well.

Gossip, we mentioned that at the time, how gossip has been said by several commentators to these passages to be worse than murder gossip is because it kills three people. It kills the person that you’re gossiping about, the reputation. It infects the person you’re gossiping to by filling them full of untrue things. They have some presuppositional mindsets now against that person. It does death to them. And it does death to you as the giver forth of such vile things.

Let’s be very careful to avoid gossip and talking about each other in the church. And again, as you go through that church roster, you might be able to find some names in there that you haven’t perhaps used your tongue in the most wise manner in relationship to that’s negatively. It’s also wrong not positively to exercise our tongue for their benefit. In other words, it’s certainly wrong to gossip about people and call them names. It’s also wrong not to use our mouths to help each other and to instruct each other and to edify each other. So that’s called upon to do here as well.

And then deeds of course also are very important. We should examine ourselves that our words and deeds and our attitudes toward other here at Reformation Covenant Church are proper and in line with proper humility and meekness in this passage of scripture. It’s extremely important.

We talk about the need for a man to exercise proper control in his household before he can be an elder. And that’s certainly true. And you have to clean up the act in your own backyard first as it were before you can go out and take on larger responsibilities. So the same thing is true of the church. We have to make sure our church backyard as it were is cleaned up. And we’ve rooted out the evil nest that will be there as a natural consequence of our sin. We have to root that out through the teaching of God’s word and the steady application of it in our lives.

Pride, it said, is the mother of the seven deadly sins. And pride really is the thing that will prevent you from doing any of these things we’ve talked about. Pride is a terrible thing. Calvin said that each individual by flattering himself bears a kind of kingdom in his breast. That’s a good expression. We can’t necessarily be king outside. People confront us all the time, but we can sure think of ourselves as the end all and be all in life. And we do.

We come out of the womb that way. Kingdom in our breast, considering our self, our interests first. If you’ve had small children, you know that’s true. You know that they think they are the center of all reality. We continue to keep vests of that in our heart unless we root it out by the application of God’s word. May not see it, may not see it ourselves. Sometimes you scratch a little bit at the outside surface of our actions toward one another as Calvin said, and it will come spewing out.

We have to root it out through the application of God’s word, through reading it, through doing it, and through forcing ourselves to act in conformance to it. Now, I’m talking about humility, meekness, the application of the church, and yet here in a couple minutes, we’re going to sing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? Kind of a militaristic mindset to the day today with the songs we’ve selected for you. I do that on purpose because humility and meekness yields forth into victory. That’s what the scriptures clearly teach.

And again, we started this morning talking about “likewise”—Jesus Christ. What does it say about Philippians in Philippians about Christ in chapter 2 after saying that God that Jesus set aside the privileges and prerogatives he had in heaven and came to earth to serve us by dying on the cross. It says that therefore God also highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Victory is the result of what he did in coming to serve us through his meekness. The scriptures prophesied in Isaiah: “Lo, your king comes to you on a foal meek. Does your king come to you?” And Jesus Christ came meekly in the sense of being under God’s harness and then doing what he did for the benefit of his elect. And he died on the cross was resurrected. And as a result of that service, he has victory now over all principalities and powers and all things have come under his subjection.

The scriptures teach that the victory that we know is true in the spreading kingdom of Jesus Christ is founded not upon the ability of the church. The victory is founded upon the work of Jesus Christ at his first coming. He doesn’t come a second time to set up by physical force a kingdom and he is not won to himself through his service on the cross in his first coming. That is the basis of postmillennialism, if you want to put a name to it, or optimistic eschatology, what Christ did on the cross and through his resurrection. We know that victory is preceded by service, therefore, and by self-denial.

Now, in 1 Peter 3, the same thing is pointed out. It may not seem to at first, but what does it talk about that submissive wife who obeys these things, who trusts God, and then submits to her husband, serving him, whose adorning would not be the outward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing of gold or of putting out of a parable. Let it be the hidden man of the heart and that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.

She receives an adornment to her life. Now, it’s interesting that word for adornment in that verse, you know what it is? It has its roots in the same word as world cosmos. The adornment is cosmo. And there’s a relationship to cosmetics, right? Adorning yourself with cosmetics. X cosmos order is what the basic meaning there is. There’s an orderliness that occurs. There’s an orderliness in the world that God has created.

And when we have adornments that he’s talking about here, it’s order. Now, think about the other kinds of adornments. He’s saying it’s not. Now, he’s not saying those are wrong. Silver, gold, jewelry, and plaiting of the hair. He’s not saying that’s wrong. In fact, it’s absolutely correct. We should take what God has given us in this earth and develop it.