Repay Evil for Good – It’s For Your Own Good
Trent Thomas, Speaker
1 Peter 3:8-17 | July 27, 2025 - Sunday Evening,
Tonight, my first night of preaching at Christ Covenant Church, I get to preach on suffering so I get to inspire us to suffer. From the letter of 1 Peter, we’re gonna be in chapter 3:8 through 17 continuing from this morning with the passage on marriage. As we’ve heard, but again to state for those who might be visiting, this letter was written in the first century to a group of believers and persecution was coming. Starting in chapter 2 though we get Peter focusing on the challenges in life that come from out there. Jews and Gentiles alike were going to challenge these Christian believers. Also, the light under the emperor and how would it be to be subject to him and God and then Peter moves in, and he goes to the day to day and how do we treat those that are with us on a daily basis, but above us, think of bosses. And then finally he moves in further as we heard this morning with marriage and family. He gets more and more personal until tonight in our text, he goes inward to our motivations. How are we to think and how that affects how we are to live for God. Hear the focus of our internal motivations to suffer from our text in 1 Peter, chapter 3:8 through 17. The Word of the Lord.
8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 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. 10 For
“Whoever desires to love life
and see good days,
let him keep his tongue from evil
and his lips from speaking deceit;
11 let him turn away from evil and do good;
let him seek peace and pursue it.
12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
and his ears are open to their prayer.
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.
There’s a big shift here. The love of God turns this problem upside down. To give you a reminder, this early church was about to go through some greater persecution than we face today. It’s just much greater what they were about to encounter in Rome. From everything we see coming our way, it’s still something that can happen to us now in our congregation, maybe a young teenager finds out that a supposed friend has sent a post or a message around school or a group text shaming you. How is that teenager who is a Christian supposed to respond to that evil? Perhaps you have a colleague at work who’s called your character into question because he wants the promotion and perhaps thinks you’re going to get it instead, how do you handle a wrong done to you for someone else to get ahead. Moving into even the marriage concept you ask your spouse something and your spouse says that you did not say that, even though you knew you said it. Perhaps she forgot or worse perhaps she just doesn’t want to admit it. What do you do Christians, when you struggle. You post a political article or quote you like, or you give your two cents on what you think about the happenings of the day, and someone reviles you in the comment section. That never happens. How do you respond to that after you have been reviled online?
I want you to just think of an insult or a harsh word that you have received lately or just a difficult relationship that seems to stuck, you probably don’t have to think hard. The Christians of Peter, they are about to get in much more dangerous circumstances, and they need to be ready to know how to respond to the unjust actions they are going to receive, because this is a fact, people insult people. So, what do we do as Christians when we are insulted and that’s what we’re gonna talk about. From the text what do we see we are to do as Christians, what is our response supposed to be when we’re insulted by those around us, why are we called to respond to insult in that way, and then finally how on earth are we to accomplish what we are called to do? Let’s begin.
First, what are we called to do when people insult us? According to this text the outward response, what is it, it’s to bless. It’s right there in the text, verse 9, “Do not repay evil for evil, but bless.” Verse 10 we see is well, to mind your tongue. What are we told to do when people insult us, we are to turn away and to do good, verse 11. Verse 15, it says whatever we do in response to those who are asking of us of our hope if we respond well to do it with gentleness and respect. What are we to do, verse 17, we’re to suffer for doing good. This is our outward response, but it gives us an inward preparation. What are we to think? As I told you, it’s moving into an internal motivation in this passage. What are we to think? Notice in verse 8, we’re to think before we act. We’re to have unity of mind. If we are Christians, we are to have union in Christ. How are we to agree as Christians if we’re angry with another Christian than we need to step back and we need to think on Christ, think on our relationship with Christ, think on their relationship with Christ. We’re to have sympathy, that’s an internal focus on someone else, we’re to have pity on someone else. How are we to think about our suffering sympathy, think about what they’re going through, that person who has reviled you, that person who has done evil against you, what might they be going through. You know you’re always on the offense without thinking about the other. Peter says have sympathy, think before you act. What are we to do, we’re to have brotherly love, particularly again Christians to Christians when we have struggles with one another we’re to have brotherly and sisterly love. It’s more than just a common kindness, a love that inconveniences you. You know when you have family that it’s not convenient, but as brothers and sisters in Christ we are to have brotherly love, we’re to have a tender heart. What does that mean, it means knowing God has given you that soft part that can grow and learn about relationships and not a heart of stone, not something bitter that cuts off and can’t feel anymore as Ezekial 36 says, we’ve been given a heart of flesh. What are we to think about when we are given into circumstances where evil comes our way, we’re to have a humble mind. One of the easiest ways for us to stay humble church, is this, read the Bible. Read the Bible and you will realize that we serve a great God and we’re not so great.
If you read the Scriptures honestly you will see that God is perfect and even his people are just not, and we are just not perfect, and it can humble us and get us to take a moment before we step into how we’re going to repay the evil that is done to us when we realize who we are as well with a humble mind. We need Jesus to reconcile; we can’t do it without Him. This is just verse 8 for internal preparation. Then you get to verse 10, if we look at verse 10 if you notice, interestingly enough, that this is a psalm, this is coming from somewhere else. Who is saying that we are to desire to love life in God and when is he saying it. This is a psalm written by David. Where is David when he wrote this Psalm? He’s in a cave. Why is he in a cave, because he is being treated unjustly by King Saul? He was blessed and anointed to be the next king of Israel, but he knew that God had not made him the King of Israel yet and King Saul was angry about the fame that David had and so he pushed him out of Israel and David’s in a cave and he had two times where King Saul came into his caves where he was hiding and he did not take his life, he did not repay the evil that was being done to him in those caves, but he waited on the Lord. He didn’t take the throne; he waited on God. Do you want, desire to live a good life, be like David in the cave.
Verse 14 says, no fear, we should have no fear about those who revile us. Perhaps it’s not directly connected to this, but I wonder if you ever think of Peter in the moment when he and the disciples are on this boat and it is a stormy, stormy night and that boat is in chaos going back and forth, and they’re looking around and they see Jesus and what’s He doing, He’s sleeping and they’re terrified, very afraid. They see the storms of life are coming upon them literally and they say to Jesus, do you not care that we are dying? Jesus speaks one Word, a few Words and the storm is calm, and so Peter looks at problems differently after that. He looks at human enemies differently after that and so he tells them here look, do not fear human enemies, we know the one who calms the storms. We know God almighty, we know Christ the king, 15A still goes with internal motivation, honor Christ in your hearts. That’s how we start in thinking through what it means to suffer, 16A, have a good conscience. You know when you’re going something and it just doesn’t feel quite right. Peter is saying, have a good conscience. So, in this first point what are we called to do when people insult us. We are first to stop and take a step back, to think about our relationship with Christ, to think about them and their relationship with Christ if they have it, to get humble and to understand that we don’t have all the answers and we don’t know all the right things to say and then to take that next step towards that person, that’s what we’re gonna see now to bless. You may think you’re in the right and after you have the conversation realize it wasn’t quite right what you were thinking, but you’ll never know if you just cut them down in your heart and you get better.
I had a friend, a brother in fact in the Lord whom I had a bad experience with earlier in my faith, and in a way we just went different ways and I didn’t think much about it until later on we got in the same area again and this brother became a pastor and I couldn’t go here or there without hearing about this pastor’s success. You know what I did, this person who I felt like we had a bad relationship, I reached out to him, I said, hey, I’m encouraged by what the Lord’s doing in your ministry and I was, but I also was still hurt. I said I’d love to get with you, I’d love to talk, I’d love for us to talk this out as brothers. A couple months went by, I continued to hear of good success of his ministry, but I didn’t hear back from him, and I could have gotten bitter, and I could have gotten frustrated, but I just decided to send another note, hey I’d really like to talk to ya. I’m encouraged by what I’m hearing here and there, but I think we need to talk, and he responded and we got to chat, and I can tell you if I run into him today and I see him I’m gonna give him a hug because we have worked it out. But I had to wrestle with my own struggles and realize Trent, you probably don’t know how that went down back then, it probably was different for him and you’ll never know if you don’t go and have a conversation with him, but I had to be humble enough to understand that I didn’t know everything.
Why should you bless those who insult you? Peter tells us why. So, we talked about the first how is to check ourselves and to think before we act, to be internally motivated, but now we are talking about the why, why does Peter tell us to bless those. Very simply first and foremost, verse 9 tells us why, it’s a command, it’s what we were called to do, bless for this you were called. It’s a command of our great king who has good things for us if we obey Him, blessings, but it is a command. Why are we to bless those who insult us, because Christ Jesus commands it, and also that you may obtain a blessing from God. Even that word obtain is a confirmation of sorts, to obtain something means it’s already coming your way, you just take that step of blessing, you take that obedient step to bless those who persecute, and you will obtain the blessing. When you suffer and bless a blessing is coming to you. One blessing is that you and others get to see Christ. You ever been through a very difficult experience and suffered hard and at the end of it you come out of it and realize you’re more in Christ than you thought. I used to be a high school Bible teacher, and I would say, if you squeeze a Christian Christ comes out, kinda like ketchup. Have you had that experience where you’ve struggled and then at the end of it you’ve seen the Lord really does have me, He really does hold me fast, but more so have you also seen that those who have watched you suffer and keep the faith, those who have watched you perhaps be persecuted by someone else and see you still bless that person how that has changed others around you too. There is a blessing that comes when we suffer well. Another reason, another why, so we’ll see good days as verse 10 says. This is not the good days like health, wealth, and prosperity, but like Paul when he talks about contentment in much and in little and the Philippians, in sickness and in health, there will be blessing for those who wait on the Lord.
Ed Clowney said something in his commentary. I planned to bring it, but I had an interest meeting and I forgot it so I’m gonna try to still share it with you. If you watch a commercial you’re gonna see in any modern-day commercial what a good day is, is sitting on a beach drinking a beverage of choice and relaxing, but what a good day for Peter is, is proclaiming Christ in the midst of the judges and the rulers and the authorities, knowing that Christ is with him and has empowered him. What a good day for a Christian is, is knowing that God is with you no matter what. Ed Clowney said it better, but that’s what I got.
Another reason to do this, another reason to bless those who persecute you or bless those who do evil to you is you will have the attention of God. Look at verse 12. “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer.” If you do as He bids, He sees it and He hears your prayer but look at the other part as it goes on, “But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” If you wanna repay evil for evil, if you don’t want to forgive that’s dangerous. In Christ’s economy he says, if you cannot forgive you cannot be forgiven. It’s serious. We have to be willing to forgive. If you chose evil beware the opposite of blessing, the wrath of God. Again, this is not a suggestion that Christ gives us, it’s a command to bless those who persecute you. We’ve got work to do church. If you have a heart of stone we’ve got work to do. We cannot have those relationships where we’re just cutting people off because they’ve hurt us. Why would we bless those who do evil?
Another reason verse 16 tells us, which perhaps you like this one, the truth of their evil could be exposed, this could happen. I don’t know if you’ve ever been treated poorly by someone else and then you are kind to them, it makes them seem quite foolish at times. Again, the motivation would not be that, but it is possible that you can be treating those who persecute you in such a way that it makes them out to be exposed for what they’ve done. Most importantly though, why should we bless those who persecute us? He did it for you first. Who am I talking about, of course I’m talking about Jesus Christ. I’m gonna jump a little bit into Tom’s text here with verse 18. “For Christ also suffered once for sins”, whose sins, my sins, your sins, the sins of the world. “For Christ also suffered once for sins of the righteous for the unrighteous.” You could see the one who did evil was being blessed by God, the righteous for the unrighteous, why, “That he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.” The number one reason why we should do this church is that we get to know our Christ better by doing it. Be yourself and watch yourself. Repent and hope or revile and hate. Hope shines through one who trusts and thinks on the Lord while evil is done to them.
I love verse 15. If you notice all this is about suffering even if you should suffer for righteousness sake verse 14 says, “You will be blessed, have no fear of them, nor be troubled”, and then it says, “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy and always being prepared to make a defense of anyone who asks for the reason for the hope that is in you.” Why would they do that, why would someone ask for the reason for the hope you have in you if they treat you with evil, if they’ve treated you wrongly, what would you have to do to them for them to say, what is it about you, why do you act that way when people say things about you? We have to respond to evil with good to get those moments, to be asked for the hope that is in us. It is very common for us to repay and go back and forth and to bite one another, we see that all the time. But in this case, it’s an opportunity when we have our hope in the Lord and we repay evil with good we get a chance to share about the hope that is in us. People will ask why you treat them that way, we’re called to repay evil with blessing because we have blessings that abound, because He has redeemed you by dying and now you have plenty to offer as a child of God to those who don’t know Him. We have nothing to lose; they have everything to gain if we repay their evil with kindness. But this is hard. How can we find the ability to do this. So, we’ve talked about what we should do, we’ve talked about why we should do it, and now finally we’re gonna talk about how we can succeed at doing this. Again, this is not normal, it’s back to where your hope is. If your hope is in self-protection then keep protecting yourself, but if your hope is in Christ and you obey every command, he gives you he’s giving us this command to repay evil with good and so we’re to do it, but we have to put our hope in him first. You are called. How can we do this, how are we to succeed again, verse 9, you are called by an almighty God. He owns everything and He has all power, and He has chosen you Chrisitan who believes and given you the Holy Spirit and the power to do these things. He hears His children’s call. How can you do this, verse 12, if you seeking to honor Him, He hears your call as verse 12 says. How are we to succeed to do that, again we have to focus on honoring Christ the Lord as holy. We need to think in Him. If you really struggle, how can I do this, I just don’t think I can get there, you’ve gotta focus on Christ primarily. So, let’s do that now.
Christ did all of this. To go back through what you must do did Christ have sympathy for us, did He think about us before He responded to our wickedness, did He have us in mind when He went to the cross? Yes, He had sympathy for us, He bore our sins in His body. Did Christ repay evil for blessing? Again, we look at chapter 2:22, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth while He was reviled, He did not revile in return.” Christ has done this. Verse 16, “Because of Christ we can have a good conscience.” You will have a right hope, and you will either see them be put to shame or you will obtain the blessing of seeing them come to Christ, but he will bless us. Honor Christ the Lord as holy in your hearts. Christ suffered but also know that He was not a doormat. Christ did not repay evil with good, but he also was not a doormat. You think that’s what I’m asking you to do, what I believe the scriptures are calling you to do, that is not the case. It takes a lot of strength to repay evil with good and we see it in Christ.
The disciples wanted Him to take over Rome. That was what they constantly would get on Jesus about, is now the time that you’re gonna repay all this evil with reining over them? The disciples wanted him to take over Rome, but He took over the sins of the world instead. You notice His focus was greater than Rome and He led them to the truth without leaving or forsaking them, the disciples. They constantly had this struggle, but he never gave up on them. The council of the Sanhedrin wanted Jesus to recant that He was God. He did not do that, in fact, He let them do what they wanted to do to prove that He is God. We wouldn’t be gathering tonight and talking about repaying evil with blessing unless Christ defeated death and gave us life over 2000 years ago. How can we do this church, because Christ did it first. The guards mocked Him and chanted that He should save himself, but Jesus prayed that the father forgive them for they know not what they do, and He stayed on the cross so that that Roman soldier could later say, surely this is the son of God. God flips priorities upside down very often and He does it here in this text tonight. God calls us to bless those who insult us, and we can do it if we believe because the spirit of God, the spirit of Christ is in us.
Church, if we focus on what Christ did, we can now do what He bids. If we focus on what Christ did, we can do what Peter bids in this text. In Christ as Peter challenges the first century Christian, so I challenge us, let us be different, let us repay insult with blessing, trusting that there is a blessing for us in it. Just like Jesus has done for me and for you let us repay evil with good, it is for our own good, God help us to do it. Let’s pray.
Father, we thank you for all the motivation that we need from this text and from your Word is to see you Christ more clearly, to see what you have done for us, Lord to love you in such a way and to trust you in such a way that we will do whatever you tell us. To know that whatever you do tell us surely it’s for our good because we were your enemies and you loved us. We deserve death and you gave us life. Who are we who are not to do the same for others, but we can’t do it, we need your spirit to do it through us. We can’t obey you without your spirit helping us. Lord, as we walk through this process of sanctification, we need you Lord. When troubles assail us, Lord let us remember that you will provide everything we need, you will give us daily bread when we need it, you will forgive us of our sins daily as we forgive those who sin against us. So, Lord I pray that you would just give us those kind of hearts, soft hearts, tender hearts that have been moved by you and are able to move towards others in reconciliation. I don’t know if someone here tonight has a hard relationship or has been treated in an evil manner today, if that’s the case I pray that you would move in them to know you more Christ, to trust you, and to bless that person. Let us be abnormal, not like the world. Let us be those who would not repay evil with evil, but evil for good. Lord it is our good that you are near to us and we trust you with all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
