To Sum Up: All of Y'all Be Harmonious

In one paragraph

This sermon worked through 1 Peter 2:13 through 3:12 as a single unit, with Pastor Mark using the passage's opening command to submit and its closing "to sum up" as two bracket ends that hold the whole section together. The center of that bracket, the familiar instructions to wives and husbands, he treated as the trees inside a forest, keeping the focus on the broader shape of what Peter was...

Read together

1. 1 Peter 3:8-9 the closing bracket of the passage, summing up the call to be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind hearted, humble, and to bless rather than return evil for evil
2. 1 Peter 2:13-25 the opening bracket of the bracketed passage, covering submission to human authority and Christ's example in suffering
3. 1 Peter 3:1-7 the middle section on wives being submissive to husbands and husbands honoring wives as fellow heirs of the grace of life
4. 1 Peter 3:12 closing out the bracket: the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears attend to their prayer, but His face is against those who do evil
5. Matthew 5:38-48 read from the Sermon on the Mount on not returning evil for evil, turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, and loving enemies
6. Psalm 34:12-16 quoted as the Old Testament text on keeping the tongue from evil, seeking peace, and the eyes of the Lord being toward the righteous
7. Exodus 2:23-25 the sons of Israel cried out in bondage and God heard their groaning and remembered His covenant
8. Exodus 3:7-9 the Lord declares He has seen the affliction of His people in Egypt, heard their cry, and come down to deliver them
9. Philippians 2 called to mind in connection with humility: Christ did not grasp equality with God but took on the nature of a servant and humbled Himself
10. Psalm 86 briefly cited to illustrate that we call out to the Lord because He answers

Talk about it

1. The pastor used the image of harmony versus melody to describe what Christian community should look and sound like. Where in your own relationships do you find it hardest to add harmony rather than strike a discordant note, and what do you think makes it hard?
2. The pastor described the response to Mark Upton's death as a picture of what sympathetic community looks like, with Cornerstone Church handling childcare and Tribe managing parking. Can you think of a time when someone came alongside you in a loss or hardship in a way that felt truly 'eusplachnoi', good gut level compassion? What made it feel that way?
3. The pastor read from the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus calls his followers to love enemies and pray for those who persecute them, and connected it to Peter's call to bless rather than return insult for insult. Is there a person or situation in your life right now where blessing instead of retaliating feels genuinely costly? What would that blessing actually look like in practice?
4. The pastor said humility is 'an inside out virtue produced by comparing ourselves to the Lord rather than to other people.' How honestly do you tend to measure yourself against Christ rather than against the people around you, and what difference does that comparison make in how you treat others?
5. The sermon described a tension between honoring authority and the freedom believers have in Christ, whether that is a wife with an unbelieving husband, an employee under an unreasonable employer, or a citizen under an imperfect government. Where do you find that tension most real in your own life, and how do you hold together honoring authority and entrusting yourself to God who judges rightly?