You have a calling on your life and your calling is to bless people, to bless people, to bless people who curse you, to bless people who are mean to you, to bless people who stonewall you, to bless people who are mean to you to bless people who stonewall you to bless people

who don't like you to bless people who ignore you to bless people who love you

to bless the near ones and the far ones, the easy ones and the hard ones.

There's a calling on your life that is wonderful.

How can you make your life a blessing to others?

In this episode of Light and Truth,

John Piper looks to 1 Peter 3, 8 to 12,

to explore our extraordinary calling

to be the kind of people who do not return evil for evil.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on September 11th, 1994.

Of all the hundreds of things

that Peter could have said about believers in describing the kind of people we are or that

we're supposed to be, what did he say?

In verse 8 in particular here,

notice that he says not first a list of things to do,

but five kinds of person to be.

That's not as obvious in some of the versions as it is in others,

but let's just walk through these five traits of personhood that should mark all

believers. Number one, all of you be harmonious. That means literally have a common mindset, which probably doesn't mean have all the same tastes and all the same habits and all the same

minor priorities. There's a lot of diversity in the body of Christ.

I think what it means is that we should think and assess

the essentials of life the same, God, salvation, virtue.

...