1 Peter 4:7–11
Notes
Transcript
Church good morning! I’m excited to be back up here today and opening God’s Word with you. I want to just thank you for a minute. As we continue as a church to move forward in a way that is unique to us—not having a full-time vocational pastor—I’ve become even more grateful for your patience with Will and me especially as we’ve talked our “day jobs” for the past couple of months. I’m encouraged by your commitment to one another and to the Word of God.
Also I want to express my gratitude for the guys from the different Redeemer churches that have preached and for Byron Potter who came to fill in one Sunday. Those guys have served us well, and I’m grateful they helped us walk through the past couple of months.
As of Friday we put the last watermelon in a box and just have a few loads left to ship out of here. I hope you got to enjoy some this year. That’s all wrapped up, and now I’m ready and excited to take on more preaching.
If you have your Bible’s go ahead and open them to 1 Peter 4:7-11. We’re going to pick up where we left off last week and this morning Peter is going to call us to a right perspective that leads to right living. Let’s read our passage for today and then ask the Lord to be our teacher.
The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray.
How many of you remember Y2K? How many of you were alive during Y2K? I was 10 years old at the time. I remember all sorts of responses to the dawning of the new millenium. Some people were absolutely convinced Jesus was coming back. Some people were absolutely convinced the world was coming to an end. I can remember walking into United and seeing store shelves emptied of water bottles and other items. Some people freaked out and built bunkers because there was an inevitable nuclear holocaust that was going to happen. It was 24 years ago…who in here actually built bunkers? Don’t answer that question. Maybe you didn’t go all out in prep; maybe you just had this innate sense of like I better make sure I’m good with God so that if he does come back I’m ready. When Y2K rolled around there was this sense of fear and uncertainty that something dramatic was going to happen. Your perspective of what was coming at the dawning of a new millenium led you to behave and live in a certain way. But perspective does that, doesn’t it? Perspective drives our behavior.
So I’ve believed in the American Dream that I’m supposed to work till I’m 65 and then retire and travel the world till I can’t physically do that and then I just wait till I die. If that’s my perspective it drives how I work and what work I do an then it influences how I spend my money and what school my children go to. WE could keep going, but the point is our lives are influenced by our perspectives. And that’s were Peter kicks us off this morning. He’s wrapping up a section that began back in 2:11; he’s concluding his words on how the church is to behave and relate to one another. He wraps it up by saying, church, having a right perspective calls you to right living. So that’s our main point this morning: Right perspective calls us to right living.
So then the question becomes what is the right perspective? How does Peter begin? 1 Pet. 4:7
1 Peter 4:7 (ESV)
The end of all things is at hand;
Right Perspective
Right Perspective
The right perspective is to see that the end of all things is at hand. Now, you might be going, wait a minute, is Matt a doomsdayer? Is the world really coming to an end? I mean, Peter wrote this about 2000 years ago and here we still are. So, is “the end of all things” really “at hand?”
The end can certainly mean termination—the end as we tend to think of it. But the word in Greek has a wider meaning than that. It refers to the last stage of a process. So as one commentator put it, “Peter is saying that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, his readers are living in the last stage of God’s great redemptive plan, and the goal of that plan is being realized.” The end of all things then is the end of God’s redemptive plan that began back at the very beginning of time is coming to an end. Let me illustrate it for you this way.
The Bible is the story of God’s redemptive plan. SO go back to Genesis 1-2 and what do we find? We see how God intended for us to live in community with one another and him and how to exercise dominion over His creation. We were created to know God and live in perfect harmony with one another. Now if you look at that in relation to the timeline of story that was a long time ago.
Then in Genesis 3 we see what went wrong. Our ancestors, Adam & Eve, sinned against God. They rejected God’s word and God’s ways and decided they knew better. God in his mercy didn’t wipe them off the earth, but sin has consequences. They were removed from God’s presence in the garden and everything now was marred by sin. Relationships. Work. Worship. All of it changed because of sin. But again, God in his mercy & grace made a way for his creation to be restored to him. The rest of this book tells that story.
The climax of that story is when God sends his son into this broken, and sinful world. He lives the perfect life that we’ve been called to live, yet he’s rejected by those he came to save. They crucify him and God sees in his sons death the perfect atoning sacrifice for all sin—yours and mine; past and present and future. So God pours his wrath out toward sin on his son. But Jesus doesn’t stay in the grave. 3 days later he rises again to show us that he didn’t just conquer sin, but he also conquered death. Now when we recognize that we’re just like our forefathers and we have sinned, but believe in the work of Jesus our sin is paid for and we can trust in what Peter says back in 1 Peter 1:3 that we have been born again to a living hope.
But Christ doesn’t establish his earthly reign yet. He promises that he will come back and when he does it won’t be as the savior of the world, it’ll be as what we looked at last week in 1 Pet. 4:5, as the just judge who will judge the living and the dead.
Now there’s a couple things you need to understand here. When you look at where we are in relation to the story, we’re near the end. The end is at hand. So even though Peter wrote this 2000 years ago, we’re closer now to Revelation than he was when he penned these words.
Second, because that’s true, that should shape your whole perspective on life. Think about this from Peter’s readers perspective. They’re undergoing exile and persecution. The end is at hand, and when their Savior returns he will make all things right. Church, isn’t that hopeful? To know that this body flesh that perishing will soon be exchanged for a body of glory that is eternal; to know that all the wrongs that have been done will be made right; to know that all of your hearts longings will be satisfied; to know that you will feast around the table with God who saved you is near—doesn’t that change your perspective on every facet of life? Peter’s readers are in the midst of “various trials” as we saw in 1:6, and to remember that “the end is at hand” is such a hopeful truth that will spur them on in the midst of hard times. They don’t have to live in fear, but instead can live in faith in the God who keeps his promises.
So what’s your perspective? Do you believe that he really is coming back? Trials, tribulations, hardships, good, bad, all of it is represented in this room. Are you living in fear, or are you living in faith trusting that the God who conquered the grave is going to come again riding on his white horse establishing his rule and reign and impartially judging the living and the dead? Having the right perspective changes everything, and it does so in a way that then calls you to right living.
Right Living
Right Living
I find this next part really interesting. The end is at hand, so what do you do? Go panic buy at United to make sure you’ve got enough stored up? Bring your family in so that you can make sure you spend time with them? Look back with me, 1 Peter 4:7,
The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.
The first thing we’re called to do because of this perspective is be people who pray. I love what one commentator said, “The first resource for living out Christ’s victory in the Christian community is the believer’s prayer life.”
Now that you have this right perspective, you aren’t supposed to freak out and go crazy, you’re not supposed to worry; instead you’re called to think clearly and under control so that you can pray. We are to be people whose prayers are marked by the right perspective.
But what does that mean and what does that look like? What does it look like to pray with the right perspective? Fortunately, our Lord modeled that for us, didn’t he? The Lord’s Prayer, more accurately called the Model Prayer, is the picture of how we should pray!
Our Father—we can have confidence that he relates to us as his beloved children and he our gentle and compassionate Father.
In heaven—We can trust the he sees all things and is sovereign over all things.
Hallowed be your name—may he receive all the glory and honor and praise—which is how Peter wraps up verse 11.
Your kingdom come & your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven—we want you to reign now over our broken world. Establish your kingdom in our hearts, our community and our churches
Give us this day our daily bread—Lord just give us what we need to survive. You’re coming back soon so we know that storing up treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt are not worth the incomparable riches that await us in knowing you. SO just sustain us Lord.
And forgive us our trespasses—Lord we need grace and mercy now.
AS we forgive those who trespass against us—may we be a people who are marked by how we extend mercy and grace because the mercy and grace given to us.
And deliver us from evil—because the battles we fight are not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil. Father we need you to deliver us from that and into your presence.
Jesus shows us exactly how to pray with the right perspective! Now we could spend a whole sermon series on prayer, and one day I intend to do so, but when you look back over how you pray what’s the motivator behind it? What perspective on your life, your family, you business, this church, your community and your nation influences your prayers? When the reality that Christ is coming back and he will reign eternally is on the forefront of our minds not only are we motivated to pray, but how we pray changes.
Right perspective calls to right living first through our prayer life. Second, right perspective calls us to right living through our relationships. 1 Peter 4:8
Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
This isn’t the first time Peter has told his readers to love earnestly. Will preached on this back in 1 Peter 1:22, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,” So Peter has now told us twice to love earnestly, this time he says above all, it’s the most important thing. Based off this right perspective the most important thing you can do is love one another earnestly.
Now, ““Earnest love” speaks not so much of emotional intensity but is, in this context, a love that persists despite difficulties because it is a love that also “covers a multitude of sins.” Now what does that mean? That my love for you covers your sin?No, but let’s look at this in light of the context for a second.
You’ve got this group of believers in these cities who are exiles under various trials. They’re likely coming from different backgrounds and traditions and even cultures and social standings. If they’re following the pattern of the church in Acts 2 they’re meeting together daily in one another’s houses. What do you think is going to begin to happen as these people come together? There’s the outside pressure from society on them, their own sin within their hearts, satan seeking to destroy them. What is inevitable? Offense. Frustration. Hurt. Disappointment. The same things that happen when any group of people come together.
Peter I think recalls Prov. 10:12
Hatred stirs up strife,
but love covers all offenses.
Here he says it covers a multitude of sins. Peter is not making a theological statement that your love for one another atones for sins. The implication here is that your love for one another is going to prevent you from allowing sin to come to it’s fullest fruition. This doesn’t mean that we excuse sin or just sweep it under the rug. It’s that we don’t let sin beget more sin.
So when I wrong you, because you have this perspective that we talked about earlier—the end is near and all the implications that brings—instead of you swelling up in anger instead this right perspective is going to create in you a disposition of humility and a desire for unity. If our perspective is in the right place, then our desire would be to cultivate a relationship with each other that enables us to pursue righteousness and holiness together out of our love and care for one another.
Think about your own personal relationship with Jesus for just a minute. Can you imagine if Jesus welled up with anger when you dishonored him? Can you imagine if you disagreed with something he said about how things should be so you snapped at him and then he later snapped back at you? Can you imagine if you accused him of not having your best intention in mind so you decided to do things your own way? The truth is we’re all guilty of that, because we don’t always trust him or his word. So we respond sinfully towards him. But Jesus always responds in love towards us as is evidenced by the cross! Now because he’s dealt with our sin towards him and others sin towards because of his great love, do you know how we’re free to respond to the sin of others? With love! When we do that it prevents sin from coming to completion. So this right perspective calls us to love one another earnestly, but then Peter gives us two ways in which this love is to be manifested. Here is your two action steps for this week. Because the end is near, because you have a right perspective on the times, here’s what you’re called to do. You ready? 1 Peter 4:9
Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.
What’s the first way we’re to love one another? Through hospitality. What then is hospitality? The greek word for hospitality is philoxenoi. It’s a compound word with the first word being philo--it means friend. Xenoi is the second word and it means stranger. So at the heart of hospitality is being friends with strangers, but Peter puts it specifically in the context of the local church. This means then that there’s an expectation that the church will be a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-generational group of people who come from different backgrounds and social statuses and they are to love one another in such a way that they cultivate friendship!
Now we know that the churches that Peter was addressing met in houses. To have this unusual group of people gather together inside someones house and be heard singing, and eating together, and praying, and studying the Scriptures would’ve stuck out to the surrounding community. It would’ve been one of the ways that they proclaimed they were an alternate society to the culture all around them, but it also would’ve potentially made them targets. The people Peter addressed were living in a world where Christianity was oppressed. By their frequent, potentially even daily, gathering together everyone would’ve know who were Christians and where they were meeting.
The other part of hospitality that we know about from church history was that it specifically meant opening up your home for other Christians who were traveling through so that they had a place to stay.
So all this to say when Peter says be hospitable there is an emphasis towards opening your home to those who might be strangers in order to love them and develop friendship with them.
Liberty, one of the things I hear whenever I call first time guests is how friendly you are. I want to just pause for a minute and commend you on your intentionality at engaging people who are not regulars here. In fact, I know of some members at our church who said our friendliness was a bit overwhelming to them, but in the end it’s what drew them back. If you’re a first time guest here today, welcome, we are glad you are here and we want to develop a friendship with you.
Hospitality in the church is extremely important, but Peter’s call here isn’t just to welcome people into their church buildings it’s to welcome them into their homes. I think this is really important for us to hear today, and here’s why. We can come to church all dressed up in our Sunday best and put on the facade that we don’t have any problems, but those walls come down once you enter the walls of our homes—which is one of the reasons we don’t want people to come in our homes, right?
Fear and pride walk hand in hand right here. If you come in my home then you might see who I really am and I’m afraid of what you might think of me. But if Christ is Lord then the Father approves of you, so live in the confidence of his approval and love one another.
On the flip side, pride says I’ve got a nice home and I’m afraid of the damage you and your kids may cause, or it says my home isn’t nice enough for you to come over to. I was talking with a friend of mine this week about hospitality and he said that we have come to believe that our homes are museums to be admired instead of trauma centers to find healing, care, love and community. Because isn’t that what God intended homes to be—A safe place for families to be nurtured and disciples raised for the glory of God?
Maybe what’s preventing you from being hospitable is comfort. It’s just so much work to have people over, or maybe it’s the comfort of personality--I’m just not wired to have people to my house. I don’t enjoy it and I’d rather stay inside my bubble. Really that perspective states I value me and my comfort more than I do you.
The other, and probably most prominent excuse though for us is busyness. We just have something going on all. the. time. Monday night are games, Tuesday night is practice, Wednesday is church, and Thurs.-Sat. games again. I’m sorry, but I just don’t have time for you.
You see, what’s revealed in all of these excuses is our idols. It’s the things we devote our lives and the lives of your children to. We prioritize what we believe to be the most important thing based off our perspective—which is worship. But here’s the thing, if Christ is Lord and our perspective is that the end of all things is at hand, and that the conummation of Christ’s kingdom is near then we recognize that the God of the universe has shown his hospitality towards us by coming to us and dying for us so that we can dwell in communion with him. Hospitality then is a reflection of the God who saved us. It’s not just a natural rhythm of our life, it becomes a priority because we have a God who’s been hospitable to us. We don’t show hospitality to earn his approval; we show hospitality because we have his approval in Jesus and we desire for others to dwell in communion with us! So church there’s a couple questions that I think come from this: if the measure of our love for one another was based off of our hospitality, how deep would your love be? If the level of our proclamation was shown by our hospitality, how loud would you be speaking? I want to challenge you this morning to look across the room and identify someone right now that you go to church, but you don’t really know and I want you to ask them over for lunch or dinner sometime in the next week or so. Husbands, get your wives approval first! But Liberty may the hospitality that exists on a Sunday morning be carried into our homes.
Grandmom in college.
The first way we are called to love one another is through hospitality. The second way is found in the next couple of verses. 1 Peter 4:10-11
1 Peter 4:10–11a (ESV)
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies
The second way we’re called to love one another is to use our gifts to serve one another. Now I get it, you might be going, I haven’t received a gift, but Peter is beginning with the assumption that God in his grace has given EACH of you a gift and now he’s calling you to use it to serve one another. No one gets out of this one. All of you are called to serve one another. Notice how Peter describes these gifts though. What is your gift? It’s evidence of God’s grace towards you! So then we need to be good stewards of God’s gifts that he’s given us.
Now church, again, I want to commend you. When we look at our membership list to ask people to serve, almost all of our members are serving in some form or fashion. The old saying, 20% of the church does 80% of the work just doesn’t apply here. Praise God for that! I’m thankful that you don’t hoard your gifts or park them on the shelf. Because what would it say of our perspective of God’s grace if we parked our gifts on the shelf? It would be grace for me, but not for thee. So church thank you for serving. Thank you for using your gifts to help the body function.
But this doesn’t mean that we can just close our Bible’s and pat ourselves on the back and call it a day. There’s a couple quick observations in this that I think we need to meditate on. Peter’s list of gifts here is not exhaustive, kind of like Paul’s isn’t either. Peter essentially takes Paul’s lists that we see in Romans and 1 Corinthians and he puts it all in 2 categories: speaking and serving.
To those who speak—which might mean teaching, preaching, words of encouragement—he reminds us that what we communicate is the very Word of God. Now, I can talk to you about watermelons for a long time. Some of you, we could sit and talk about cattle for hours. Others, let me just ask you about your kids or grandkids and you could go on for hours. We all have our passions and those are good things! But is there any greater privilege than communicating the very words of God!?
It is a joy to be able to stand here and expose the Word of God to you and try to seek to help you apply to your life. Teaching Sunday School and small group is just fun, because we get to process the Word together and seek to apply it to specific, real life situations. While that’s true—that it’s a privilege and joy, it’s also deeply humbling.
For those of you speak, when you’re communicating what your communicating is the Word of God. There’s some gravity to that. Talking about watermelons is fun, but it isn’t going to change your life or affect in any significant way. The Word though, it’s useful for correction and teaching and training in righteousness. It calls people to respond and to change. This means that we should take our prep seriously. Whether you’re teaching kids in kids church or kidzone or youth on Wednesday night or preaching a sermon, we have a responsibility because of what we communicate to do so with a sense of humility and preparedness.
It also means that when we communicate, that our words need to be full of the Word. You’re not here for my opinion, or perspective on life. You want to know what the Word has to say to you and why it’s important to know it. So for those of us that teach, remember what it is your teaching! No greater privilege, no greater calling, no greater humility.
Then Peter addresses those who serve to do so in the strength that God supplies. I told small group this week that that last little phrase has sat with me this week. If you’re like me you tend to want to just function out of your own ability and when you get to the limit of your abilities you stop and say I can’t do more. While there might be some practical wisdom there of knowing our capacity, Peter calls us to love one another by serving out of the strength God supplies, not out of our own abilities and their limits.
So when it comes to serving are you functioning out of what you can do, or are you walking in faith trusting for God to supply for you what you need and more to accomplish where you’re serving?
I finished reading through 1 Samuel this week in my daily Bible reading and in chapter 30 there’s this story of David in which he’s gone to battle and when he comes back to the city he was hiding from King Saul in he finds that the city has been raided. His two wives and the women and the children of the city have been kidnapped and the city left to ruins. Exhausted from battle David and his men are broken. They have an opportunity to respond in despair or anger, but look at what David does. 1 Samuel 30:6
And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
David found his strength in the Lord God supplies. So he asks God what to do and God tells him go get em back! David marches off to find them but along the journey 200 out of the 600 men stop because of exhaustion. So now with just 400 men David marches through the desert till God providentially provides for them a person to lead them to the army of the Amalekites. David and his men destroy the Amalekite army and return the women and children back to their homes.
David, at the end of his wits, strengthened himself in the Lord. He didn’t rely on his ability or emotion to drive him. He sought the Lord, and and rested in His strength for the battle. When you’re at the end of your wits and just want a break from serving or don’t feel like you can do it anymore, are you trusting in your abilities and capacities, or are you stopping to seek the Lord and resting in the strength that he supplies?
Do you know what happens when we serve in God’s strength and we speak God’s Word and we open our homes to God’s people because we deeply love one another because we have prayed with the right perspective? 1 Pet. 4:11
1 Peter 4:11 (ESV)
in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
God is glorified! Church, what is our mission statement? We exist to glorify God by making disciples in Dalhart and around the world. How do you do that? You have the right perspective that leads you to pray for one another. You love one another by showing hospitality towards one another and you use your gifts to serve one another. When we do that, we get to glorify God together and the outside world sees glimpses of his kingdom come here on earth.
Right perspective calls us to right living. So the question for you this morning is do you have the right perspective? Did you wake up this morning and remember that the end is at hand? The king is coming back to rule and reign for all eternity. Did that motivate your desire to be here today? When you wake up tomorrow are you going to take up that perspective again. Are you allowing the perspective to call you to live rightly? Are you sober-minded and self-controlled in your prayers or just selfish? Are you showing your love for one another through hospitality and the use of your gifts? Church may we glorify God, the one to whom all glory and dominion belongs to forever and ever, by keeping in mind the end is at hand and living accordingly. Let’s pray.