Sermon Transcript
We are continuing our series in 1 Peter, which we’ve been in for a few months now. And today we’re in 1 Peter chapter 4, so you could start turning there if you would like to, or it’s in your bulletin, or it’s going to be up on the screen as well. But 1 Peter chapter 4, we’re looking at verses 8 through 11 today, starting in verse 8 of 1 Peter chapter 4. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do it as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and power forever and ever. Amen.
There is a common misconception about Christianity. There’s probably a lot of common misconceptions about Christianity, but we’re just going to mention one of them this morning because it can be especially acute when we talk about verses like the ones that we just read, verses that basically give us instruction on how to live, right? Love one another, be hospitable, serve others. And here’s the misconception, we might believe that we need to do those things in order to earn something from God. And if you are somebody who thinks that you need to do this in order to earn something from God, you might express it in your thoughts or your or your words by thinking something like, I need to love others so that God will love me, or something like, I should be hospitable so that God will forgive me, or so that I will earn credit in order to negotiate favors from God.
Every once in a while I will meet people who have started going to church, so I’m like, yay, for a minute, and And then they say they’re going to church in an effort to get on God’s good side. Or I’ll meet people who are trying to better themselves, right? They want to be more caring or more compassionate, and they’re doing it so that the universe will help them out with some kind of problem, like a quid pro quo, like, I’ll do this for God, maybe God will do something for me. And whenever I hear that, I always feel a little conflicted because on one hand I’m like, Well, I’m glad you’re coming to church, whatever the reason is. I mean, kind of, I mean, like, great.
But on the other hand, coming to church or doing anything else does not earn any points with God. That’s not why we come to church. Or like, hey, I’m glad you’re trying to be more compassionate. I’m sure that’ll make the world a nicer place to live. And as I happen to live within the world, I hope you keep trying to make it nicer around here.
But that’s not going to buy you any negotiating power with God. That’s not Christianity. That’s a common misconception of Christianity. And it could be what you might be thinking when you come into a service and you hear something like, hey, love one another. Christianity instead, instead of that, instead of being good to earn negotiating power with God, instead of that, Christianity is, among other things, a radical encounter with God.
And we will talk about what that radical encounter is, of course, but as a result of that encounter, we have now been transformed to think and act and feel entirely differently. Christianity is kind of similar to the origin stories of certain superheroes. Now, not all superheroes, and I don’t know hardly the entire spectrum, which keeps growing, it seems like, but some superheroes. Like, say, maybe Spider-Man, for instance, right? Peter Parker has a radical encounter with a radioactive spider, and now, as a result of that encounter, he can climb on walls, he has increased strength, he can sense when danger is near, right?
Those abilities, those behaviors, those traits that he has are a result of encountering the spider. He became Spider-Man because something outside of him did something to him, and now because that happened, he acts in certain ways and is able to do certain things. His traits and abilities are the byproduct of his encounter with the spider, right? Christians are similar in that our new behaviors and habits like love one another, be hospitable, serve one another, those are the result Those are the effect, those are the byproduct of this radical encounter that we have experienced. So, Christians do not act in certain ways to get something from God.
We do not act in certain ways to achieve something. We do not act in certain ways to become something. We act in certain ways because something has happened to us. Like, we could ask Spider-Man, like, hey, Spider-Man, why do you climb on a wall? And he would say, because something happened to me, that’s why I do this.
We could ask, hey, Christian, why do you do this love, hospitable, serve thing? Why do you act like that, Christian? And the Christian says, because God has appeared in my life, God has done something in my life, transformed me so that I am now simply different. Or to say it another way, if you are wondering when you are supposed to write something down, this is when the slide will come up. Our behavior does not somehow impress God so that God acts on our behalf.
That is not it. Instead, it is God’s behavior has impressed us so that we now act on God’s behalf. We have seen this throughout the entire book of 1 Peter. If you haven’t been tracking along with us, We started a long time ago. We covered chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, and now we are in chapter 4.
So, all along the way we have seen this over and over again. In fact, he starts his letter way back, chapter 1, verse 3. Peter says, according to His great mercy, according to God’s great mercy, God has caused us to be born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So, right from the start, from the very beginning of the letter, before he tells us anything else, He is setting up everything on the condition that Christ has already acted on our behalf. We have received something.
That is step 1, and we better not miss it. But he continues, he just reminds us of this over and over again throughout the same— throughout the whole letter, the same thought, the same trend over and over again. Chapter 2, verses 1 through 3, so put away all malice, put away all deceit, put away all hypocrisy and envy and slander. And we might ask, why would we do that? Why would we put away these behaviors?
Why would we stop with the envy, and the deceit, and the slander, and all of that? And then he tells us, just a verse later, he says, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. See, it’s, I have experienced, and now, therefore, I am putting away certain behaviors. It’s not, I’m going to put away certain behaviors in order to get something. It’s not, I’m going to put away certain behaviors in order to become something or earn something.
It’s, this happened to me, now it’s coming out of me. Or chapter 2:9-11, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. He starts with that. You are chosen, you were called out of darkness, you’re in light. He tells them, this is what happened.
And then he says, after he says that, he says, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. This is over, this is over, it’s over and over and over again. It’s in practically every sentence or paragraph. He says, this is what you have, Christian. If you’re a Christian, if that’s happened for you, this is what happened to you.
Do you remember? You tasted that the Lord is good. Do you remember that? If you remember that, then act that way. You remember that He rescued you out of darkness?
Do you recall that? Do you remember He caused you to be born again into a living hope? If so, then act that way. It’s like if Spider-Man suddenly stopped climbing on walls, we’d say, hey, Spider-Man, why aren’t you climbing on walls, dude? Weren’t you bitten by that radioactive spider?
Didn’t that happen? Remember that that happened? So, go ahead and climb on the wall already. Like, what are you waiting for? That is what we would tell him.
So, Peter has said, Christian, we have encountered this other world. We have been rescued. We were chosen. And now, we love, we offer hospitality, we serve, we speak in ways we didn’t before we encountered Christ, and in everything we do, we do it for reasons that we didn’t before we encountered Christ. Like Spider-Man was bitten by the spider, so now he is becoming more like a spider, Peter reminds the people who are reading this letter, like, the one who called you out is holy, so you be holy.
You encountered the Holy One. He transformed you. He gave you rebirth as something new. So now go ahead and do it already. You are becoming more like the one who came and rescued you.
In our little block of text for today, Peter specifically mentions 4 traits that happen to a Christian, which I have already mentioned today, but let’s look at these individually and think about how our encounter with God is now producing these different behaviors or traits within us. So, the 4 encounters that— or the 4 results that Peter has already mentioned are love one another, be hospitable to one another, speak in certain ways to each other, and serve one another. So, now, I’ll just look at those individually. Number 1, which is in verse 8, keep loving one another earnestly. Since love covers a multitude of sins.
What does covered mean? If I say, I’ll cover you, what does that mean? Somebody invites me to a concert, but the ticket is $5,000. There’s going to be front row seats and fancy food beforehand and backstage passes, right? And I say, wow, I would love to go, but I don’t have $5,000, especially don’t have $5,000 for a concert ticket.
And then you say, I’ll cover you. What does that mean? It means at least 4 things. One, there is a deficiency in me. I didn’t have $5,000.
There is a deficiency. 2, you knew about it, otherwise you wouldn’t have offered to take care of it for me. 3, you paid for it. You covering me means that you are making up for my deficiency. You are paying for my shortcomings.
4, I get to have what I have only because you paid for it. I’m going to get to go to the concert because you paid. So, I was deficient, you knew about it, you paid for it, and now I get something. What is that?
That’s the gospel. That’s what we have experienced in Christ. That was the radioactive spider bite. That was our encounter with God. 1, there is deficiency in us, right?
We are moral failures. If you don’t think that about yourself, just try really hard to be good this week and see what happens. You’ll be like, oh, I am a moral failure. There you go. 2, Jesus knows about it.
Of course, Jesus knows that we’re moral failures. 3, Jesus paid for it. That’s what He did on the cross. 4, we receive what we have only because Jesus has paid for it. We have forgiveness from God, we have access to God, we have favor and blessing that we do not deserve because Jesus paid what we couldn’t.
Jesus covered us. And now that that has happened to us, it is working into us so that it comes out of us. Love one another because love covers a multitude of sins. I pray that you have friends who treat you this way, who know you and for some reason still love you anyway, friends who see your deficiency and yet still say, come here, I gotcha. You’re covered.
This is probably too much to hope for, but I pray our church could be like that as well, where you could come and say, you know what? I’m a mess. I pray we could be a place where we could all come and we could all share all of our deficiencies, and then when we all share all of our deficiencies, the rest of us respond to each other by saying, okay, well, first of all, I’m a bigger mess than you, so let’s start there. But precise to the moment, your mess is covered by what Christ did for you, and you are welcome here.
Love covers sins, which means the sin is known, nothing is hidden. It also means sin is defined as a problem, a deficiency. We don’t pretend sin is okay. We say it needs to be paid for. And finally, it means that it is covered.
You are welcome. You have access. You are forgiven. You are accepted, but only on the basis of what somebody else did, because what we do and what we did are still deficient. Okay, that was the first thing that should be coming out of us.
Second trait Christians should display as a result of encountering God, show hospitality to one another without grumbling. Now, what is hospitality? You’ve probably heard kindness to strangers, welcoming strangers, and that’s fine, let’s keep thinking that, but let’s get more practical to our context. Let’s call it welcoming new people into our lives because it is way more, it is way more than being polite to the people around us. Of course, we need to be polite, right, fine, But if it’s hospitality, it doesn’t stop there.
Politeness is part of hospitality, but it does not equal hospitality. You can be polite and completely fail at hospitality. Since we may have traditionally thought hospitality was like welcoming people into our home, let’s just dig into that a little bit and think about what that would actually mean if we were to do that. If we bring somebody into our home, it means that we are welcoming them into what we are doing. We are putting them into our lives, into the rhythm of what happens in our homes.
So, look, there are lonely and isolated people all around you, like right now, who you don’t know or you don’t know that well. So, that qualifies them as strangers, and they need a place to be. A place to exist, a place to feel welcomed, and not like an, oh, hi, I hope you’re doing well.
You let me know if you need anything, okay? From a distance.
That’s not hospitality. Hospitality is not, oh, I see you over there, and good luck being you. Hospitality is bringing somebody in. Somebody is out in the cold relationally who feels alone and you say, I am going to bring you in. I am going to make room for you.
I am going to make time for you in my day. You can have space in my life. You can be in my circle of people. You are without a circle of people, so you come into my circle of people. Now, what’s that?
Again, just like love covers sin, hospitality is what Jesus did for us. Do you see this? Once we were on the outside of God, we were separated from Him, we were disconnected from community with Him. Then He sees us on the outside, and Jesus takes the initiative, and at cost to Himself, He brought us into the community that He already enjoyed within Himself. Jesus brought us in.
We are now on the inside of the relationship that God enjoys with Himself. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, who have been in loving, encouraging community with each other since preexistent eternity, Jesus brings us into that. And now that we know what being on the inside feels like, we go out and do the same. We bring others into the inside. Like God brought us into His life, we bring others into our lives.
So, whatever circle that you are in, and maybe it is just you in your circle, I don’t know what is going on in your lives, you might be somebody who feels isolated, so maybe it is just you in your circle. You got to start somewhere though, that is what I tell you. Whoever you are connected to relationally, Who are you inviting into that space? Who is on the outside of the circle that you can reach out to and bring in?
Now, let me tell you how you know you’re bad at this, because you might be thinking of some excuses in your head right now, how you’re not going to do this and how it’s okay if you don’t do this. And so, I’m just going to let you— I’m just going to answer all these for you. If you could use some improvement hospitality, you might be thinking one of the following. Number 1, it’s not my personality type to reach out to new people and bring them in. That’s really not me.
Shouldn’t somebody else do that who’s more wired in hospitality?
If you think that, you might be bad at hospitality, but that’s not an excuse. Sorry, you don’t get a pass because you’re wired some other way. We all have the same responsibility, and I have actually seen people who are not wired that way say, hey, I’m not wired this way, but I’m still going to reach out to new people because I know what it feels like to be on the outside, and it’s totally terrible. And so I don’t want this person to feel like it’s— they’re on the outside, so I’m going to bring them in even though it feels very unnatural to me. I’m going to do it.
I’ve seen it happen, so don’t you use that excuse either. 2, you might think, I’m too busy. I don’t have time. There’s no margin to invite someone new into my life. If you think that, you’re probably bad at hospitality.
Again, not an excuse. Do you remember you felt like that in college maybe, and then you met that, like, somebody that you wanted to date, and all of a sudden you had all the time in the world? Okay, you have all the time in the world. I’m just telling you. Number 3, you may think something like, I’d really like to have him over, but not his wife, because he seems pretty cool, but I can’t deal with her.
That’s bad at hospitality if you think that. Similarly, you might think, you know, they, this is number 4, they don’t really fit in with my circle. I am all about reaching out to new people as long as they are people who are just like me and they fit in with me and they fit in with my circle, but I don’t want to reach out to those people. Both of those have been, I am just going to be selective in who I am hospitable to. It is probably bad at hospitality.
You may think something like, shouldn’t they get to know me instead of me trying to get to know them? Isn’t it up to them to make the effort with me instead of me making the effort with them? That’s probably bad at hospitality if you think that. Or you may think, you know, I bet they won’t live here for that long anyway, so why get to know them? That’s probably bad at hospitality.
Finally, you might think something like, shouldn’t someone their own age be the one to reach out to them?
That’s bad at hospitality. Whatever excuse we would like to use to get out of bringing something, someone new into our lives, bringing something new into our circles, Jesus could have used that excuse on us. Jesus could have said, they are nothing like me. They are difficult to deal with. I sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice for them and I don’t get anything in return.
Why would I want to bring someone like this into my life? I’ve got better things to do. Shouldn’t they be the ones coming to me instead of me going to them?
But he didn’t use any of those excuses. At great cost to himself, he reached out to us and brought us in. He paid the price. He jumped all the relational hurdles. He navigated all the difficulty to be associated with us, and he invited us in.
Numbers 3 and 4 of how Christians will be acting now that something has happened to us, numbers 3 and 4, speak in a certain way to each other and serve one another. So, in verse 10, he wrote a letter, he wrote in his letter, whatever gift you have, which just means whatever special God-given ability that you have, use it to serve one another as stewards of God’s varied grace. Then in verse 11, he writes, if you speak, do it as one who speaks the words of God, and if you serve, do it in the strength that God provides. So, when you became a Christian, if that has happened for you, if you would identify as a Christian, have placed your faith in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, if that has happened for you, when that happened, God gives you a supernatural gifting or ability in something for the intended purpose to be used to bring recognition to God and to build up others, especially to build up others within the church. Now, in these verses, he only mentions 2 gifts that God gives that could happen, that God could give you when you become a Christian, which is speaking and service.
But those might be a way to just summarize all the gifts that God can give. So, gifts like prophecy, teaching, exhortation would be speaking gifts, and gifts like serving, mercy, or giving would be serving gifts. With gifts like maybe like leadership covering both kinds. But whatever the gifts are that God gives, they usually manifest themselves more as more than what you’re just simply naturally wired to do. So natural wiring can be part of it, but it’s more like unless God shows up, this doesn’t really happen.
So you may not be good at it all the time, you may not have been good at it at all before becoming a Christian, but now there are times when God moves through you in such a way that makes leadership, teaching, serving, or giving possible, and it’s not only possible, but it comes out, like, fantastic through you. So, if you aren’t a Christian this morning and that sounds a little crazy to you, I totally understand that. Hearing something like, God moves through you and now you’re able to do things that you weren’t able to do before, that might sound, might sound like nonsense to you, so I just want to address you. If you are here, I would say you can think about it like this because it is a little bit like this. Are there people that you can be around that bring out certain parts of your personality?
Like you aren’t particularly witty or funny, but then when you get around that certain friend, all of a sudden you are hilarious. It is like that friend enables you to be something that you aren’t otherwise. And I would say it’s sort of like that. We have a relationship with God, we interact with him, and being around him brings out certain abilities or traits or gifts that are not otherwise there. Which means, again, just like we said with love and hospitality, it means that we don’t serve and speak in order to get something from God.
That’s not why we do them. Instead, God is actually doing those things through us, so of course, If God is the one doing them through us, then we’re not doing them in order to get something. That wouldn’t make any sense. God has put something in us, and now it’s coming out of us. So, if someone asks you, and you’re a Christian, they ask you, why are you so merciful or generous?
Or, how did you think of that particular leadership maneuver? You could very legitimately answer, I’m not really sure. All I know is the more that I hang around God, the more it seems to happen. Just like if Spider-Man, if you ask him like, hey, how is it that you can stick to a wall? He might say, you know, I’m not entirely sure.
I don’t think I could really explain the biology of it because part of it’s made up anyway, but all I know is that things have really been changing since that night that I met the spider. Right? That is what he would say. So, if words and service are what come out of us as a result of what God has put into us, what is this word and what is this service that God has put into us? Or to ask this another way, what is this interaction that we have had with God and how does it influence our words and service?
The interaction is again what we call the gospel. We would have no connection with God if God had not come to us. In John, we read, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. And then we read that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is God’s Word to us.
Jesus is everything that God wants to tell us about Himself. If we ask, what is God’s Word to us? What does God want to tell us? That’s not actually the right question. The right question is, who is God’s Word to us?
Who does God want to tell us? And the answer is Jesus. Jesus was spoken to us, which means Jesus is what we speak to others.
Why did Jesus come? Why did this Word become flesh? He came to seek and save those who are lost. To seek and save those who are lost. That’s why He said He came, to seek and save those who are lost.
So if that’s why He said He came, I’m just going to believe that that is actually why He came, and I’m going to think that’s what His message is, if that’s what He self-disclosed His message is, which means Our words always need to be the same. Our words always need to point to our deliverance in Christ. That is the one message of Christianity.
That’s even Jesus’ name. Jesus comes from the Hebrew Yeshua, which means deliverer or rescuer. We call Him Immanuel, which means God with us, or Hosanna, which means salvation or rescue. Hosanna is a praise for salvation. So, that’s our speech.
That’s the Word that was put into us, rescue, deliverance, I’m coming to you to save you. So, that’s the Word that comes out of us. That’s our teaching. That’s the gospel. That’s how God interacts with us.
So, that’s how we speak to others. That’s how and why we do service as well. Serve one another by the strength God provides. What is that? What is this service that God provided to us?
It’s the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. It’s Matthew 20:28. Jesus served us. Jesus gave up everything he had to benefit those of us who do not deserve it. He gave up his status so we could have favor, blessing, recognition from God when we deserve the opposite.
That is what drives our giving, our mercy, our serving, our leadership.
What was put into us is spending Himself for our benefit, so now we benefit others and spend ourselves for others, not in order to get something from God, not even because Jesus is the model that we are supposed to follow, but because God put this in us and now it’s coming out of us. And since it’s coming out of us, everyone gets to see it, which means it brings God more glory and honor and praise, as verse 11 said would happen. It is God served us, so we serve. God delivered us, so we deliver. God rescued us, so we rescue.
God loved us, so we love. God accepted us, So we accept. God welcomed us, that’s hospitality, so we welcome. God invited us, again, that’s hospitality, so we invite.
The served serve.
The loved love.
The accepted accept. The welcomed welcome.
The invited invite.
The covered cover.
The brought in bring in.
That’s who we are, Christians. That’s what’s in us.
May it now come out of us so that in all we do, verse 11, God may be glorified.
Let’s pray together.
Father, thank You for delivering us, rescuing us, serving us, loving us, Lord. Thank You for inviting us, for covering us, for bringing us in.
I pray that that would be so overflowing in our hearts and lives and souls that we couldn’t help but do the opposite to those around us, Lord. Let the effect of our encounter with you be pushed out of us to everyone, Lord, so that in everything that we do that you are seen as wonderful and magnificent as you are. We ask all those things in Jesus’ name, amen.
