Let Us Repay evil With Blessing ( Peter 3:8-12) A Sermon By Elise Beatrice - Tuesday, 4 February 2025 Transcript 1 Peter 3:8-12 Prayer Lord, please help each one of us to truly listen to these words, for Your words help us to truly look into ourselves and correct what isn’t working. We love this Book, Lord, and we love Your words. Please help us all to pay attention to what You have to say through these words in Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen. 1 Peter 3:8-12 8 Finally, all of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude. 9 Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and He will bless you for it. 10 For the Scriptures say, “If you want to enjoy life and see many happy days, keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies. 11 Turn away from evil and do good. Search for peace and work to maintain it. 12 The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and His ears are open to their prayers. But the Lord turns His face against those who do evil.” Yes, it is true; this is all correct. Many of us can testify to this because we have seen this happening in our lives and the lives of those around us. This is the perfect example of love, the kind of love that the Lord commands us. We don’t repay evil for evil. And the great example of this is our Lord Himself. So, “Don’t repay evil for evil.” This is what many of us tend to do. I know it is a very difficult thing to not think about hurting somebody who has hurt us. But by us seeking to hurt someone or say something in a way that it will hurt someone who has hurt us, is also disobeying the Lord, and by doing so, we are no different from that one who has hurt us. So, “Don’t repay evil for evil.” A great example of this is our Lord Himself. He was on the Cross; He was put on that Cross because of our sins. And the punishment that should’ve come upon us went on Him. The struggle and suffering, the abuse and persecution; He was bruised instead of us, He was scourged, brutalised, humiliated, mocked, He was flogged, He was pierced because of us. It should have been us because we were the ones who sinned. But while on that Cross, He looked at His enemies, at these people, the humans He created, and He knew that though He created these humans, they were doing these evil things to Him and were supervised by Satan. They were there brutalising, humiliating God Himself, who came to us in the flesh for that very moment He was on that Cross as a sacrifice for our sins. All those evil works, all those devil’s persecutions were thrown at Him, for the devils use other humans to do this evilthing. But on that Cross, He could have been so bitter, like humans. He could have chosen to use His mighty power to destroy them all. He could have chosen to curse them. He could have chosen to repay them evil for evil. But instead, He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And that is the perfect example for us to follow. He was our Teacher, He was our God, He was our only Saviour. And He came here to teach us the truth, and even on that Cross, He was teaching us still the truth and showing us the perfect example, how to behave, and how to be on this earth filled with sins, with ruthless humans who have let their bodies be polluted by demons to the point that they are now acting just like demons due to their continuous practice of sins. But to survive on this earth, spiritually, we cannot live like the ruthless ones, in the way of those who hold grudges, in the way of the bitter ones, the resentful ones; we cannot survive by being like those who don’t know God. Because Christ was God, because He was the Son of God, because He was good, righteous, He easily forgave them and said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” He wouldn’t have asked His Father to forgive them unless He had already forgiven them. By doing so, He prayed right there on the Cross for those people; He interceded to His Father for them, for He wanted only blessing for them, especially since He saw indeed in their hearts that they did not know what they were doing because if they had understood they were crucifying the Son of the Living God, some would not do it. So, we should look and learn, especially we who are in the Lord, who live for the Lord, who believe in the Lord. Those who don’t believe in the Lord can have excuses, “Well, I don’t believe in God,” they may say. Therefore, they are not afraid to be ruthless because they think they have No One they will have to face - and give account to. - But that is just what they think because all of us humans will, sooner or later, face the Lord God for what we do. So, it is very important this passage of 1 Peter 3:8-12. Let’s not repay evil for evil. Let’s not retaliate with insults when people insult us. Let them be the ones to do the insults, for it is much better and healthier that we are the victims than the oppressors. At least that way, we are following the Lord Jesus. He was the Son of God on the Cross and still Is; He had all the mighty powers. He is the One through whom everything was created, but on that Cross, He was a victim. If we want to enjoy life and see many happy days, we must not let evil words come out of our mouths; the peace of God will be with us while we are here, even if we are persecuted, oppressed, rejected and spiritually attacked, the peace of God is with us, we have the strength of the Lord with us, and He always rescues us, because we have chosen to be the victims and not the oppressors. We must not tell lies because telling lies is obeying the darkness since we are taught that the devil is the father of lies. So, those who embrace lies are embracing satan as their father. But when we embrace the truth, we make the Lord Jesus our Lord and our Father. “Anyone born of God refuses to practice sin, because God’s seed abides in him; he cannot go on sinning because he has been born of God. By this, it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another” (1 John 3:9-11 ). Yes, so we should turn away from evil and do good, seek for peace and work to maintain it. Once we are in the Lord and looking up to Jesus as our example, as our teacher, we strive to obey Him and reflect His beautiful Character. We must work hard to maintain our salvation, to maintain the peace because if the Lord gives us peace, and we go and mess it up by disobeying Him, that peace just vanishes because disobeying the Lord means obeying the devil who brings only darkness that replaces the beautiful things that come from the Lord. So, let’s not be tricked; let’s watch our Lord and Saviour and listen to Him. That way, we will have many happy days, even while we still live on this earth. The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and His ears are open to their prayers. That is the truth, and the One who spoke these words spoke them as a witness. And, I am also a witness to that truth of the Lord, for the Lord always does what He says. “The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and His ears are open to their prayers. But the Lord turns His face against those who do evil.” That is the truth also. So, let’s not play with these words; let’s not ignore them. Yes. The Lord forgave His brutal oppressors on the Cross, including everyone who had lived in sin since it was why He was there, on the Cross, to die for us all, for they did not know what they were doing when they persecuted and crucified Him on the Cross. Just as we who sinned before did not know what we were doing. After what they saw with their own eyes on the Cross, many would have believed in the Son of God and turned from their evil ways, and the Lord Jesus would have welcomed them into His Kingdom since He forgave them. However, those who chose to remain evil, even after what they saw or heard of the beautiful Gospel of Salvation and of Christ being the Saviour of all humankind sent by God Almighty, would continue to be evil. Everyone’s wickedness remains when they don’t turn from it and seek God and His righteousness. If God forgives you, and you don’t give your life to Him completely, it means you have refused His forgiveness, you have turned down His eternal Salvation and His Love, and the same satan, who made you evil in the first place, will continue to feed you with evil. Only the presence of the Lord Jesus in our lives defeats demons. Only obedience to God erases our repented sins. So, let us please God by obeying Him. We repay evil with blessings. This does not mean that we should bless evil people by associating with them, promoting their sins, tolerating sin, but we bless them by listening to God, by praying for them, and not repaying them evil for evil. Thank You, God. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your grace, mercy and forgiveness. Thank You for showing us that we can choose to bless those who hurt us, pray for them, and love them instead of hating them, and not repay evil for evil. Thank You, Lord, for dying on the Cross for us and for being willing to forgive everyone who turns from their wrong ways. Thank You for Your love, which drives us to repay evil with blessings. Thank You, Lord, for Your blessings. In Your Name, Lord Jesus, I pray. Amen. "Choosing to be a victim rather than an oppressor, to embrace the role of the wronged rather than the wrongdoer, unlocks a deeper sense of peace and aligns us with God’s will, breaking us free from the trap of bitterness and revenge." Elise Beatrice