1 Pet 4.7-11

What we pursue

(1 Peter 4.7-11)

Jason Procopio

I’m sure most of you have had similar experiences. You do a self-inventory. You take note of areas in your life in which you struggle to obey God’s commandments. Maybe you’re prone to dishonesty or to pride; maybe you have problems with anger or inappropriate sexuality. And so you go to work on that particular sin: you pray about it, you are aware of it; you fight it when temptation comes, and if you are weak, you confess that weakness.

All that is well and good. But while you were fighting that particular sin, another area of sin slowly surfaced in your life, and you didn’t even notice. Your anger was replaced by self-righteousness; your lust was replaced by a lack of love. It seems like a never-ending cycle that can’t be broken.

Last week we looked at 1 Peter 4.1-6, in which Peter encouraged us to be ready to suffer in order to avoid sin, because suffering for the sake of obedience legitimizes our repentance: it shows us that we have truly made a break from sin. Suffering for the sake of obedience identifies us to others as God’s people. And suffering for the sake of obedience reminds us of the promises that whatever we’re suffering in order to fight sin, it’s worthwhile.

This was an essential, glorious reminder. But by itself, it is incomplete. If Peter had stopped at v. 6, we might well have found ourselves in a community of believers who are characterized mainly by what they reject. 

Thank God, Peter didn’t stop at v. 6.

He makes no transition after speaking of the hope waiting for us after death—in v. 7 he says,  

The end of all things is at hand...

So it’s not just a question of what happens after death; Peter reminds us that soon, everything we see will come to an end—at least, as it is today. Soon Christ will return, the dead will be raised, God will judge the living and the dead, and we will enter our eternal life with him. So whether it’s death which marks the transition for us, or Christ’s return, we must be ready.

And Peter tells us how to be ready. He reminds us of this one essential truth: merely doing what he told us in v. 1-6—merely turning away from sin—isn’t enough. Our hearts are still used to sinning. If we simply turn away from sin, another sin will take its place.

He reminds us that when we remove sin from our lives, as he told us in the previous verses, we must replace that sin with something else—we must experience what the Scottish theologian Thomas Chalmers called “the expulsive power of a new affection”. To put it simply: the only way to truly flee from sin is to actively pursue righteousness. It’s not enough to know what to reject; we must know what we are called to pursue. 

And in today’s text, Peter shows us what to pursue. He doesn’t give us all the details—first off, because he doesn’t need to; there are plenty of similar teachings elsewhere in the Bible; and secondly, because he’s speaking specifically about the local church, what should shape our hearts and minds in the context of our life together.

So if we are a people defined not just by what we reject, but especially by what we pursue, what are those things? What are we, as a body of believers, meant to do and be? 

Effective Prayer (v. 7) 

7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 

In v. 7, Peter tells us to be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of our prayers. The word “prayers” here is plural; he’s talking about a life of prayer—prayer as a regular, repeated activity throughout every day of our lives. His first goal here is to teach us to pray.

So how do we do it? What he says is surprising. He tells us that if we want to pray rightly, we must be self-controlled and sober-minded. This is a call-back to something he already said, in chapter 1 verse 13: he calls us to train our minds to think well about our lives and the world in which we find ourselves. To not let our emotions rule us, not let our feelings determine our actions. 

And we have to think well, Peter says, so that we can pray better—more effectively, and more appropriately. Wayne Grudem writes: “Christians should be alert to events and evaluate them correctly in order to be able to pray more intelligently.”

Here’s one way to look at it: How might listening to the news aid us in our prayers? How might conversing with our brothers and sisters about their daily lives aid us in our prayers? If we know what is going on in our world, in our lives, in the lives of our brothers and sisters; if we’re able to think clearly about these things and be self-controlled in our reaction to events, we’ll be better able to discern God’s voice and pray for the things which are truly necessary.

The other night with Jack we were reading John chapter 5, where Jesus heals the man by the pool of Bethesda, who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. In an instant, with one word, everything about this man’s life changed. Suddenly, he could walk. He could work. He could contribute. The simple fact of being able to use his legs meant that he could stop being a burden and start being an asset to his community. 

This man’s mind must have been swimming with the possibilities before him. Thinking about making up for lost time, coming back to missed opportunities and rebuilding a life for himself. 

But none of those possibilities were essential. They were wonderful, gracious blessings; but not essential.

Later on, Jesus crosses the man’s path again, this time in the temple. And he says to him (John 5.14):  

“See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”

The important thing for this man was not that he had been healed, but that he had met the healer: the one who could heal him not just from the sickness in his body, but the sickness in his soul. 

Being self-controlled and sober-minded allows us to look past what feels important, and to discern what is important—so that we might pray rightly, and have the joy of seeing God answer those prayers.

Earnest Love (v. 8-9)

8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 

After encouraging us to self-control and sober-mindedness for our prayers, he tells us to “love one another earnestly.” This is surprisingly difficult to grasp, and even harder to do, because often there is a disconnect between the idea and the reality.

When people think of Christian love, they almost always think of grand, sweeping gestures. In some respects, this is normal: the cornerstone of our faith is literally a man dying in order to save others, and there is no greater expression of love than that.

The thing is, most of us will never have to do anything quite that drastic for someone else. Most of us won’t literally have to sacrifice our lives for someone else.

So we have this huge example of love—Christ’s death on the cross. But what does the love of God lived our for others look like in an ordinary, uneventful life? What does love look like when you don’t have to bleed for your brothers and sisters?

Peter gives us two examples in these verses, and they are staggering, because they are so simply ordinary.

The first example he gives is patience with the sins of others. 

In v. 8, Peter tells us, Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

People have often misused this verse. They hear that “love covers a multitude of sins,” and they take that to mean that wherever there is love, sin doesn’t matter. As long as I have love, practical obedience in myself or others is not a big deal.

That, of course, isn’t what Peter is saying—that’s what we just saw in v. 1-6, last week: Peter calls us to be willing to suffer, even to death if we have to, in order to avoid sinning. He’s not saying that love makes sin unimportant.

So what does he mean? How does love “cover a multitude of sins”? 

When we love someone, that person’s sins no longer determine how we see them or accept them. Their sins don’t change how we feel about them or how we treat them. When love abounds, small offenses—and even sometimes larger ones—are forgiven. And this forgiveness happens automatically: it becomes a reflex.

Think about the love parents have for their children. Kids offend their parents all the time. They’re rude and selfish; they complain and grumble about things we do for their good. But if we love our kids, we don’t hold that against them; we don’t bear a grudge against them. We don’t wait for them to ask for forgiveness. We understand that they are children, and that they’re learning; and rather than beat them down with their own sin, we help them grow.

This same dynamic should play itself out in the life of the church.

Someone speaks with a tone they shouldn’t, or commits some slight against us. When you live in community with other believers, this will happen. And it will happen on a semi-regular basis—the closer you grow to be, the more opportunities you have to let one another down.

But if we love one another earnestly, that love will drive us to not look at our own needs or our own offense, but rather at the needs of the other person. Love drives us to see things from the perspective of the person we love. When we love someone, we are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, to take into consideration what they’re going through, what is weighing on them or what has wounded them.

And when you take these things into account, most of the time you can easily see—or at least you can imagine—why they acted the way they did. Even if that doesn’t excuse it, at least it helps you understand it. And so your natural instinct is to forgive, even before they ask for forgiveness.

Often those sins don’t even need to be addressed: they are evident, and dealt with instinctively. But let’s say they do—let’s say the sin is consequential enough to require further discussion.

What a wonderful context in which to show love to your brother and sister! You call to their attention a sin that they have committed…but while you do this, you can make it clear from the very beginning that they are already forgiven. There is no barrier between the two of you, simply love and a desire to help them grow to be like Christ. Not only will that person hear the reproach quite differently; they will leave knowing they have been warmly and dependably loved.

Now take the inverse. When love is lacking, small offenses seem big. And big offenses seem like deal-breakers.

I was recently guilty of this. A brother was calling me on something he felt I had done wrong. I disagreed with him, but that wasn’t the issue: a series of things had happened in our relationship which caused our love for one another to grow cold. As a result, everything we said to each other was met with suspicion. Every action was easily misunderstood. And the conflict between us took on a far greater dynamic than it otherwise would have had.

Both of us had to ask forgiveness for a variety of things in the course of that conversation, which helped us remember why we loved one another as brothers in Christ. And the result? Suddenly we could start thinking of possible reasons why the other would have reacted this way. We started remembering how to give one another the benefit of the doubt.

This is what Peter means when he says that “love covers a multitude of sins.” He doesn’t mean that love makes up for sin—that if you’ve sinned, you can somehow wipe away your own sin or someone else’s—only Christ can do that. Peter means that when we love each other, our attitude towards the sins of our brothers and sisters changes. We are more patient with their sin when we love them, and quicker to confess our own sins when we know we are loved.

The second example Peter gives of “earnest love” is almost more surprising than the first, because it is so simple, and so down-to-earth, that we often don’t even think about it.

He says (v. 9):

9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 

Earnest love, which necessarily puts others before oneself, finds its most basic, practical expression in generous hospitality—not begrudging hospitality, not feeling obliged to be hospitable; but hospitality which comes up unbidden, naturally, because of our love.

What is hospitality? It is the warm and generous welcome of whoever happens to be in front of us. It is opening our homes, opening our lives, in order to receive someone else’s presence.

We often don’t think of hospitality as a gospel-related act, but we must. Friends, hospitality is the most evangelical act we can engage in. 

Think about what the gospel is. It is God, gathering in his children from all nations and backgrounds, because of the saving work of Jesus Christ. When God saves us, he does not take into consideration where we come from, what language we speak, our economic background, or our talents. He takes us as we are, whomever we are.

That is the very definition hospitality. It is the warm welcome of anyone who would come in. Many of us listened to Alex’s testimony recently on the church’s Slack channel: he and his mother were poor, and were welcomed into their pastor’s home, literally living with him and his family—for years. Anyone who knows Alex knows the compassion that drives him; Alex understands better than most what Christ’s compassion for us looks like, because he saw it lived out before his eyes.

How many of us came to know Christ through the witness of people who had no reason to welcome us, but who welcomed us anyway? How many of us came to understand what love is through the witness of people who had no reason to welcome us, but who welcomed us anyway?

Obviously there is no true witness where the gospel is not shared out loud, in words; but at the same time, there is no reason why anyone should listen to our words if we do not show them hospitality. Hospitality is the most fitting act to pair with evangelism.

And the incredible thing here is that Peter tells us to engage in hospitality, not just toward those who don’t know Christ (though we should do that); he tells us to show hospitality to one another—to other Christians.

Why? Because the gospel isn’t just what saved us; it is also what shapes us. The love of God isn’t just for sinners in need of a Savior; it is for saints in need of a Father. 

In the early years of Connexion—about two years in—my family and I had a wonderful experience. Jack was little, so it was difficult for Loanne and me to go out for dinner, to a restaurant or to other people’s homes. So one day, three young men in the church—Jean-Daniel, Eliezer and Raphaël—came to us and offered to show us hospitality in our own home. They offered to bring a bunch of food over to our apartment one Sunday afternoon, spend hours in our kitchen cooking a delicious meal—canard à l’orange and a tarte tatin, if I remember right—and playing with Jack; and then we all ate together. Then the dessert took longer than we thought it would, and it was getting late, so they came over again the next night to cook dessert and enjoy it with us.

Very few times since we planted this church did we feel more loved than those two nights. We had prayed for these young men and done our best to love them; and we saw our love for them mirrored back to us those two evenings. It’s a precious memory for us.

Brothers and sisters, we are called to love one another earnestly. To be patient with the sins of our brothers and sisters—not because it’s not a big deal, but because we love them, and we understand where they’re coming from. We are called to show one another hospitality, because in our hospitality, we play-act the gospel for one another: we remind one another of God’s love for us in Christ.

Gifts to Serve (v. 10-11)  

10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 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. 

Now before getting into what Peter says here, we need to address the elephant in the room. (And I’m going to lightly tread on some technical territory here, so if I lose a few of you, just be patient—I’ll make sure to bring it back down to earth in a minute.) 

I know that a good number of people in our church are what are often called “cessationists”. The Bible speaks of what are known as “spiritual gifts”; we see these gifts on display quite prominently in the book of Acts, and then on a couple of rare occasions in the letters of the New Testament, most prominently in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14.  Cessationists believe that the gifts we see on display in Acts and 1 Corinthians were gifts which existed at that time, for a specific purpose, and that we no longer see these gifts legitimately on display in church life today.

I’m not a cessationist. I don’t believe these gifts stopped at the end of the New Testament. But I’m not a full-blown continuationist either; I believe that much of what we see in churches today, which claim to be spiritual gifts, aren’t that. I mostly believe this because in the Bible, we have no explicit indication that these gifts will cease altogether before Christ’s return; but at the same time, we have no indication in the New Testament that what we see in the book of Acts will necessarily continue in the same way. In fact, we have good reason to believe that what happened in Acts was something specific which was happening at that time, for a specific reason. In the letters of the New Testament, talk of spiritual gifts is quite rare; and if they were meant to continue in the same way as in Acts, to have such a prominent place in our lives, I believe the apostle would have had more to say on the subject.

But here’s the main reason why I land in this kind of mid-way position, somewhere between full-on cessationist and full-on continuationist: I don’t believe the Bible teaches that spiritual gifts are limited to the kind of miraculous events we see in Acts (speaking in other languages, healing, prophecy, etc.). Quite the contrary, in fact.

Which brings us back to our text. (If I lost you before, come back.) When Peter says “as each has received a gift,” the word in Greek is charisma—the word which is almost always translated as spiritual gifts. And he insists that in the local body of believers, if we are in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, each of us has received a spiritual gift, or even more than one, because God’s grace is varied. Whether we realize it or not, if the Holy Spirit has caused us to be born again, we have received gifts from God, to be used for his glory.

There are a handful of lists of spiritual gifts in the New Testament, and none of them are absolutely identical. And most of them contain things we wouldn’t consider spiritual gifts at all, but just ordinary things we happen to be good at—Romans 12.7-8 speaks of service, of exhortation, of leadership, of generosity; 1 Corinthians 12.28 speaks of administration, for goodness’ sake! (Whoever would have thought administration could be a spiritual gift?!)

My point is this: when the Bible speaks of spiritual gifts, we should see those gifts as any talent, any ability, which was given to us by God and which the Holy Spirit uses to serve the church. And that is precisely what we see here. When Peter speaks of spiritual gifts, he’s not necessarily speaking of anything miraculous. They are gifts or talents God gives us, in order that we might put them to use in the building up of the church.

To put it simply, we are called to think hard about what God has given us, how he has made us as individuals, in order to know how we might best serve the church. And very often, the use of those gifts will edify the church in ways that very few people will see. Ministry must not be limited to doing what I do. 

This is why, when people ask me how they can serve in the church, my first answer is always the same: Find a community group, get to know your brothers and sisters in Christ, and encourage them to be good disciples of Christ. That is our calling: to know and to help our brothers and sisters grow to be like Christ. That’s what Christ was talking about when he told us to “go and make disciples of all nations.” 

So for the most part, this happens in small settings, with a handful of people at a time (or even just two people at a time), in situations which most of the church will not see. And it is no less ministry for that.

But we need to remember that the way each of us will go about doing that will look different, because we are different people, and God has given us different gifts.

What is important is less what we do, and more how we do it.

And that is where the two examples Peter gives us here are so helpful. 

He says first (v. 10-11): 

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...

The “speaking” here isn’t just preaching or teaching, but any activity in the church involving…well, speaking. It could be sharing your testimony. It could be encouraging someone. It could be reading the Bible with someone.

The important thing is that we do it with what Grudem calls “seriousness of purpose”. We need to remember at all times that the way in which God uses us to build one another up very often comes through what we say to each other, and how we say it. We are called to treat every discussion as if this discussion has the potential to be life-changing for the other person; we need to realize that at any moment in any discussion, God may wish to use us to say something which will help our brother or sister become more like him. 

So we need to think carefully about what we say, and how we say it. We are called to consider the very real possibility that in every ordinary situation in which we find ourselves, God could perform a life-changing miracle in someone else, through his Spirit speaking through us. And he continues (second part of v. 11):

…whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies. 

What kind of service is he speaking about? Any kind. Any kind of helping or encouraging which benefits others in the church (or outside the church). 

Now it is crucial to note that in both of these examples, God is the source. Whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies. We depend entirely on God to serve in this way, because if we did it under our own power, for our own gain, such service would quickly become exhausting, or quickly produce pride in our hearts, or both.

The seriousness of our calling—being aware that in every ordinary thing we say or do, God may well be at work—protects us from that danger. In every case, God is the source. He is the source of the words we use to encourage, and he is the source of the strength with which we serve. We put his varied grace to work in the church (last half of v. 11)  

…in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 

His glory is our goal, friends. We do not serve so that others might see us serve, but rather that they might see God at work in love FOR THEM. That they might see God’s varied grace put to work to bless his children. That through our service, they might better understand the love God has already shown them in Christ, the love he continues to show them day after day.

Brothers and sisters, we know God’s love for us in Christ. God sent his Son to live our life and to suffer our death in order to reconcile us to the Father. This is the gospel: it is the ultimate expression of perfect love.

And receiving that love from God will drive us to pour that love out to others—in patient forgiveness of sin; in hospitality toward one another.

Receiving that love from God will drive us to take our lives, the situations in which we find ourselves, with the utmost seriousness, so that we might know how to pray effectively.

Receiving that love from God will drive us to serve the church with what we have received from him. 

In everything we do, we only use what we have received. He is the source, and he is the goal.

We are no longer defined by what we reject, but also and especially by what we pursue. Sin cannot gain a foothold in our lives or in our church when it is replaced by obedience to God’s commands. 

So let us pursue him—let us pursue him together, in the body of the church, and let us show the world what God’s love looks like, so that when we speak of that love, they might understand why it is necessary, and why it is such good news.