Living Hope Overcomes Evil

Posted: March 19, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Bless, Blessing, evil, Good, goodness, Harmony, Humility, Jesus, Lips, Love, Peace, Sermons | Leave a comment

How do you fight evil? Evil comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. From human trafficking to drug trafficking. From the tiniest of the laboratory-created viruses to massive atomic bombs that wipe out whole cities. Or to make it more personal – the bully in the schoolyard – evil is all around us. How do we fight evil? This the question for us today. Many attempts have been made in human history to eradicate evil using the pen and penitentiary, the sword and the statute, the lash and the law. Have they worked? Does might make right? No! 

However, there is a way to fight evil. Please turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter 3:8-12. To give you context, let me quickly review starting from the beginning of this book. The book was written by Peter, one of Jesus’ key disciples. Peter knew about evil. He grew up under Roman occupation. He most likely saw tax collectors bilk his nation, his family and his business (Matthew 17:24-27). He had witnessed crucifixion – the most horrific torture device ever invented by humans. Peter had been on the run himself from evil. This is why he writes to a group of Christians and reminds them in the first verse of the book that they are “elect exiles” – homeless, but handpicked by God. Understanding one’s identity is key to fighting evil because it helps you fight for the right things. Fighting over land and loot should not be our focus as elect exiles because we understand that we are homeless and handpicked by God. If you understand that this world is not your home, you don’t fight over it as much. Think about that. Are you fighting for your rights? Your stuff? Your reputation? Embracing being an “elect exile” in Christ changes all that. Peter reminds his readers that they have “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you.” (1 Peter 1:4) That helps the next time people rob you of the temporal things God loaned you on earth. You can still go to the authorities because of the injustice, but the emotional attachment to things should wane. Remember eternal inheritance awaits because of the fact that God sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins and rise again to give us eternal life as born again believers (1:3). This will give you a living hope (1:3). God is so good. He is holy and has declared and made us holy. Our holiness means we are different than the world and are devoted to God (1:16). It means we are building a new spiritual house and royal priesthood, not just for ourselves, but to serve the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ (2:9). Out of this identity, we can submit ourselves to government, even if it acts evil at times, because our King is over the government and our time here is short (2:13). We can live differently as we labour and suffer unjustly (2:18-19). And we can live differently in our homes, winning over our families through submission and honour when they do not obey the word of God (3:1-7). These are in fact ways we fight evil. We fight evil at home first, then through the church and finally out there in the world. But let’s get more specific. Let’s read 1 Peter 3:8-12.  Read 1 Peter 3:8-12!

How do you fight evil? Overcome evil with good. This is a repeated principle in Scripture – overcome evil with good (c.f. Romans 12:14-21). Let me summarise 1 Peter 3:8-12: Overcome evil by blessing others. Overcome evil by blessing others. We can explicitly see in verse 9, “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.” This is amazing! Did catch the revolutionary principle that Peter is proclaiming? Blessing those who hurt us leads to our own blessing! Yes, our primary intention is to bless our persecutors, but God is promising that we will receive a blessing in return. Where is Peter getting this? From Jesus! Jesus declared in Matthew 5:10-12, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Jesus promised us blessing if we are persecuted and subsequently bless our persecutors. This is the way of the Kingdom because it was the way of the King. Did not Jesus come to earth as the Son of God and was persecuted? What did He do? He blessed His persecutors. He blessed us! And Jesus in return was blessed with glory. He was blessed by turning us, His enemies, into His forever family. “We are called to bless those who hurt us because we ourselves were blessed by God when we hurt Him through our sin.”[1] Overcome evil by blessing others and you yourself will be blessed (v. 9).  

But let’s get into the how to bless others. I skipped over verse 8, but it is critical to fighting evil. It will also help us to understand that we fight evil first at home, then through the church and finally out in the world. Let me go back to the home for a moment. Pastor Kyle taught us last week on 1 Peter 3:1-7. Did you pick up that just like the rest of Peter’s letter that the instructions on marriage were written in the context of suffering and hostility? The wife is supposed to submit herself to her own husband (not other people’s husbands) so that her disobedient husband would be won over (v. 1-2)! This is a principle, not a promise, meaning that a wife’s submission does not guarantee the salvation of her husband, but it sure makes it harder for him to say “no” to God. Of course, this does not give men the right to abuse their wives. But their wives’ submission wins them over. This is not only subversive culturally, but spiritually. In other words, Peter’s instructions didn’t just open the door for women’s rights that many enjoy today, but it also opened the door of the heart of the woman’s husband to the gospel in that day and now. We here at Temple, believe the Scriptures teach that men should provide protective leadership for their family and church family, but that does not mean that women are not leading. Often wives are leading their husbands back to the truth of God through respectful and pure conduct. This is not weak leadership, but winsome leadership! It is the best leadership, because Jesus led from a posture of respectful and pure conduct. He won you and me through this humble approach. If you have a beloved unbeliever at home, do not neglect them. Respect them and win them over with your pure conduct and devotion to them. Women have a power way beyond their sexuality and beauty. Their power is their spirituality and submission to follow Jesus. They see Jesus as their Master and can serve lesser ones appropriately and accordingly. It is very winsome. It is the Kingdom ethic of the “weak” winning the strong. It goes with our theme for 2023 – eyes locked on Jesus. How do remain faithful in an ever-increasing hostile world? Eyes locked on Jesus! My wife Lori wins us over all the time in our home through her godly conduct and respect she demonstrates in our family. Husbands, you too can overcome suffering and hostility through living with your wife in an understanding way as a co-heir in the grace of life (v. 7). 

So we fight evil at home first, but then through the church. I am not talking about the church rising up as a collective to be a prophetic voice against societal ills, though sometimes that needs to happen. I am talking about how the church overcomes evil by blessing others through loving one another first. Verse 8 makes this clear, “Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and a humble mind.” You cannot have unity of mind, sympathy, and brotherly love with the context of community. How could you have unity, sympathy and brotherly love if you didn’t have brothers and sisters in Christ? You can’t! “There can be no Christianity without compassion.”[2] This is why we must overcome evil by blessing others with a … harmonious and humble heart (v. 8). A harmonious and humble heart go hand in hand. You cannot have unity of mind without a humble mind.[3] You might have a good idea, but without humility and harmony, you won’t overcome. Fighting evil is a community project, but notice I am not saying that you are bringing others into the fight to escalate it to a war. You are deferring to others. You are submitting to others. Your training to fight evil happens in the church with unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and humble mind. To do this we need to understand why the world is in a state of disunity. It goes back to the rebellion in heaven when Satan sought power over God. He got kicked out. Then Satan tempted our first parents Adam and Eve to break God’s only rule, which was to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This led to separation from God and with each other. We humans too have pursued power. Fast forward to the Middle Ages when the aristocrats’ main task was to protect the territory they had and try to gain some more. They were knighted. Both religion and the state held power. Then as Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor explains, “The Reformation gave power to the individual and opened the door to naturalism and the world denuded of the supernatural. The buffered self allowed individuals to feel a greater sense of responsibility for the cultivation of personal, but it inadvertently created a self that is closed off, not just from magical forces, but the transcendent as a whole.”[4] And so without a pursuit of God, individuals try to determine their own lives and identities. The problem is that we live in community and each person pursuing their own way leads to disharmony. So now we look for a leader to lead us. We are back to the aristocrats where leaders are about fighting with others and calling their followers to protest and make war.[5] But when we bless others things change. Overcome evil by blessing others with a harmonious and humble heart.

Overcome evil by blessing others with a harmonious and humble heart, but also through loving lips. Overcome evil by blessing others with … loving lips (v. 10). This is what we read in 1 Peter 3:10 as Peter quotes Psalm 34:12-16 when David feigned craziness with the enemy king Abimilech (c.f. 1 Samuel 21), “For ‘whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.” Notice again the blessing of loving life by keeping their tongue from evil and lies. David speaks this psalm after learning about the danger of mimicking mental illness. A harmonious and humble heart is related to loving lips. A truthful heart evidences a tender heart. Yehiel Dinur understood this. “Yehiel Dinur survived the holocaust and was a witness during the trial in 1961 of Nazi Adolf Eichmann. Dinur entered the courtroom and stared at the man behind the bulletproof class – the man who had presided over the slaughter of millions. The court was hushed as a victim confronted a butcher. Then suddenly Dinur began to sob and collapsed to the floor. Not of anger or bitterness. As he explained later in an interview, what struck him at that instant was a terrifying realization, ‘I was afraid about myself,’ Dinur said, ‘I saw that I am capable to do this … exactly like he.’ The reporter interviewing Dinur understood precisely, ‘How is it possible for a man to act as Eichmann acted?’ he asked. ‘Was he a monster?’ A madman? Or was he perhaps something even more terrifying … was he normal?’ Yehiel Dinur, in a moment of chilling clarity, said, ‘Eichmann is in all of us.’”[6] Yehiel understood that evil starts in our proud hearts and quickly works itself into lying lips. Eichmann lied to so many people including himself. But when Yehiel looked in the mirror, he saw Eichmann. Overcome evil by blessing others with a harmonious and humble heart and loving lips.

But not only a harmonious and humble heart and loving lips but by pursuing peace. Overcome evil by blessing others by pursuing peace (v. 11). This is what we read in verse 11, “let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it.” Pursue peace. I am not talking about the peace a new born baby gives like my grand baby. Pursue peace even when persecuted. “Persecution can be a time of spiritual enrichment for us believers.”[7] Jamie Winship understood this and has blessed others by teaching this truth. Who is Jamie Winship? Jamie Winship was a former cop who was recruited by the U.S. State Department to work in the Muslim world, teaching people how to hear from God and live in His kingdom. He befriended a man named “Salim who needed a driver’s license to secure a profitable job to provide for his ailing parents. The challenge for Salim was that because he was a member of a discriminated ethnic minority, obtaining a government-issued driver’s license was nearly impossible … He would wait in long lines only to never have his name called after seeing his ethnicity. Jamie would use the stories of Gideon and Moses to remind him what to do when facing an impossible situation – they asked God for wisdom…”[8] Salim struggled to believe and felt like he was a real disappointment. Maybe you feel that way today? Jamie responded, “‘I think God wants you to know what the real hindrance is to you obtaining a driver’s license. It’s not unfair policies of the government. God can overcome any obstacle. What God will not do is lead you with a false sense or belief of who you are and who He is. And he wants you to love the people who work in the government office, whether they give you a license or not.’ Salim agreed to the spiritual exercise where he would spend time confessing each day his wrong belief that he was a failure and disappointment asking God to show his true identity. After several weeks, Salim confessed that he sensed the words ‘intellectual’ and ‘scholar’ from the Holy Spirit. So one day Jamie said to Salim to ask God about getting a driver’s license. Salim sensed God saying, ‘Go stand in line at the licensing office. I AM is with you.’  (I Am being the name God calls Himself.) Salim went to the licensing office. After a 6 hour wait, a police officer called his name. They went out to the car and the officer said, “Drive.” Salim had never sat this close to the ruling class and who had done so much to destroy Salim’s family. Jesus’ words, ‘Love your enemy and do good to those who hate you,’ came to mind. Salim drove on, becoming more relaxed with every minute. Then he saw a cat. The cat, lying injured on the side of the road, looked as if it had been struck by a car. Salim felt very strongly that the Lord wanted him to stop and help the cat. ‘I can’t, God. The policeman will become angry and will fail me.’ Salim stopped the car at a red light, but could not stop the words that burst forth from his mouth, ‘Sir, I think we should go back and help the injured cat.’ ‘What do you care about a stray cat?’ the policeman snapped. ‘I believe God wants us to help the injured animal.’ Salim winced at his own words, ‘God loves cats too.’ ‘Well, if your God is telling you to turn around,’ the policeman huffed, ‘you better obey.’ Salim whipped the car around a legal U-turn and returned to the injured, but still living animal. The officer asked, ‘What shall we do?’ ‘Do you have a box or something in the truck of your car?’ asked Salim. ‘I have a blanket. We could lay the cat on the a blanket and take it to the vet.’ ‘That sounds like a good idea, sir,’ Salim agreed. ‘But how do we pick up the cat? I don’t want to touch it with my hands,’ said the officer. Salim asked God for wisdom, ‘Can we use your hat?’ ‘What?’ said the policeman, incredulous. ‘Your hat. Can we scoop the cat up in your hat and lay it on the blanket in the trunk? I will clean your hat for you later. My cousin works in a laundromat. Many of my people work in laundromats because without licenses we cannot get good-paying jobs. I will get your hat cleaned for you.’ ‘You will clean my police hat?’ ‘Cleaner than it has ever been before. Let’s save the cat.’ Salim and the officer knelt-down and working together were able to scoop the skeletal-like cat into the policeman’s hat. They got back into the car. The policeman said, ‘Drive as fast as you can and disregard traffic signals. This is an emergency.’ Salim drove quickly and safely to the vet with his one-time enemy turned feline-rescuing compatriot. Bound together in a quest to save the life of a stray cat, Salim and the officer paced the waiting room of the veterinary clinic together, hoping against hope that their efforts were not in vain. When the vet burst forth and announced that the cat would live another day, Salim and the officer hugged and congratulated each other on a well-executed plan. They drove back to the licensing office with Salim driving more cautiously. Once parked the officer said, ‘Salim, you are a fine driver and I am happy to issue you a license. Congratulations.’ Six years later, during a dinner celebrating his graduation with honours from a university in the U.S., Salim asked to address the young Muslim students in attendance. When the room went silent, Salim pulled his driver’s license from his wallet and holding it out for all to see, he said, ‘I’d like to tell you the story of the true Messiah who, when you ask him how to obtain a license from a corrupt government, will not only help you drive, but also save a cat and cause you to love your enemy. Above all else, Jesus will call you into your true identity, He has given you before the foundation of the world.’”[9]

How do you overcome evil? Overcome evil by blessing others and doing good! This Jesus did and He won you and me! Keep your eyes locked on Him! 

WRAP-UP – But what does one do with the injustice? You take that to God. This why it is so important to pray the Psalms and give full emotion to your prayers. This is why it is so important to gather with others for prayer like at our Prayer Encounter on Wednesday nights where we fight evil with weapons far better than the world does and where people don’t get hurt, but helped.

[1] R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistles of St. Peter, St. John and St. John (Columbus: Wartburg Press, 1945), 143.

[2] William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible (Toronto: G.R. Welch Co. Ltd., 1976), 227.

[3] Craig S. Keener, 1 Peter – A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021, 252.

[4] Benjamin K. Forrest, Joshua D. Charrow & Alister E. McGrath, The History of Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020), 680.

[5] Present examples would be protests in France, Israel and former President Trump’s call to his followers to rise up to protect from his impending arrest. Another example is Russian President Putin’s war in Ukraine.

[6] Charles Colson, “The Enduring Revolution,” Contact, Volume 34, Number 3, 

[7] Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary – Volume 2 (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1989), 412.

[8] Jamie Winship, Living Fearless (Grand Rapids: Revell Publishing Group, 2022), 97.

[9] Winship, 111-113.