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The shadows cast against the wall from the flickering candles created a somber environment. But there was much more than just the candles that created this ambiance in the room. The last few days had been much like that.
There were 13 men, they were sitting around this table with these candles, and one of them perhaps was thinking back three or four years to this moment that would turn his life upside down.
Three or four years earlier, when he had been fishing on the Sea Of Galilee with his dad and his brother, and they came to shore, this well known rabbi, Yeshua, Jesus, approached them and said, come and follow me. And in that moment, this man named Peter and his brother dropped everything, and they began to follow this Jesus, and oh, the next three or four years of their life,
the things that they would witness, the things that they would hear, the miracles that they would see. But in the last few days, Jesus had been acting very serious and very somber, and now on this night, the last night,
they're celebrating the pastor, and there's these flickering lights, and Jesus has been talking about these crazy things like going up to Jerusalem and dying, and Peter and the other disciples are like, what are you talking about? You've proven you're the Messiah. You're the one we've been waiting for. You're gonna set up your kingdom. You're gonna overthrow tyranny of the Roman government.
But then on this night, they're sitting in this somber room with these flickering candles, Jesus says some things that will completely transform the lives of Peter and the other men in that room. At one point, Jesus is praying out loud to his father and he says, I pray,
father, that they would be one as we are one so that the world will know. And moments later, he'll look at these men and he'll say, you know how the world are gonna know that you follow me? You know how the world is gonna know who my followers are? By your love. What? Not by your theology?
Not by your words or your rhetoric or messages, not by your power, not by your purity or your holiness. They're gonna know your mind by your love. This was, this is upside down, backwards, inside out. This is counterintuitive. This is countercultural. In fact, it revolutionized Peter's life to the point
that he eventually would understand this truth. It's the big idea for this weekend, this truth that people care more about what comes out of our lives than what comes out of our mouths. You know that's true, right? People care more about what comes out of our life than what comes out of our mouths,
and Peter began to understand that.
If you have your Bibles open to first Peter chapter three, we're in week six of this series that we've been doing here at Rock Point called Refiner's Fire, and we're looking at this letter that Peter wrote about thirty years after the events of that night when Jesus said, I pray that they would be one as we are one, Father, so that the world will know. How is the world gonna know who the followers of Jesus are? By their
Love. Love. Thirty years later, Peter will sit down and he'll write this letter. We call it first Peter. It's near the end of the Bible there, and he writes this letter to these Jesus followers scattered throughout the Roman Empire who are under intense persecution,
and he's wanting to encourage them, and he's wanting me to tell them, how do we live out this Christian faith in this world under persecution in difficult times?
But what we're gonna see in first Peter chapter three today will make no sense to us if we don't understand the context. In fact, not only will it not make sense to us, you'll be incredibly frustrated if you try to live out what we're gonna look at in first Peter chapter three and you don't understand the context
behind it. I'm gonna explain the context in a moment. Let me let me just pause and pray for us. God, we need you. Once again, I beg you, I plead with you, spirit of God, if you would open our hearts and minds to get this because if these are just words we hear and another message we hear and and your power isn't behind it, God, we leave here and we just we just go through another week.
So, God, we ask that you would change us, move us, motivate us right now. We love you, Jesus, and all God's people said, amen.
So I'm gonna drop a truth here that maybe some of you aren't aware of. If you're a note taker, you're gonna wanna write this down. This is very important. Maybe some of you have never heard this before. You'll see a picture on the screen. I just want you to know that that's not how things work. K?
Alright. Some of you, this is news to you. Wait. I thought the I thought the world revolved around me. I'm being facetious. Right? Because we all know this.
Even if you're young and you're sitting in here, you've heard your mom or dad or grandparents or a teacher or coach, somewhere along the line, said these words to you. Hey, the world doesn't revolve around you.
The problem is is that most of humans throughout most of human history and all of us in here and all of you watching online, at times, we act like the world revolves around us, don't we? We try to live. We intellectually understand that it doesn't, but we start trying to live that way and it causes havoc
in our relationships, in our marriages, in our families, in our friendships, in our workplaces,
when we live like the world revolves around us. See, the context that we're gonna look at today, first Peter chapter three, the message, he's gonna talk about unity. He's gonna talk about what he heard Jesus say thirty years before he wrote these words when Jesus said, I pray that they would be one as we are one so that the world will know. How will the world know who the followers of Jesus are? By our Love. Love.
So he's gonna talk about, well, how do we live this out?
But if we don't understand the context, it's gonna be frustrating to us. See, the context is a chapter before in first Peter chapter two, if you were here a couple of weeks ago when I preached, I preached about identity because in chapter two Peter's reminding us who we are.
He's saying, you you are children of God. You are created in the image of God. You are a royal priesthood. You are the possessions of God, which reminds us that this picture isn't true. The world actually doesn't revolve around us. The world and history and the story revolves around who? God, Jesus.
In fact, it's not just first Peter that that's the context, it's this whole book, this whole narrative. Go to the very beginning, Genesis one verse one, the very beginning of the story. Says, in the beginning, God. It doesn't say in the beginning, Patrick.
It doesn't say in the beginning, your name. In the beginning, God. The story started with God. Go to the end of the story, Revelation, the very end where we see into the future, and we see when Jesus comes back and says every tribe and every nation, every knee and every tongue will confess
that Jesus is Lord. Not that I am, not that you are. So who's the center of the story? Jesus, God. It it it's about him. One one writer put it this way. He said it's a it's a theo narrative, theo God, versus an ego narrative. Ego meaning ego myself.
And the danger is when we make the story ego about me and the story not about God, we start living like we're the center of the universe, and oh man, that creates problems. And we know that because we see it all over the place.
Now, I recognize when I said that we're gonna talk about unity today that some of you are going, oh man, I'm gonna get on social media. Don't. Don't. Because we need to hear this. We recognize this is a struggle
for all of us. I get it. How many married people in here go, oh yeah, it just happens naturally that we get along? No one. How many families go, oh yeah, we just get along naturally all the time, never have any issues, siblings get along perfectly?
Doesn't happen, right? And if you think that that getting along just happens, get on social media later today and watch. Just listen to what people are saying and how they respond and talk to each other. Unity is something that doesn't happen. Harmony doesn't happen naturally.
Loving each other doesn't happen naturally. And remember, when Peter sat in that room with those flickering candles and he heard Jesus say, I pray that they would be one as we are one so that the world will know. How is the world gonna know the followers of Jesus? By their Love. Love.
So Peter is gonna sit down and he's gonna say, okay, I have to tell you about how to love well because that's this kingdom that we're talking about. The kingdom of God, it's about love. That's
how people are gonna know. Unlike any other kingdom. It's this upside down, backwards, inside out kingdom. It's this countercultural, counterintuitive kingdom, unlike any other kingdom.
So let me show you what I mean. So Peter in First Peter chapter three verse eight, he sits down and he's gonna start writing about how do we be unified? How do we get along? How do we love each other? So he writes this, first Peter three eight, finally,
all of you should be of one mind. Now stop right there because I imagine maybe maybe at this point Peter set his quill down or whatever he wrote with two thousand years ago. He's got his parchment spread out. He's writing on it and maybe at this moment he just set his quill down after he wrote those words. Finally, all of you should be of one mind. And maybe he put his head in his hands and he remembered those words of Jesus thirty some years before. And I pray that you would be one
as we are one so that the world will know, and the world's gonna know you're my followers by your Love. Love. Not by your power, not by your theology, not by your rhetoric, not by your purity, not by your holiness, but by your love. So maybe at this moment that Peter wrote that, he just thought about those words of Jesus,
and so now what he's gonna do is in the next two verses, he's gonna explain how we do that.
How do we live out this unity? How do we live in harmony? How do we love each other well? And so I'm gonna say, and if you're note takers, you wanna write down exactly these words, because I I chose these words carefully. He's gonna give us six ingredients to combat conflict.
He's gonna give us six ingredients to combat conflict. I chose those words for three reasons.
Six ingredients to combat conflict. I chose those words, number one, because it doesn't happen naturally. It's like I just said. How many marriages in here you're like, oh, yeah, we just get along all the time. It's just how many families? None of us. It takes work. Combat. You have to fight against conflict.
Six ingredients to combat conflict. The second reason I chose those words like that is it's not an option for us. It's not whether
you as a follower of Jesus, if you claim to be a follower of Jesus and you're watching online, you don't get to say, you know, I like the first three, last three I don't really like. I think I'll do the first three and ignore the last three. Peter's saying, no, you don't get that option.
If you claim to be a follower of Jesus, this is what you need to live. This is you need to have these in your life. The other reason I chose those words, six ingredients to combat conflict, is because these synergize together. These six things go together. It's a little bit like a recipe.
You know how when you go home, and I know everybody in here has experienced this at some point, when you walk in a door and someone's just made some brownies, remember that smell? Right? You can smell it right now, can't you? Just oh, like you open the door and and
oh, I can smell them now. We all want brownies now, don't we? But brownies, that whatever made those brownies, all those ingredients, by themselves, those ingredients aren't that great. Take a teaspoon of salt and throw it in your mouth. Take
a couple of cups of flour and just start eating that. Take cocoa, it's bitter, but when you put all the ingredients together, oh. So Peter is saying these six things that he's about to list. How do we live out this love? How do we live in unity and harmony with one another, which is so important because remember, how do people know we're Jesus followers? By our
love. Why? Because people care more what comes out of our life than what comes out of our mouths. People care more about what comes out of our life than what comes out of our mouths.
So let's look at these six ingredients. The first one we see is to be sympathetic. To be sympathetic.
It comes from the very next phrase in verse eight, so keep reading verse eight. Says, finally, all of you should be of one mind, and remember perhaps at this point Peter put down his quill and paused, and he remembered Jesus' words, I pray that you would be one,
as my father and I are one, so that the world will know, and the world will know you're my followers by your love. Why? Because people care more about what comes out of your life than what comes out of your mouth. So then he starts listing these things, and the first one is to be sympathetic. To have empathy.
Empathy and being sympathetic just simply means that we feel what other people feel, and so we grieve when someone's grieving, we rejoice when someone's rejoicing, we celebrate when someone's celebrating. It's to be empathetic, it's to feel with them.
I used to work with a guy who was not very empathetic at all, and he would always say it this way, he'd say, it's not that I don't know what you're feeling, it's just that I don't care. Wow, I guess you're honest.
But here's what's interesting about it. Personality studies have proven this now. Some of you in here, some of you watching online, are just naturally empathetic. When you were little children, you just if your parents told us stories about you, they'd be like, oh, yeah, they're just naturally very an empathetic person.
Some of you others in here, empathy's a little harder for you. It doesn't come naturally. You're like, I even care sometimes with some I don't even know what people are feeling sometimes in the room. Here's what's interesting. Peter doesn't say, If you're naturally good at sympathy,
then be sympathetic. If you're not naturally good at this, don't worry about it. He doesn't say that. So those of us in this room that this is a little more difficult for us, it doesn't come naturally for us, it's still not an option for us.
Peter's saying, if you want the world to recognize us by our love, you need to be sympathetic. You need to be empathetic. Look at the second ingredient that he lists here. The second one is to be loyal.
Six ingredients to combat conflict. Be sympathetic, be loyal. This comes from, keep reading verse eight. He goes on in verse eight, and he says, Love each other as brothers and sisters. And you may go, well, where did you get the phrase be loyal from loving each other as brothers and sisters?
We get to do another little language study today. Yeah. I know it, I know. You were coming to church today driving when I hope we get to do a language study again, and yes we do. This phrase, love as brothers and sisters, or be unified as brothers and sisters, is used two fifty times in the New Testament. 250
times. Now, it was written two thousand years ago in Greek, and so a little a literal if they literally translated it into English, it would say, love each other as you're from the same womb. Love each other as you're from the same womb. That's a literal translation.
James talks about it. Peter talks about it here. Paul talks about it. John talks about it. These guys that wrote the New Testament 250
times. Well, why did they use that phrase? We gotta back up to another story of Jesus to understand it. It's found in John chapter three. It's a story where this guy named Nicodemus, I'm gonna call him Nick, when Nick shows up to talk to Jesus. Now, Nick, if you know his background, he was a very powerful man, wealthy man, intellectual man. He was part of the Sanhedrin.
That would kinda be like saying in America that it'd be like saying that he was part of the Supreme Court. One of the most powerful, wealthy, intellectual,
influential people in Israel in those days. He knew that culturally it would get him in trouble if he was caught talking to Jesus at this point in Jesus' ministry. So he shows up at night, late at night. So let just kinda put it in a modern day story so you can understand. Nick is so powerful that he has his own driver.
Most of us in here, we don't have our own driver. We don't pick up the front. Hey, driver. Pull up in front of the house. Nick had his own driver. And the Suburban with darkened windows, because he's so important, doesn't want anybody to even see that he's in the Suburban, the Suburban with darkened windows pulls up, Nick goes and gets in it. He tells him the address that he hears Jesus is at. Goes to the address, but Nick says, Go down two more blocks. Don't park in front of Jesus' house. He pulls down two more blocks, not at six or 07:00 at night, at midnight, when most everybody's in bed. Then he tells his driver, is anybody looking? So his driver's looking up in the in the the in the windows, looking down the street. I don't see anybody. So Nick gets out. He walks down the shadows of the sidewalk, knocks on the door, chuck chuck chuck. Jesus answers the door. Nick's like, hey, I wanna talk to you, but I can't talk out here. I gotta come inside.
That's how John three starts. So Nick walks in and he says, Jesus, I've seen and heard some things about you. You must be from God.
Are you the Messiah? Are you the one that we've been waiting for? Because Nick's a devout Jew. Are you the one we've been waiting for? And then Jesus says something that throws this intellectual, wealthy, powerful, brilliant man.
He says, yeah, I'm the one, but listen, Nick, if you wanna get into my kingdom, the kingdom that you've been waiting for, you have to be born again. Now, if you grew up in church, that's a churchy phrase now. We all know that. If you grew up in church, you're like, oh yeah, be born again. You know how weird that sounds?
And here's this intellectual man who's standing there going, wait, I don't think that's possible. You know, like for me personally, I'm five feet nine, all of five feet nine inches tall. My mom's five feet tall. This
isn't gonna work. And Nick even says that if you read John three, what happened? Do I go back in my mother's womb? That doesn't make sense. How can this work? Jesus said, oh, Nick, you're missing it. There's two births.
You have a physical birth. We've all had a physical birth. If you're watching online, you've had a physical birth. That's why we're here.
But to get into my kingdom, you have to have a second birth, a spiritual birth. How do you have that birth, Jesus? Oh, you have that birth by simply putting your faith and trust in me. Now, that's the background to this phrase, love as brothers and sisters,
because if you've put your faith and trust in Jesus, you've been spiritually birthed into a new family. You're part of this kingdom that is gonna last forever, which means if you put your faith and trust in Jesus, I'm your brother. I thought you'd be a little more excited by that. We're family. We're family.
If you're online or you're sitting in this room and you've put your faith Look around the room. Anybody who's put their faith in We're family now. We're brothers and sisters. So two fifty times in the New Testament the writers will say, Hey, be unified.
Live in harmony like your brothers and sisters. Now, I'm talking about a healthy family, not an unhealthy family. Some of you came from unhealthy families, you're like, I don't want to live like that. But in a healthy family, brothers and sisters, oh, they may still fight at times, but at the end of the day, it's like, ma'am, I got your back.
That's a healthy family, right? We may fight, but at the end of the day, oh, I got your back like no one else does.
So the second ingredient in how we live out this important concept of unity, of living in harmony, of loving each other, why is it so important? Because two thousand years ago, Jesus said, I pray that they would be one as we are one so that the world can will know. And how does the world know that we're followers of Jesus? By our love.
Why? Because people care more about what comes out of your life than what comes out of your mouth. The second ingredient then is you saying, be loyal to each other. Look at the third ingredient here. The third ingredient is be compassionate.
Be compassionate, and here's how he actually says it if you keep reading in verse eight. It literally says, be tenderhearted. I just changed that to compassion because we don't really talk about being tenderhearted very often anymore. We use the word compassion,
but compassion is different than sympathy or empathy. It's so important for you to get. Okay? Compassion moves us past sympathy or empathy because compassion compels us to do something. Compels us to do something.
See, sympathy and empathy, and it's important because Peter just got done saying we need to be sympathetic, empathetic with each other. That will move me, if you're grieving, to maybe cry with you, but compassion is what will compel me to do something. This
what you see in the life of Jesus over and over again. If you were to read the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you will see a phrase like this said over and over again, and it'll say, And Jesus was moved with compassion,
and then read the next line, because it'll say, And so he fed them, and so he healed them. He did something with his compassion. See, compassion moves us past just being empathetic or sympathetic. It moves us to do something. I'm gonna come back to that at the end. But look at the fourth ingredient here. Be sympathetic,
be loyal, be compassionate, Be humble.
Be humble. In fact, he says it this way, if you look at verse eight again, he says, and keep a humble spirit. This is my definition for humility. Some of you have heard me say this before, say but this because I think humility is one of the most misunderstood things. We talk a lot about humility in our culture.
People are like, what does it really look like when someone's humble? I mean, we can sense it. We can feel it when you're with a humble person, like you can sense and feel it when you're with an arrogant person, but how do you really define it? So here's what humility is. Humility is to understand who we are in relationship with God, who we are in relationship with each other, and to recognize our own brokenness.
I'm gonna say that again. You're a note taker, you could because I know you wanna write this down, so I'm gonna say it again a couple times. Humility to understand who we are in relationship to God, who we are in relationship to each other, and to recognize our own brokenness. All three of those are important.
So you remember what I said about the context, the context of this whole narrative, this whole story. We're not the center of the universe. Who is? God.
Humility is to understand who we are in a relationship with God. In the beginning, God. Not in the beginning, Patrick. At the end, everybody bows and worships God. Not Patrick, not you.
Humility is to understand who we are in relationship to God, to say you're God and I'm not. But humility is to also understand who we are in relationship to each other. Philippians chapter two, Paul says, you wanna know what humility looks like in someone's life? They put the needs of others in front of their own.
It says that right in Philippians two. If you wanna be humble, if you wanna live humble, here's the best way you can do it. Put the needs of others in front of your own. My friends, can you imagine how much different our marriages would be if we lived that out?
What if all of us as spouses began to put the need of our spouse in front of our own? What if families began to do that? What if a church like Rock Point Church began to do that? Can you imagine how revolutionary that would be? This is what I mean by this being an upside down, backwards, inside out message, countercultural,
counterintuitive. Be humble. Humility is to understand who we are in relationship to God, who we are in relationship to each other to to put the needs of others in front of ourselves, and it's to recognize our own brokenness. Humility is to say, I don't have it together. You don't have it together. I'm not okay.
You're not okay. I have hurts, habits, and hang ups. You have hurts, habits, and hang ups. I'm a I'm a broken individual on this journey of life just like you are. Humility is to understand who we are in relationship to God, who we are in relationship to each other, and to recognize our own brokenness.
Peter says, Man, if we're gonna live this love out, we have to have a humble spirit. Why is that so important? Because people care more about what comes out of your life than what comes out of your mouth. Look the fifth ingredient. Have be sympathetic, be loyal, be compassionate, be humble, be forgiving.
Be forgiving. Here's how he says it. Now, Elmer in verse nine, if you're reading along in your Bible, in verse nine he says, Don't repay evil for evil.
My friends, this is maybe the most revolutionary of all of these. This is so countercultural. There's not a kingdom that has ever been on this planet. This is a kingdom about not repaying evil for evil, not getting ahead.
That's not a kiss up and kick down culture. Every other kingdom that's ever been on this planet has been about that. But Jesus is saying, not my kingdom. If you claim to be a follower of Jesus, that's not how you're gonna live.
And you get it. You get it that all these other kingdoms are that way, because that's why greatest movie ever made, Braveheart. Okay? I'm just telling you that now. If you disagree with me, you're wrong, that's okay. We'd still get along because Unity's important. Braveheart, greatest movie ever made. And there's that part in the beginning where they kill his wife, and then he takes his sword and he goes in and gets revenge, and he's killing the people that killed his wife. And what are we doing as
an audience? We're sitting there, especially us men, and we're going, Why? Because that just comes natural. That's what we do. That's what every kingdom does. You hurt me, I'm gonna hurt you worse.
You take something from me, I'm gonna take twice as much from you. That's how the kingdoms of this world work. Jesus says, Not in my kingdom. They're gonna know you by your love. Forgive. See, told this story about two years ago when I was here at Rock Point. I'll tell it again because it fits,
that this is so natural for us to try to get even. So about two and a half years ago, there was a group that had wounded me deeply with something, and I won't go into details about what it was, but it wounded me deeply, I was just having a hard time with bitterness over it, and so one night I
was dreaming. You know how vivid and real dreams can be, right? So I'm dreaming that I hear a knock on my door, and I go look out the little peephole, and one of these guys that had wounded me and my family is standing out there. So I open the door, and in my dream, he starts saying some of the things that he had said before, and he steps in my house and he's poking my chest like this saying those things to me, and so in my dream I just went like bam, throat punched him. And he went down, in my dream he's down going,
I wake up, and I kid you not, this was me laying in bed.
It felt so good. It was just a dream. See, that comes natural, doesn't it? Every other kingdom in this world, you get even, you get ahead, and Jesus is saying, Not in my kingdom. How many Suns fans do we have in here? Right? Got a big game today. Man,
I don't know if you know much about their coach, but I got a ton of respect for this guy, Monty. And in fact, would encourage you before the game today,
and even if you aren't a Suns fan or basketball fan, go home and Google this and watch this Monty's eulogy to his wife. Google it, it'll come up. It's about seven minutes. It's worth your time. Because see, couple years ago, Monty's wife with, I think they have five children, she was driving down the road, and an impaired driver
who had drugs in her system crossed over, they had a hit on collision and killed his wife. And if you ever heard Monte talk about his wife, he adored his wife. And a week after she's killed by this impaired driver,
Monte is standing up doing the eulogy, and there's a massive crowd and there are well known, powerful people sitting in this audience.
Watch it later, seven minutes of your time, but near the end of it, you'll hear him say, listen, I know many of you in here are praying for me and my family, as you should, thank you, keep doing that, but there was another family that was hurting this.
He's talking about the one who took his wife's life and he says pray for her too. I cannot call myself a servant of Jesus if I'm not willing to forgive.
No wonder two thousand years ago, Jesus said, you know how they're gonna know your mind? This upside down, backwards, inside out message, this countercultural, counterintuitive kingdom that says we'll forgive. Forgiven people should be forgiving people. Forgiven people be forgiving people. How many of you have been forgiven?
How many of us in here have been forgiven by God? Of all our sins, right? Every sin. That sin that you committed that no one else knows, and you would die before you stood on this stage and told anybody that little secret sin, he he forgave you for that one too. Every sin, every sin you ever will commit in the future,
every sin Jesus took on himself. You have been forgiven a debt that you could never repay. I've been forgiven a debt that I could never repay. Jesus is saying, if you understand how much you've been forgiven, you should be a forgiving people too. I know it's not easy, trust me.
I still wake up sometimes dreaming about throat punching people. I know it's not easy, but when I understand how much I've been forgiven, how can I not say, God, I'm gonna let this go, I'm giving it to you? You deal with it, I forgive them. Wow. Look at this next ingredient,
this sixth ingredient, this final one. He talks about being sympathetic and being loyal and compassionate and humble and forgiving, and then he says, Be wise with your words.
Here's how he actually writes it in verse nine. He goes on, he says, don't retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. You know, 3,000 ago, David in Psalm one forty one verse three wrote, put a guard over my mouth.
Three thousand years ago, David said, put a guard over my mouth. Why did he say that? Because he he knew what his son Solomon would write in Proverbs years later. He and Solomon Solomon in Proverbs write this that this right here, that this has a power of life and death. This.
This little thing like that, one of the most powerful weapons in this world, this, and you know that. You know the stupidity of the nursery rhyme that said, sticks and stones might break my bone, but words will never hurt me. That's stupid,
because every single person in here, you remember clearly some words that have been spoken to you. It tore your heart out.
Three thousand years ago, Solomon said, this right here has the power of life and death. That's why David said, put a guard over my mouth. That's why Peter, when he's writing this and he's saying, hey, we need to live in harmony. We to live in unity. We need to love each other. Well, how do we do that? Well, one of the ways we do that is we need to be careful with our mouth
and be careful what we say. I find it interesting that you can't graduate high school in our country without taking a speech class. Like, you gotta take a basic class about how to do a speech, and your intro and your conclusion, and how you have your main points,
but maybe we should start requiring classes that say not how to speak, but how to keep this shut.
Yeah. Good idea. I like it. I like it. Be the quietest, quickest class ever. Okay? Class, all you can do is just sit there and shut up today.
But, man, oh, we could use that. Why? Why? Because two thousand years ago, Jesus said, I pray that they would be one as we are one so that the world will know. How will the world know that we're followers of Jesus? By our Love. Love. People care more about what comes out of your life than what comes out of your mouth.
Wait a second. Some of you are going, aren't you talking about what comes out of our mouth here? Isn't that the last point? Here's the paradox and irony of that. What comes out of your life eventually comes out of your mouth, and what comes out of your mouth eventually comes out of your life.
What comes out of your life eventually comes out of your mouth. What comes out of your mouth eventually comes out of your life. You can fool some people sometimes, but you're never gonna fool everyone all of the time. Eventually,
eventually, what comes out of your life will come out of your mouth, and what comes out of your mouth will come out of your life, and that's why at the end, this sixth ingredient here, Peter's saying, okay, how do we love each other? How do we live in harmony with each other? How do we do this? Well, oh, be so careful with your mouth. Be so careful with your words.
So here's my challenge. Here's my challenge for us. And I say us because I need this challenge too. I want you to look at those six, and can we put Oh, there they are. They're on the screen again. I want you to look at those six, and just between you and God ask, which one do I need to work on?
Maybe Now, I'm doing pretty well with these four or five, but which one do I need to work on? Sympathetic. Do
I not really feel other people's feelings or not grieve with other people? Do I not celebrate with other Maybe that's the one. Is it be loyal? Are you loyal? Do you recognize we're family? I'm your brother, whether you like it or not.
And even when we have disagreements, we need to come back together and say, man, I got your back. Is it be compassionate? Or maybe you have empathy, all you do is sit on the couch and cry when you see those sad commercials. That didn't help the starving kid. So maybe you have to just get up and do something.
Be compassionate. Be humble. Put the needs of others in front of your own. Maybe that's the one where you're saying, oh, God, I don't do this well. It's always about me. Be forgiving. Some of you are carrying around grudges and bitterness. It's killing you. Let it go. Give it to God. Be wise with your words.
Some of you were born with a a gift or maybe it's a curse
that you can put people down so quickly. Like they give they a little put down to you, you come back and put them down places, you know. Some people are really good at that, like, oh, you got me let me get you. I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse, but if you have that, be very careful with it. Words can hurt.
Let me just conclude with this story, and I'm gonna illustrate what compassion is. It's kind of right in the middle of these six ingredients. It's the third thing that he lists,
but I find it interesting because it's the one that's maybe most important. They're all important. We don't get to pick and choose, but this is the one that has us actually do something. This is the one that compels us to do something.
And there's the story of the nineteen eighty eight Olympics, and I I get it. I look around this room, I go, there's a lot of you that weren't alive in 1988. So so let me tell you the story. In 1988, there was a guy named Dan Jensen. He was an American skater from Wisconsin. He was a speed skater, one of the best in the world.
And hours before he was gonna do his race in nineteen eighty eight Olympics, his sister who had been battling leukemia, who he loved dearly died. And so the whole world is hearing this story,
and when Dan Jensen went up to the starting line and he digs his skate in and he gets ready to go, the whole world had heard about his sister who had just died hours before and that Dan Jensen was doing this race to honor her. He was favored to win. And the gun goes off and Dan takes off
and he crashes in the first corner. Now some of you don't remember the story. You weren't even alive, but but here's a picture of Dan Jensen, and you can see in that picture the grief, the pain. He just lost his sister and he was gonna honor her and now he failed.
In the next couple of weeks, Dan Jensen would receive thousands of letters from all over the world, people that were empathetic and sympathetic toward him, but there was a kid from the Special Olympics that moved beyond just sympathy and empathy. His name was Mark, and and here's what he wrote in his letter to Dan.
He said, dear Dan, I watched you on TV. I'm sorry that you fell two times. I'm in the Special Olympics. I won a gold medal at Pennsylvania State Summer Olympics right after my dad died seven years ago. Before we start the games at the Special Olympics, we have a saying that goes like this, let me win,
but if I can't win, let me be brave in the attempt. I wanna share one of my gold medals with you because I don't like to see you not get one. Try again in four more years. Dan reached inside of that envelope, there was a gold medal. Mark's gold medal. That's compassion.
He didn't just write a letter like thousands of others, and those letters were nice. Sympathy, it's an important one, the first ingredient. He's saying I'm gonna do something. Rock Point, can you imagine if we live these out?
Two thousand years ago, Jesus said, I pray that they would be one as we are one father so that the world can know. And how is the world gonna know that they're mine, that they're part of a different kingdom? By their love. Why? Because people care more what comes out of our life than what comes out of our mouth.
Imagine if we live these six things out. It's a church called Rock Point. If we live these things out, I can promise you that our community will start to take notice because Jesus said two thousand years ago, they'll know you by your love.
As we sing this last song, man, would you make the words of the song your prayer? Listen closely to words of the song. It's everything that I just talked about. God, Jesus, thank you for your patience with us. I look at this list of six things and I think which one do I need to work on? Well, all six.
Thank you for your patience with us. But also, God, thank you for the promise that you've empowered us through your spirit with everything we need for life and godliness. You've given us everything we need to live this out. And so I pray that as a community of
believers, as your followers, Jesus, that we would begin to live this out, that people would see us living in unity and harmony together, loving each other. And because of this, God, they would eventually come to know you. May we do that, may we live this. We love you, Jesus, and all God's people said, amen.
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we're And do to in his heart because they will know that we are Christians by our love. Thank you for joining us online today. If you need prayer, connect with us on rockpoint.io under the need to talk tab. Be sure to follow us on social media stay up to date with what's happening here at Rock Point.