Speaker: Well, I don't typically wait.
Well, I don't know about you, but if I go into a restaurant and the wait time is
more than 15 minutes, then I'm looking at my wife going, let's find someplace else.
Don't love to wait and yet sometimes waiting's inevitable, even in
the restaurant scene, right?
You're gonna make your, your food older, and then you're
gonna wait to get your food.
I remember in college, Amanda and I would go out on dates and, and we
would wait because we didn't have our, our phones with us to suck
all of our attention at the time.
We would wait by playing a game with sugar packets where we would put 'em
on the table and we'd try to slide 'em across the table, and if it hung over
the edge of the, the table without falling, then you got a point in that.
And I don't remember who won.
She just was always better than I was at that.
But.
That's how we would pass time as we waited for our food to come.
Nowadays with my family, we'll go sit down at a restaurant occasionally
when we feel like bringing the circus on the road and we'll, we'll order
our food and we'll all sit there and we'll wait for our food to get there.
And usually at, at some point, one of my kids is like, dad, do you have the phone?
Can we play that game?
And what they're referring to is that heads up game.
If you've ever played that where you put the phone on your head and
it's got a word on it and they try to get you to guess the word, and so
they love to do that while we wait.
Or if you've ever been to a theme park waiting in line to
get on the the rollercoaster.
A lot of times when we're waiting for something, what we're doing is
we're just trying to pass the time.
We're just trying to get from point A to point B, and in a lot of ways,
that's this world when it comes to life.
The world that we live in and the people that you rub el elbows with and shoulders
with on a daily basis are a lot of them just passing time between birth and death.
In fact, the writer of Ecclesiastes, king Solomon even kind of wrestled with
that in the early stages of trying to figure out what is this life all about?
Wow.
He spent time going to all of the different pleasures and all of the
different venues and all of the different outlets that the world offers to say,
maybe this is gonna help me just pass the time in a way that I'll be satisfied.
Well, he did all that and reached the conclusion of saying, man,
vanity of vanities, all his vanity ha, and the Hebrews just missed
from the top of the cup of coffee.
As Christians we're waiting just like the world is waiting.
In some ways, we're waiting for the same thing the world is waiting for.
We're waiting for death, or we're waiting for Christ to come back for the
church, whichever one happens first.
But as Christians, the thing that differs for us is we're not waiting,
simply trying to pass the time.
As Christians, we're waiting trying to redeem the time.
We're waiting aware at least all of us in the room should be this morning
that where you sit this morning, you are one day closer to being
with Jesus than you were yesterday.
Which also means you have one day less on this Earth than you had yesterday.
We could get really minute on that and talk about one minute
less, one second, less than you had a second ago, a minute ago.
And so if we have a finite amount of time left, then the question
becomes what are we doing with it?
Are we just passing time?
Are we just like the world?
Are we just living this life trying to be as entertained as possible until this
life is over and then we'll go to heaven?
Or are we living this life on purpose?
Are we living this life with the purpose of saying, I don't wanna just pass
the time, I wanna redeem the time.
Peter's gonna call us to do that, and he's gonna do that in one Peter
chapter four, verses seven through 11.
So grab your text, grab your Bibles, if you've got 'em, if you've got 'em on your
device, your screen, whatever that is.
Go ahead and get over to one Peter chapter four verses seven through 11.
Haven't mentioned this in a while.
Probably good.
If you're new with us, we use the English standard version for our text.
That's what we preach out of.
There are other decent translations out there.
This is the one that we've chosen as our church to, to utilize and use.
So if you've got the English standard version, you can
follow along with us there.
One Peter four, seven says this, the end of all things is at hand.
Therefore, be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers.
The end of all things is at hand.
Peter begins in a way that should grab our attention.
And, and he's been talking about time.
Remember last week he said the time that has passed suffices for
doing what the Gentiles want to do.
And now he says, the end of all things is upon us.
It's at hand.
The word end there in the Greek is te us, which is a word that means
the culmination of all things.
So this is not him saying the end is in chronologically.
He's not saying that, that everything's coming to an an
end and then there's nothing.
Rather, he's saying everything's reaching, its intended destination.
The end of all things he says is imminent.
It's at hand.
It's upon us.
It's near.
John uses similar language in one John, he says, little
children, it is the last hour.
The last hour, the end of all things is at hand.
It is the last hour, and maybe you're sitting here saying, but they
wrote that almost 2000 years ago.
Were they wrong?
Did they not know what they were talking about?
What is the end still at hand?
Is it still the last hour?
What they meant by that, what Peter means by that, and what John
meant by that is the same thing.
And that is this, as I, I was alluding to earlier in my prayer, there is
nothing left on the prophetic timeline between where you sit today and the
return of Christ for the church.
And so if, if you've been sitting here saying, well, I know this has to
take place before Jesus comes back.
So I, I, I'll, I'll gamble my eternity on dealing with God later on in life.
What Peter is saying and what John is saying is there needs to be a sense
of urgency for every single one of us, whether Christian or non-Christian, to
understand that there's nothing left on God's timeline between you this morning
and the return of Jesus for the church.
That, by the way, will send into motion what we call the,
the, the tribulation, period.
It's a seven year period of suffering unlike anything the world has ever known.
It's not something that you want to be here for.
If you're in Christ, you don't have to be concerned with that because we believe
that you'll be taken to be with the Lord, but there's again, nothing that's
left to take place between now and then.
That means he could come back before I'm done preaching this
morning, which should cause me to say and you to say, am I ready?
Have I been using my time well right now?
Am I using my time well right now or am I checking the golf scores on my phone?
Am I thinking about God's word this morning as I gather
together with my church family?
Or am I distracted with what I'm gonna have for lunch after the service?
Christ could come back at any point.
That's what Peter meant for his original audience.
He's, it's what he means means for us.
Now, Peter's gonna answer the objection in second Peter, when he is gonna
say, some of you may think, well man, what is God's timeframe then?
And Peter says, don't count slowness the way that, that you
and I typically think of slowness.
God is not slow, but he's being patient right now.
At some point in time, his patience is going to be done
and Christ is gonna come back.
The end of all things is at hand.
Therefore, Peter says, in other words, that should make a difference.
That's what that word, therefore is there for, is to tell us in
light of the fact, the fact that Christ could come back at any time.
There's some implications for you and for me, and how we live our lives.
And specific he says this, therefore, be self controlled and sober minded.
This follows naturally from where we were last week when we looked
at all of those sins of uninhibited excess, the sins, that character are
characterized by a lack of self-control.
And now Peter says, for you, church, be different.
Live different.
Why?
Because the end of all things is at hand.
You've got an appointment with Jesus at some point, so therefore, be
self-controlled and be sober minded.
To be self-controlled has a lot to do with our willpower.
Exercising our willpower such that we would say no to the things that the
flesh desires in order to say yes to the things that God would have us desire.
We'll talk more about that in just a moment here.
To be self controlled, but then also to be sober minded, to have a a, a, a sobriety
about the way that we think about this world, which also involves us realizing
that this world is not all there is.
Peter's writing to a group of elect exiles.
They would've been keenly aware of the fact that this world is not all there is.
They weren't home, they weren't cushy.
They weren't living in luxury by any stretch of the imagination.
You and I might have to work a little bit harder at that perhaps.
But to be sober minded, to think rightly about this life
and our identity in this life.
That we are sons of God, daughters of God, that we are redeemed, that we
are ambassadors for Christ, that we are here on mission, not the church
on vacation, but the church in exile.
The church that is here to be light in the midst of a dark world.
Be sober minded.
And then he says this, for the sake of your prayers, for the sake of
your prayers, this could be taken.
I think a couple ways, and I think both are legitimate.
Uh, first it could be taken this way, be self controlled and sober minded
so that you can pray When you are living a life that lacks those things.
When you are living a life that's not characterized by self-control and in
a sober mindedness, then typically you are not wanting to pray because you
find that you will be carrying sin in your life, and sin is an impediment
between you and fellowship with the Lord.
Sin creates shame.
Sin creates guilt.
Sin creates this feeling of hypocrisy that in my heart, I say I, I don't
really, I don't want to pray.
So Peter's in one way saying, be self controlled and sober
minded so that you will pray.
Because as we're waiting to redeem the time, we, we need to wait in a
way that we've got that fellowship with the Lord, that intimacy with the
Lord, and prayer's a huge part of that.
But the second way that this impacts our prayers is this.
If there's not self control and sober minded, this mindedness there,
then, then we should not expect that our prayers will be effective.
Peter's already hit on that in one Peter chapter three, verse seven, when he
was talking to husbands, husbands live, live with your wives in an understanding
way, showing honor to the weaker vessel.
He goes on to say so that your prayers may not be hindered.
And I think Peter's building on that concept for all of us now saying,
if you have unconfessed unrepentant sin, that's a lack of self-control,
a lack of sober mindedness in your life, then you shouldn't expect
your prayers to be effective when you bring them before the Lord.
Sin hinders your fellowship with God.
As you think about the time that you have left, I would hope if you are in Christ
this morning, that one of the things that you want to do in the time that you have
left to redeem the time is to draw closer to the Lord's a biblical principle's.
A biblical command.
James instructs us to draw near to the Lord as we want to do that.
Then part of that looks like what Peter's talking about in verse
seven, tending to our self-control, tending to our sober mindedness.
Making sure that we've got a robust prayer life intact here so
that we will grow in godliness.
Point number one this morning is we seek to redeem our time
and not just pass our time.
Is this tend to your godliness, tend to your godliness.
The word 10 might not be one that we use very often, but you might
think of somebody who tends to garden, somebody who tends a garden.
What are they looking to do there?
They're looking to cause the garden to grow, and so they're gonna
do things to cause that garden to grow as part of tending it.
They're gonna water it, they're gonna make sure that it's, it's weeded,
that there's no nothing in there.
They're gonna make sure that the rabbits aren't there
trying to get in and, and eat.
The, the, the plants that are in there, they're gonna tend to
it, they're gonna care for it.
And that's not passive, that's active.
In the same way, we need to tend to our godliness as the church.
You will not just in neutral grow in your godliness as a Christian.
The spirit feeds on you in investing in the word of God and in in repenting
and confessing from your sins and in praying and seeking the Lord, and being
in fellowship with other believers.
One of my pastors at one point said it this way, you have two
things at war within you, two spirits that war within you.
You've got the spirit of God and the spirit of the flesh.
The one that will win that war is the one that you feed.
And so as Christians, we need to be feeding the spirit of God.
We need to be feeding.
We need to be ingesting the word of God.
We need to be tending to our godliness.
Our godliness is the foundation of everything else.
If the godliness isn't there, then nothing else that we do
as believers really matters.
There's a prospect for the Detroit Tigers.
His name is Max Clark, and he has more bling than any other prospect
that I've ever seen in my life.
He is iced out to the max.
He wears all the chains on the field, no pun intended.
Max Clark iced out to the max.
He's iced out.
He's, he's just, you can't miss him out on the field.
The only problem is he doesn't have the game to back it up.
And so he's wearing all this bling and trying to draw all this attention
to himself saying, look at me.
And yet, when you really take a look at him, you don't see much
substance there to his game.
We can't be that way with the church.
We can't show up on Sunday.
Iced out with serving and with showing up at bible study and
with, I can do the memory verse.
I don't even need the words filled in at all and look at my family and how
neat and pretty and nice We look only to have a life that's characterized
by a total lack of self, self-control, sober mindedness and, and, and
prayerlessness the rest of of your week.
We have to have godliness intact.
It has to be there.
It's the foundation of anything else.
So these two things, let's start with these things.
Self-control and sober mindedness.
Again, I think they're, they're related terms here, but self-control.
I mentioned that the world will say this.
Self-control is this.
The act of governing our actions and emotions through the will
and the world can do this.
The world can choose to say, I'm not going to drink anymore 'cause I don't want to.
'cause I see the side effects of it and I, I don't wanna do that anymore.
The, the world can say I'm not going to speed right now because there's an
officer in my rear view mirror and I'm gonna demonstrate self-control to not
speed because I don't want the ticket.
This is, see, the, the world can demonstrate and, and employ self-control,
but as Christians, when you come to faith in Christ, something changes about
the self-control that now you get to operate, you get to exercise, and it's
this, it's not just about the will, it's about the will in form by new affections.
Such that now you are exercising self-control as a Christian saying,
I'm not going to drink anymore.
Not just because of the negative side effects of what alcohol does to me,
but because you know what God has called me to be, one who is sober
in my thinking and sober minded and, and I know what this leads me to.
He's called me not to be somebody of wrath and malice and alcohol will do that, and
my affections now are greater to please Christ than they are to please my flesh.
And so sober mindedness and self-control for the Christian looks
different than it did before Christ.
In other words, your godliness I is not a simple matter of grit.
It it, it's not tightening the belt and pulling yourself up by
your bootstraps to be more godly.
Instead, your godliness is marked by a desire to please God
more than to please yourself.
Peter's saying that's one of the ways that we need to redeem our time.
Is making sure that that's part of our, our life.
So this is different than at the end of the night when I have to close the package
of Oreos, even though I don't want to,
I'm not closing the package of Oreos because I desire
Jesus more than the Oreos.
But when we're battling sin, and I, we, we need to not sin, not just because
we don't like the consequences of sin, but because we love Jesus more.
That's one of the ways that we redeem the time.
And so the question this morning is this, are, are your affections for Jesus?
Are they increasing so much so that that you are desiring things of the
Lord more than you're desiring the sins that once characterized you?
Are you seeing victory over sin?
Not just because you installed accountability software, but because
your love for Jesus is increasing and so you hate your sin more because
you love Jesus more, and that's showing up in how you live your life.
And this relates back to the end of all things as at hand.
Why?
Because Christ is coming back sometime and I wanna be ready to meet him.
Don't you?
A, a sobering thought if you want one is this.
Imagine Jesus coming back while you're looking at that thing on the computer.
Imagine Jesus coming back in the middle of your profanity, lays tirade after
somebody cuts you off on the road.
Imagine Jesus coming back when you've been.
Neglecting to be a godly husband or a godly wife.
Imagine Jesus coming back as you're filling in your taxes and you're, you're
intentionally putting wrong numbers in.
There's something to the fact that the imminence of Christ return should have
that sanctifying effect on our life.
Why not?
Just because we fear the shame, but because we love
him, but because we love him.
That love for him should also drive us to want to be in constant communication
with him, to have that relationship with him and, and, and prayer is such a key
part of our dynamic relationship with him.
We talk about time in the word a lot, but, but time in the word
is, is just one component of it.
Prayer is that other part of it.
When, when we don't pray, what we are functionally saying is we don't really
acknowledge the fact that we've got a God who's living and breathing and active.
When we live a prayerless life as a believer, Jesus Christ becomes the
mascot for our faith instead of our living savior who's interceding at the
right hand of the Father for us who's opened the throne of God for us to
draw near at any time, to find grace and mercy, to help in time of need.
And so your self-control troll and your sober mindness then
informs your prayer life.
Because now all of a sudden, like I was talking earlier, if you're not living
self controlled, you're not living sober minded, you don't want to pray.
For some of you in the room, one of the reasons why your prayer life is in
shambles is because your sin is not,
is because you are harboring unconfessed sin in your life,
unrepentant sin in your life.
You're waiting for the Lord saying, okay, I'm gonna have a foot in, in
this side of things, just passing time with the pleasures of the world,
and then I'm gonna have another foot over here at church on Sunday morning,
and I'm gonna just hope that this is enough, that we're good and, and you
feel cold and you feel sterile, and you feel like there's no, there's no real.
Tangible thing to hold onto in your relationship with the Lord.
And you're, you're wondering why, and you're reading books about prayer and, and
you're listening to sermons about prayer, and you're listening to podcast about
prayer and you're, you're asking other people to pray for you that you would
pray more, and yet you're not dealing with the main cause, which is the fact that
you've got sin in the camp that needs to get outta the camp so that you won't feel
as much shame and guilt and hypocrisy when you do come before the Lord.
So tending to your godliness is going to cause that inverse effect where you
are going to want to be with the Lord.
It's like when you don't work out for a few weeks, right?
And then you think, oh man, I gotta get back in the gym.
But you sit there and you think to yourself, that is gonna be miserable.
I don't want to, it's easier to not, it's uncomfortable to go back.
It's gonna be hard to go back.
For some of us, that's our, our prayer lies and what's been keeping
us out of the gym of prayers, the sin that we've been harboring
because of a lack of self-control and a lack of sober mindedness.
But the second thing that will do is it will limit the effectiveness of your
prayers if you've been harboring sin.
And that, that's another thing I would say.
Maybe, maybe you have been praying for something and you're going, man,
God is just not answering this prayer.
Part of the thing that might be good to do is to examine your heart to say, do
I have sin that I'm not releasing here?
Could there be something in my life that is hindering my, my, the
effectiveness of my prayers in this?
If so, Lord, what is it?
Turn me inside out.
Shake me out.
Lemme get rid of it.
I don't want it.
And so as you seek to tend to your godliness, it has to
do with your self-control.
It has to do with your relationship to worldliness, much like
we talked about last week.
And it has to do with you leaning into your relationship with God through prayer.
And those two things are connected.
Those two things are related.
And so one of the things that we need to do as we seek to redeem
the time as we wait is, is tend to ourselves, tend to our godliness.
Seek to cause our godliness to grow, but it's not just ourselves that we
need to give attention to as we wait.
It's also one another.
In fact, there are three one anothers in the rest of our passage here.
He's gonna say, you need to love one another.
You need to show hospitality to one another, and you
need to serve one another.
And so let's go to this next passage in verse eight, this next
verse, it says this, above all, keep loving one another earnestly.
Since love covers a multitude of sins above all, keep
loving one another earnestly.
I don't know if that strikes you as as interesting that Peter would say, first
and foremost, keep loving each other.
Why would he put that in such a place of primacy?
Well, I think the answer comes back to what Peter heard Jesus
say when Jesus was approached by one of the experts in the law.
Hey, teacher, what's the greatest commandment?
Jesus said, well, you've heard it said to love the Lord your God,
with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.
That is the greatest commandment.
And then what did Jesus say?
And the second, the second is like it.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus was was with Peter.
Peter was there when, when Jesus said, A new commandment I give to you
that you should love one another, as I have loved you by this, all people
will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
And so here, I think that's one of the reasons Peter says, above
everything, make sure that you are loving one another because that
is one of the primary evidences of the fact that you belong to Christ.
It is one of the primary evidences of the fact that you have received
and experienced the love that God has shown you through Jesus.
So he says, above all, keep loving one another because you can't say,
I love God with everything I am and not love your neighbor as yourself.
In fact, if you don't have a love for other people, then there's a disconnect.
There's something, there's a short circuit in your love for God.
And so Peter says, above all, keep loving one another.
It's a command.
Have an ongoing love for one another.
This is not a quota that you meet daily.
This is an every single minute, every single day, every single second
you are set on loving one another.
Keep on loving it's agape love as well.
It's a love that doesn't expect something in return.
This is an I'll love you as long as you love me.
This is a selfless love.
This is an affectionate love.
And he says, we're to do that earnestly, genuinely eagerly, constantly.
And he says, why?
Because love covers a multitude of sins.
I think Peter knew that as we wait for the return of Christ, as we wait
together, as a body of Christ, as a family, what's gonna happen when
a bunch of sinners get together?
What happens when, when sinners get together, we sin against each other?
And so I think Peter's saying, you know what y'all, if if you
guys are gonna survive, you're gonna need a love for each other.
That's willing to be merciful to each other too.
It's willing to cover a multitude of sins.
We're gonna talk about what it looks like to cover when we cover,
when we don't cover in just a minute here, but, um, a multitude.
It's from the, the word for plethora, A multitude, many sins.
Proverbs 10 12 says this hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.
Proverbs 17, nine says, whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who
repeats a matter separates close friends.
So Peter's saying one of the things that we need to do with each other as we
redeem the time is rather than keeping account of the offenses against us, we
should look to welcome each other and to meet the needs that we're able to meet.
And that's where he goes.
In verse nine, he says, seek to show hospitality to one another
without grumbling hospitality.
The word means the the love of strangers.
And that's something that we're called to do in scripture, but here specifically
show hospitality to one another.
So this is in the confines of the church.
This is the body of Christ together, showing hospitality to one another.
Hospitality is, is welcoming and caring for the needs of another person.
Welcoming and, and caring for the needs of another person.
In, in Peter's day, this was a, a pretty significant need.
They needed people to open up their home to host the church.
They needed people to host apostles and prophets as they were traveling around
evangelists, missionaries, they needed people to open up their homes when others
lost their homes due to persecution.
So Peter saying, show hospitality to one another as an expression
of your love for one another.
But notice it's governed by an attitude.
It's not a, okay, fine, if I have to.
It's also not a, a hospitality that's going, why doesn't somebody else step
up and, and be hospitable for once?
Instead, he says, it's a hospitality that's without grumbling, without
grumbling or murmuring or complaining.
Philippians two 14 says, do all things without grumbling.
See, to serve begrudgingly was not to serve from a heart of
love to to serve, upset over how much it it cost us to serve.
Was not serving with the sacrificial love the way that we had been served by Jesus.
And so show hospitality without grumbling again, the end of all things is at hand.
How are we waiting?
Are we passing time or redeeming time?
One of the ways that we redeem time is we redeem time together.
We redeem time with one another.
We redeem time as the church.
And what that looks like is that looks like loving one another earnestly.
Point number two this morning is this tend to your love.
Attend to your love.
I want us to know three things about this love that Peter calls us to.
First is it's quality.
It's quality.
He says, keep loving one another.
Earnestly.
I, I wonder if you've ever heard the phrase, I have to love you,
but I don't have to like you.
Anybody.
We had some fun in the office this week kicking that around on whether or
not that was biblically justifiable.
Jury's still out.
No, I I, I'm pretty sure we're, we're, we're mostly in agreement that Yeah.
We, we need to put that aside because that's not really, at least
not indicative of the heart that we should have towards one another.
And I think this passage shows us that.
Why?
Because I know for sure that I can't tell you that I love you earnestly
because I have to, earnest love doesn't flow from obligation and duty.
And earnest love is manifested from a, a, a will, from a desire, from a heart
that's been transformed by Christ that says, I wanna love as I've been loved.
And, and so the quality of the love that we should have for one
another is a love that's genuine.
In fact, Romans 12, nine, let love be genuine right after that.
In verse 13, he says, and seek to show hospitality to one another, but
this genuine love, this earnest love.
And there might be reasons why you would say, okay, but pastor.
Here's my reasons why I don't love all of these people.
Earnestly, number one, I, I don't know everyone in the room earnestly.
Okay, fair.
Fair.
But maybe that's, God prompting you to get to know a few more people in the room so
that you can love more people earnestly, rather than say, well, I just, I don't
know them, so I don't have to love them.
I'm opting myself out of that.
Or it's, God's saying, we'll get to know them.
Talk to 'em, invite 'em over.
Or maybe your objection is this, well, uh, pastor, I, I've been
sinned against by that person, so I'm, I don't love them earnestly.
We will return to that in just a second here, but in most cases,
the offenses that we're talking about, there are small enough that
we should just cover them over.
Not every case, there's some cases where there's an egregious sin that takes place
and, and you, I would still say, are called to love your brother or sister
if they are truly in Christ earnestly.
But the fellowship aspect may look different Granted.
Or maybe your objection is something like they're, they're hard to love.
They're hard to love.
I just don't, I don't like the person.
We don't connect.
Well,
I think in situations like that, that's probably revealing
more about you than about them.
Your pride, your impatience, your standards that aren't necessarily
biblical standards, because Peter doesn't give an exception here.
He's not love everyone earnestly who you like hanging around.
He doesn't say love.
Everyone earnestly, who's easy to love, man, if Jesus did that,
guess who saved none of us.
And he says, love one another Earnestly.
And, and, and why is this such an important quality that we need to have?
Well, I think because of what he's already said.
Back in one Peter chapter one, verses 22 through 23, pastor Rod preached
on this sermon this past fall, but he says this, having purified your souls
by your obedience to the truth for a sincere, brotherly love, love one
another, earnestly from a pure heart.
There's our phrase, love one another, earnestly having purified your souls
by your obedience to the truth.
What is that talking about?
That's talking about the gospel.
The gospel should therefore result in us loving one another earnestly.
And he goes on and he says this, since you've been born again, not a perishable
seat, but of imperishable love, earnestly because you've been born again.
And so I think one of the reasons why this matters so much is because
this is indicative of our standing in Christ, in our understanding of
how much we've been loved by him.
Again, I, I can't say I love God with everything I am and,
and not love other people.
I need to love earnestly.
The quality has to be there.
So how does your love for those in this room differ for your, from your
love for the unbelievers in your life?
I think it should.
I think it should unapologetically.
I think it should.
I think it should differ from how you love the teachers at your kids' school.
I think it should differ from how you love the parents on your kids' sports teams.
I think it should differ from how you love your coworkers.
Would even go so far as to say, I think it should differ from how you
love your unbelieving family members.
The reason for that is though we pray for those that are in our family,
that every single one of our family members would come to know Christ.
We can't guarantee that, and for some you will spend eternity with those
in this room and not your family.
And, and I'm not saying that from a cold-hearted position,
we want your family to be saved.
I want your family to be saved.
I want, I'm, I'm thinking about some of my kids in that when I say that,
and as a dad, I desperately want my kids to be saved.
But if they are unbelievers, when they grow up and they walk away from the
church, my relationship with you has an inherent different quality than
it will with my own flesh and blood.
So we need to love one another with an earnest love.
That's its quality.
Second, it's mercy.
It's mercy.
The, the, the last two qualities here.
One is about how you internally love people.
The other is about how you externally love people.
So this is, is the internal, it's mercy, and this is where he says, since love
covers a multitude of sins, again, as a family, we're going to be sinners.
Living with sinners and sinners, fellowshiping with sinners.
We're, we're going to sin against each other.
And, and, and there are times Galatians six, Matthew 18,
where sin needs to be addressed.
There are sins that are particularly egregious or there are sins that
are repeated patterns of behavior.
There are sins that are clearly intentional.
There are sins that are public.
That, that do need to be addressed in the sense of Matthew six brothers, if anyone
is caught in a trespass, you who are spiritual, restore that person in a, in a
spirit of gentleness or Matthew 18 if, if someone sins against you, go and show them
their fault that you may gain the brother.
Right?
There are times where we should do that, but then there are gonna be a lot of
other offenses and even sins against us that are more akin to the stepping on of
the toes or the cutting off in traffic.
That as Christians, for the sake of the unity of the body and our
love for one another, we can cover over those offenses, and that's
what we're being called to here.
Maybe somebody makes a, a joke at your expense and it hurt a little bit
more than you let on, but you know their heart, you know they love you.
This is not a repeated pattern of behavior in their life, so you're not gonna call
them out and confront them and, and, and.
Go Matthew 18 on them.
For that, you're gonna let the, the offense go, you're
gonna cover over it in love.
Or maybe your spouse says that they're gonna do something like clean
up their wardrobe o off the floor.
And then you, you come home and it's still there, and you could confront
your spouse and be like, you're a liar.
You're, you're a liar.
I'm Matthew 18.
And you right now, you're a liar.
You said you'd pick it up, you didn't, or you could cover over the offense.
And realize, okay, they forgot I'm gonna believe the best about them.
'cause that's what love does.
Or maybe you're on your way to church and, and somebody is just
tailgating you the whole way to church.
And you're going, man, who is this guy?
They need the gospel.
I don't know what is going on.
Hopefully they see my Compass Bible Church sticker on the back of my
car as I'm driving along and, and you turn into church and guess what?
They turn in right behind you and they park next to you in the parking lot.
You get out.
Now it's, what are we, what are we gonna do?
You No.
You get an opportunity to say, man love's gonna cover a
multitude of, of offenses in that
this is not easy.
I'm not suggesting it's easy, it's hard, but it's an act of love that says,
for the good of the unity of the body, for the good, of the relationships,
for the good of one another.
As I'm seeking to redeem the time, man, I, I, I wanted to, to exercise
that grace towards others because God exercises that towards us.
Psalm one 30.
What does the psalmist say?
He says, if you, oh, Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand
before you, if God were to count every single one of your sins, and at the
end of the day give you your report card, you'd be wrecked every day.
And yet, in his love, he covers over and we can do the same thing
with one another so it's quality.
Second, it's, what did I say?
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Those of you, this pop quiz, I knew it all along.
Pop quiz, it's quality, it's mercy.
And third, it's, it's care.
Again, mercy is the internal right.
I'm willing to show that mercy to cover over it.
Now it's, it's it's care.
This is the external, this is the hospitality piece.
He goes on, he says, show hospitality to one another without grumbling.
Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.
Again, hospitality here is gonna be our love in action towards one another.
As Christians, we're called to show hospitality to unbelievers, aren't we?
In fact, the word hospitality is in the original.
It's there.
It means the love of strangers.
And so we're called to, to show hospitality to those outside the church.
How much more should we show hospitality to one another inside the church?
And that's what Peter's saying here, show hospitality to one another.
Paul says in Galatians six 10, he says this.
He says.
So then as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to
those who are of the household of faith.
Did you catch that?
Paul says, we should do good to everyone and especially to our
brothers and sisters in Christ, especially to those within the church.
We have a hospitality team here at the church and praise God that we do
because we've got donuts after church and we've got coffee and we've got
tea, and we've got special occasions.
They help us serve that as well and, and they do a great job
and I'm so thankful for them.
But also I want us to, all of us think of ourselves.
This is all of the hospitality team in the church.
All y'all are the hospitality team because that's what God
calls us to do as believers, to show hospitality to one another.
Hospitality on Sunday mornings through the refreshments and
everything else like that.
That's a part of it.
Of it, but that's not all of it.
Hospitality extends beyond the four walls of the church.
It looks like opening up your home, it looks like seeking to
meet the needs of other people.
It looks like a love that in the end of the day is gonna cost us
something, but that's just it.
A love that doesn't cost us is no different from a worldly love.
The love that costs is a love that would cause somebody to say, why would
you care for somebody to that extent?
It allows you to say, because of how much God has cared for me.
So this is a, a love that cost is a love that James calls
us to in James two 15 and 16.
It's a love that John calls us to in First John three 17.
You can look up those verses on your own if you want.
First John three 17.
That one's shorter.
It says if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need
and yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?
If you're not hospitable, in other words, James or, or John is saying,
how does God's love abide in you?
And I think that's both God's love for you and your love for him, which is
evidence through our care for one another.
And remember, we're, we're called to do this without grumbling.
Without grumbling.
For a lot of us, a hospitality can start with having somebody over for dinner.
It's more than that.
But I think for a lot of people, we could start by realizing what we have in the
four walls in the roof over our head.
There's a book on your recommended resources there that I have, uh, just
finished reading recently, and it's called The Simplest Way to Change the World.
And, and honestly, I found this book and it was, it was God's providence
that I did because I was looking for a book on hospitality for Christians
that wasn't written by a woman.
Not that I'm against female hospitality books.
The, the gospel comes with a house key by Rosario Butterfield, also
on the back of your worksheet.
Excellent book on hospitality.
But I didn't want you men in the room to tune out and be like, oh,
well, hospitality is a female thing.
It's not, did you know it's a qualification for an elder?
So hospitality is something that all of us need to practice.
In, in, in this book, he talks about our homes specifically, and these are
two pastors that wrote, and, and I thought this was helpful, so let me just
read what he says here for a minute.
He says, many Christians have bought into the cultural view that your homes
are personal and private fortresses and are combined 20 plus years of pastoring.
We've observed that the way a typical Christian thinks about their home
isn't all that different from how a typical non-Christian thinks.
It is the place I eat, sleep, relax, and entertain myself by myself.
He goes on, he says this, he says, we think of mission as something that happens
outside the four walls of our homes.
That if anything, our homes are even a retreat from any Christian
mission that we may be involved in.
And he says, in so doing, we waste a powerful and God ordain, ordained
means of changing the world.
In the book, they're talking about hospitality specifically as it relates to
our ability to, to serve the, the world around us using our homes for evangelism.
But the same point can hold true for our, our relationships with each other.
We come here and we're like, okay, I'll be the church at church, but don't, don't
ask me to be the church outside of church.
Don't ask me to, to really invest in relationships
outside of, of Sunday morning.
But the hospitality, the biblical hospitality that's in view here
is a hospitality that has to transcend the two hours that we
spend here every Sunday morning.
It's a hospitality that literally is getting people in your kitchen and,
and maybe you're thinking, yeah, but I've got a really nice kitchen
and their kids are not well behaved.
One of our, the, the, the wife of our sitting pastor shared something with
Amanda early on in our time out there.
That was super helpful.
And that was this, your carpet, your couch, your kitchen, your food.
It's not yours, it's god's.
So you may be concerned about the stain on your carpet, but if you're using your
house to obey the Lord through showing hospitality to one another, through
getting to know each other over meals, through having fellowship together as
the body of Christ, and you got a stain on your carpet, and that's a battle
scar that's worth boasting in and it's God's, and you're pleasing him in that.
So here's my challenge.
Some of you are are killing it at this already.
But my challenge to the rest of us in the room is this.
I'm gonna challenge you to have one family over or one person over in the church
per month for the next 12 months, and, and not people that you already know.
Let's get outside of the, if you're in a community group, let's get outside
the families in your community group.
I want you to, to start inviting people that you don't know and beginning to
build relationships and, and showing hospitality to one another to this extent.
Just one meal a month with somebody in the church, somebody in the church
that, you know, you can invite a, a single person over in the church.
You can invite a family over in the church, um, whatever that looks like, have
12 people over, over the next 12 months.
If you wanna go beyond that, if you're going, that's easy, great.
Go beyond that, double that.
Here's what my hope is though.
I hope if we'll do that, that you'll be invited by some other people over to their
house and, and you'll say yes to that.
That's the other challenge.
Y'all say yes if you're invited.
And if, if we all do this, think about the webs of relationships
that we could begin to form in, in our church and, and how strong our
church will be as a result of that.
If we will seek to show hospitality to each other, which again, all comes back
to our love for one another, which is what we need to be doing as we seek, not just
to pass the time, but to redeem the time.
It's not just about ourselves.
That's our godliness.
That's important.
It's also about our love for one another.
But then finally, Peter's gonna turn it to the church.
He's gonna say in, in redeeming the time also looks like what you're
doing here on Sunday mornings or on Wednesday nights or wherever it may
be, and that's where he goes next.
In our passage, if you'll look ahead, he continues in the next verse and
he says this, Peter says, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one
another as good stewards of God's varied grace, as each has received a gift.
Paul says something similar.
He says, God is app portioned to each one as he wills a gift.
And so you have a, a gift, you have something to offer the church, and that's
what we're to do with it, is he says, you are to serve one another with this gift.
Some of these gifts may be preexistent, meaning you may be an accountant, you
may have the gift of being really good with spreadsheets and really good with
numbers, and you're an accountant before Christ and you're an accountant after
Christ, but now all of a sudden your ability to handle spreadsheets and
numbers, God might use that and redeem that to come alongside the church and
help the church with their finances, their books, something like that.
See, that's a gift that you already had that now is redeemed to be used
for a different purpose by the Lord.
But then there's also times that people receive gifts that they
didn't possess before Christ.
For example, maybe before you came to Christ, you may have been an introvert
and, and, and the thought of being around other people and talking to
them, just you're gave you hives immediately, then you get saved.
Now all of a sudden because of salvation and because God gives you
the gift of evangelism, you can't wait to talk to anybody that you see
that's got a pulse in a heartbeat.
Those are the same thing.
You can't wait to talk to whoever.
You're like, I just wanna talk to anybody about Jesus.
And you're going, what change?
Will God gave you a gift to be used to serve the church?
Specifically?
Here we're talking about serving one another, and he says, as as
good stewards of God's varied grace.
In other words, you've been given a stewardship.
A stewardship is a task to manage.
God has given you something to care for.
That's, that's his.
Jesus tells multiple parables about this, but he tells the
parable, the, the talents, right?
And they come back to the master and they say, look, you, you gave me
two and I've, I've made four, or you gave me four and I've made eight.
And the one says, well, you gave me one and I was afraid
that you'd be pretty exacting.
So I just went ahead and buried it.
And the master says, you're a, a horrible steward with what I've given you.
Church, let's make sure we're not being horrible stewards of
the gifts that God has given us.
Part of our redemption of the time that we have left before Christ comes
back is what we're doing to serve one another within the body of Christ.
This again is our stewardship.
We're gonna get into what he says next in verse 11 here in just a moment.
But our third and final point this morning is this, tend to, that
stewardship tend to your stewardship.
In verse 11, Peter gives us two broad categories of gifts, the speaking gifts
and the serving gifts, and really all of the different spiritual gifts that
we find in scripture that we find in the church can categorize themselves
under one of those two umbrellas.
Not that speaking is not serving at the same time.
But, but he identifies these broad categories.
And so the first one he says is, are the speaking gifts?
And he speaks to those that will either teach, maybe it's in,
in Ana or Ana Adventure club.
Maybe it's in our kids men.
Maybe it's in, uh, a men's Bible study.
Maybe you're preaching on a Sunday morning, and he says, whoever's speaking,
you need to be sure that you're speaking in accordance with the Oracles of God,
the word of God, the messages of God.
This does not imply that the one who stands up and
speaks brings new revelation.
If you ever hear me say, Hey church, I've got some new revelation for you.
Get up and leave
and stone me on the way out.
That's not what this is saying.
What this is saying is, whatever you hear me speak needs to be in keeping
with what you read on these pages, y'all.
This is the authority, the, the man's not the authority, the word's, the authority.
So whatever I preach or whoever speaks, or you're teaching in Adventure Club,
you're teaching in kids' ministry.
Your standard, what, what Peter's saying here is if you're gonna effectively serve
one another in that gift, is to make sure that what you say lines up with the Bible.
But then the second is those who serve.
Those who serve not in their own strength, but in the strength that God provides
and the strength that God provides.
We can show up and, and we can say, well, look it.
I'm here.
I'm God's gift to the church.
I'm able to do this.
I've got a truck.
You've been talking about needing trucks to tow trailers.
Have I got the truck for you?
Look how great I am.
I've got a truck I can serve in my own strength.
Or even if you are teaching, I can do this in my own strength.
I don't need anything else and, and that's robbing.
God of the glory that he's due, because what's the intended end of all of these
things in order that in everything God might be glorified through Jesus.
So when you come to serve the church, y'all come praying.
God, I pray that you would strengthen me to be able to do this.
I pray that I would depend upon you to be able to do these things.
I pray that you would equip me to handle those situations that
I'm not anticipating this week.
I pray that you would help me overcome my tiredness this week, and I pray
ultimately that you would get all of the glory through my labors and
efforts for you as I show up to serve my brothers and sisters in Christ.
If somebody comes up and wants to say, Hey, great job.
Hey, thanks, but I'll praise to God on that one.
Redirect and deflect the praise to the one who deserves it.
The Lord, to him be the glory and dominion.
The word means power forever and ever.
That Christ would be exalted and God would glorify, be glorified,
should be our aim in all of our acts of service here in the church.
We're getting ready to go to two services and so our need for more people to serve
is going to be there in ways that I'm sure we're not even anticipating yet.
And so lemme just invite you if you're not serving in the church yet, that
this is a great time to pray about that and, and then to take action on that.
You say, well, where do I go to serve?
I'm so glad that you asked.
He came prepared for, I did come prepared for this.
This is our webpage.
You go there.
This is our landing page that.
An awkward looking guy in the green shirt on the, the front there.
But you'll notice up top that thing that's, that's circled there.
It's got a a, a note there.
I think it even says serve there.
So you can click on that dropdown menu.
You'll click on that button there that says Sign up to serve.
It's gonna take you to this page at the bottom of this page.
There's another button there 'cause we like buttons.
So you can click on that button and that's gonna bring you to this form.
This form is gonna say, where do you think you can best serve?
And there's a lot of different options there.
And there's even the option for our underwater basket weaving
enthusiast on the bottom.
Do you have any other skills that you think might be helpful to the church?
There's a box underneath that for you to, to, to say, well,
I've done this in the past.
We, we want you guys to serve.
And so this is an opportunity for you to say, well, I can do setup and tear down.
I can do tech av, I can do kids ministry, I can do welcome team, I can
do parking, whatever that looks like.
Some of those there, there's some, some higher.
You know, fences to before you, you jump in there.
Like kids ministry, we run background checks 'cause we wanna make sure that
we're putting the right people in there and, and taking care of, of the kids well.
But some of those tear down setup, show up.
Right.
So this would be a great way for you to, to, to take and apply some of the
sermon this week is by jumping online and, and signing up to serve with this.
This is again, though ultimately about redeeming the time that we have left
redeeming the time that we have left.
We want to tend to our ourselves in a measure of this, our, our godliness,
your holiness before the Lord.
That's such an important way for you to redeem the time that you have left,
to make sure that you are living self controlled and sober minded in this world.
You also want to tend to your relationships with one
another, with other believers.
Your love for one another in the church, which again, is, is so important because
it's an expression of your understanding of the love that God has shown you.
And then finally, you want to tend to the church itself.
You wanna serve Christ's bride.
You're here.
We're not here just to, to pass the time.
Eventually, your name's going to be called, God's gonna
say, pj, uh, party of one.
Your eternity is ready,
and I'm gonna have to go, and the question I'm asking myself and I need to constantly
be asking myself is, am I ready?
Am I ready?
Am I ready to be with my savior?
Have I been redeeming my time, such that when I stand before him, I'm not
gonna be ashamed of the time that he gave me to use, but I'll stand there
and I'll hear him say, well done.
Good and faithful servant.
Enter into the joy of your master.
And so as we gather together, as we wait for the return of Christ, we want to
redeem the time, not just pass the time.
Let's pray.
Lord, I pray that you would help us to do that.
I pray that you would help us to live lives that are focused more
on eternity with you than, uh, the present life that we live right now.
I pray that you'd guard us against being distracted or taken off course
by all the trappings of this world and the things that they offer us and
the things that they hold out as, as.
Something that will satisfy us.
But God, I, I pray that you would help us to see through those
things, and instead to live lives of self-control and sober mindedness.
Ready for your return.
God, make us the church characterized by love, characterized by relationships
with each other that go deeper than a Sunday morning conversation.
Help us to be hospitable Christians.
God help us to serve one another faithfully as well with the gifts
that you've given all for your glory.
We pray this in Jesus name.