Saved to Serve

1 Peter 4:8-11

a. Serve to love one another (4:8-9)

b. Serve with the grace of God (4:10-11)

1. INTRODUCTION

a. Before we begin, we want to examine our Scripture reading in James 4:1-3 because this section of Scripture lays out the background for our message today. If you would turn to James 4:1-3.

b. In this section, James has gone over the tongue and how the tongue must be controlled. After talking about the tongue, James starts to lead into his explanation in Chapter 4. In James 3:13, James writes who is wise and understanding? If you are, show it by good behavior by being gentle because of the wisdom you understand and have acquired. But if you have jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t be arrogant and lie against the wisdom that you understand. James is telling us that bitter jealousy and selfish ambition have nothing to do with gentleness.

c. Then in verse 15, speaking about bitter jealousy and selfish ambition, this type of behavior comes from wisdom. That wisdom as written in verse 15, is from the world, it’s not from above. Verse 16, James then explains why this wisdom is from the world. In this wisdom, in this understanding, there is disorder and everything that is evil.

d. In contrast, wisdom from above is as described in verse 17, and completed in verse 18, this fruit from above is righteous. What describes this wisdom from above is characterized by the reality that it brings peace. There are no arguments, there is no fighting. There is no disorder. There is no strife among people. Why? Because the wisdom from above begins with understanding and gentleness. It starts with being peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy, it is unwavering, it doesn’t shift and is without hypocrisy. Wisdom from above doesn’t say do something and doesn’t act upon it. Wisdom from above seeks to find peace and live in unity with others.

e. This leads us to the context for James 4:1. James starts chapter 4 by asking the question. It is not a change in subject but a shift of focus. James ask an important question. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Why is it that you have conflicts among each other? James then asks another question to dig deeper. Isn’t it because of your pleasures that wage war against yourself? Isn’t it because it is things you want in your life and you are battling yourself and you don’t know how to solve that issue?

f. So what is James actually asking? The reason that you have issues with other people is not that you have issues with them per se. It is the fact that your pleasures, the things that you want, are causing war within yourself. It’s not so much that the other person is the problem, but the problem within yourself. Our problems are not so much about others, but it’s the problems within my own self. This brings to light how our sin, causes division among others. Again, we have to understand that we are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. We are not sinners because of the result of sin. We are sinners and that is why we sin.

g. This is why James says in verse 2, you lust and do not have so what happens? What is the result? James says you commit murder. Then James goes further and says you are jealous and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. Verse 3, you ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

h. So what is James talking about here? From verse 2, you lust and don’t have and that’s why you commit murder. You are jealous and don’t have so you fight and quarrel. Notice the internal issues that are going on in us. It’s not an external thing. It’s strictly an internal thing. What is causing this internal conflict? It’s greed. We thirst to feed ourselves to survive. From James’s argument in Chapter 3 and onward, we fight and quarrel because this is the wisdom that is earthly. It causes disorder and every evil thing. Why? Because of what it says in verse 14. It is selfish ambition.

i. This selfish ambition is the internal struggles that James is speaking of in verse 2. But it’s interesting what James says at the end of verse 2. You do not have because you do not ask. James says the reason you don’t have, is because you don’t pray. This is why verse 3, James says, you ask, you pray, and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives. What are these wrong motives? It is to spend all the blessings we receive from God on our own selfish ambitions. It is to pray and ask God for my selfish greed and to feed my greed.

j. This is incredibly important here. As Christians, we should be trusting in God in everything. So how do we know what to ask for and what not to ask for? Paul says in Philippians 4:6, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Paul is telling us in everything. Don’t worry or be anxious in anything, but in everything, everything that you need, let your requests be made known to God.

k. What is different here from Paul and James? The key difference is in the statement that you ask with wrong motives. James makes a point in Chapter 1 that helps us understand what he is speaking of. In James 1:2, James makes a point to consider it all joy when you encounter various trials. James’s point here is, everything is to be joy, no matter how painful or trivial, or wonderful, count everything as joy. Why? Because everything that happens in life is for your joy and to produce a greater faith through endurance.

l. God is testing our faith in Him by giving us hardship and as we pass this test, it produces endurance. It produces a supernatural ability to endure. This endurance will be perfect, that it will cause you to lack in nothing. This endurance will produce a faith strong enough to endure and ultimately have joy in God which is what causes us to lack nothing.

m. Now here’s the kicker. But if any of you lacks wisdom (James 1:5), if while you are going through this test, and you are struggling to understand how God is working in your life, if you lack the wisdom to understand what God is doing, let him ask of God. Here’s the key. When you don’t know what you’re supposed to do, when you don’t understand why the things that are happening are happening, when you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. I love this statement. Ask God. God is the only one who can help you and the only one who knows the answer to this problem. God is the only one who can give you a solution. This lines up perfectly with James 4:2. The reason you do not have is because you don’t ask.

n. When you are going through life and you don’t understand, the reason you don’t know how to solve it, is because you don’t ask. So when we hear this, what do we do? We start asking. Lord, help me. Lord, please give me this so my life can become easier. Lord, please don’t let things get worse.

o. This is where James tells us in verse 3, you ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives. What are these wrong motives? It is the man who prays doubting. (James 1:6-7) It is the man who prays hoping that God will do something, but not fully trusting. It is the person who prays calculating and hoping God will do what we ask, but just incase he doesn’t are thinking of a backup plan while we are praying. This is the wrong motives. It is selfishly planning out our own benefit with God nowhere in mind.

p. The question is not, whether or not, there are things we could ask for or can’t. Paul tells us, whatever it is, if we need money, if we need health, ask God. Ask God and He will give generously. Why? Because we are praying, asking God to work in our lives. We are asking God to show us Himself. You see, the greatest joy for the believer is not per se, God’s gift to us, but God Himself. You see, the true Christian, wants to see God work in His life. He wants God to reveal Himself to us. God is the greatest prize. Being in God’s presence and seeing Him, is the greatest pursuit.

q. The opposite is the man who asks with doubt. James goes further in 1:7 that a person who prays like this, ought not to expect that he will receive anything. You shouldn’t even bother asking because you won’t receive. You won’t receive, because you don’t actually believe in the person. You don’t believe God actually can do it. You don’t have faith and confidence in Him.

i. Why does this person not have this confidence? Because this person doesn’t actually believe God can do these things. This person thinks that they have to solve their own problems. But what is the deep issue with this way of thinking?

1. This person does not trust that God is good and will keep His promise. This person only trusts in themselves, and thinks that ultimately, they are the ones who bring about all the good things in their lives. They believe to a certain extent, but believe that we have to bring about our successes. We believe that we caused these things to happen. Ultimately, this is the reason why we fight and quarrel with other people, because we need certain things to happen so that we can get what we want. When these things don’t happen, we get angry because of the things that are at war internally; ultimately because it makes it harder to accomplish what we want.

2. BODY

a. Serve to love one another (4:8-9)

i. With that in mind, let’s turn to our passage for today. When we read what Peter has to say, Peter starts in verse 8, above all, keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins. This motivation comes to us from verse 1, where Peter tells us the reality of what Christ did. Since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves as well with the same purpose.

ii. What does this mean? Peter is reminding his listeners that as Christ suffered, be ready to suffer. What Peter is telling his listeners and to us is that this is not suffering in the sense that Christians are suffer through intended sins. This is unintended sins. To understand what it means that love covers a multitude of sins is to understand that covering itself is suffering. It’s hard to overlook someone’s wrongdoing. The same purpose is to suffer for the sake of others, just like Him, be ready to suffer. Put on your armor and get ready to suffer. Why? Because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. What does this mean?

iii. This is a difficult phrase but it seems to mean that seeing the commitment to suffer is evidence that they have broken with a life of sin. What Peter emphasized was that those who commit themselves to suffer, those who willingly endure scorn and mockery for their faith, show that they have triumphed over sin. They have broken with sin because they have ceased to participate in the lawless activities of unbelievers and endured the criticisms that have come from such a decision.

iv. But going back to verse 8, we are to keep fervent in your love. Peter’s command here is Christians should not merely show fervent love to one another, it is a love that perseveres and does not waver in one’s devotion. It is a love for others that endures against self-seeking. It does not cave into greed for one’s own gain, but truly for the betterment of others.

v. Keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins. What does it mean that love covers a multitude of sins? When believers lavish love on others, the sins and offenses of others are overlooked. Peter is telling his listeners and us to set love as a priority in our lives. Just as we saw in James 4, we are to put away our own motives and desires and seek out what is helpful to others.

vi. Then Peter writes, be hospitable to one another without complaint. I think we look at this verse and we don’t think much but this is incredibly important to the Gospel. During the ministry of Jesus and even unto the time of the apostles, when the Gospel was carried by the messengers, they were going house to house and being sustained by the hospitality of the brethren. It was the church that was housing these ministers of the Gospel, providing them a place to sleep, food to eat and a place to rest. We see instances where Jesus speaks on this in Matthew 10:14 where He says that if anyone does not receive or listen to your worse, shake the dust off your feet.

vii. But why was this important? Because not only should you not do this with complaints, but this is a form of suffering. For those of you who have hosted large groups of people, if you’ve housed them or fed a large group of people, you should know how hard this is. The first thing is the expense that comes with it. Feeding people, a large group isn’t cheap. This can cause a lot of bitterness because we start to see how people are. But not only that, it’s time consuming because you have to prepare room for people to come and sit and fellowship. This is not an easy task. We might not think much about these things, but if you’ve done it, you realize how much work it really takes. You have to clean your whole house and make it presentable. It might not be that bad if we do it once a year, but if we had to do it weekly, it becomes difficult quickly. But this is what Peter is speaking about when he speaks of suffering. Be willing to suffer, be willing to serve, be willing to open up your home to people and serve them.

viii. But if we were to mesh this idea of hospitality with James 4:1-3, if we have wrong motives and we are seeking to please ourselves, there’s no way we could serve in this way. I mean, how could you serve others, when you are angry with other people because you think, well I am the only one doing anything? What are these people doing? We start to think this way and don’t want to be apart of anything. James is telling us, you can’t serve with that mindset. Peter is telling us, that you must be fervent in your love, try to continue the faults of others because that’s what love does. That is our priority. The believer’s purpose is found in what Jesus has done, and our motivation is because of what Jesus has done for us. We serve, because we have been served by Jesus. We don’t serve others if we don’t understand the great cost that Jesus paid to save us from our sins. Without a heart of thanksgiving and gratefulness, you will never be able to serve correctly. You will have quarrels and conflicts because we are upset inside our hearts. This will eventually spill over in our actions.

b. Serve with the grace of God (4:10-11)

i. I love this phrase in verse 10. As each one has received a special gift. You notice that James tells us that if we lack wisdom, we should ask of God and He will give freely. Well, if we are set to serve others like Jesus did, then it is to understand that we can only do this if we recognize that all our gifts, our ability to do anything, is given to us.

ii. Everything that we receive in our lives are gifts from God. Peter writes, that if we receive this gift, employ it, use them in serving one another as good stewards.

iii. The most important point Peter is making here is that the purpose for having gifts is to not congratulate ourselves or boast about our gifts. That is missing the point completely. No, the purpose of receiving gifts is to bless others. We aren’t to boast about our abilities or the things we own. No, we have been bestowed these gifts to serve others. The word here serving is the same root word for deacon, one who serves, and can be used in a variety of ways from providing meals or visiting those in prison, or providing financial support or other general terms. Peter’s point for gifts are that they are given to serve others and strengthen others in the faith, not enhance our self-esteem.

iv. When believers use their gifts to strengthen others, they are functioning as “good stewards” of God’s grace. The word translated “stewards” could also be translated as “managers” (cf. Luke 12:42; 16:1, 3, 8; 1 Cor 4:1–2; cf. Gal 4:2; Titus 1:7), as long as it is clear that believers hold these gifts in trust since they are gifts of God. Spiritual gifts are not fundamentally a privilege but a responsibility, a call to be faithful to what God has bestowed.

v. Verse 11 completes this section by reminding us, that whatever it is we do, we must do all things that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. If truly everything we do is by God’s grace, then God should receive all the glory. We should never take credit for anything. Peter’s point here is that the provider is always the one to be praised. If God is the one who gives understanding and strength, then He gets the glory as the one who has empowered His people.

3. CONCLUSION