Anchored #10 - "Grounded in our Perspective" (1 Peter 4:1-11)

Come to our sermon series that we've been in for the summer, we've called Anchored, Stabilizing Truths for a

Shaky World. Hard to believe that this is message number 10. Message number 10, we've got three more and then we'll be done.

I should be saying a little bit next week about our next sermon series together. But we've just been working our way verse by verse, section by section through 1

Peter. And we come to chapter number four. Chapter number four, so if you have a

Bible and I hope you do 1 Peter chapter four and verses one through 11. 1

Peter chapter four verses one through 11. If you grabbed one of those red hardback

Bibles at our welcome table, that's page 1077 in there. 1 John chapter four, not 1

John, 1 Peter chapter four and verses one through 11.

1 Peter chapter four, if you are able, I invite you to stand with me out of reverence for God's word as we read this passage before we study it.

1 John chapter four from verses one through 11. I'll be reading from the Christian standard Bible. I invite you to follow along in whichever copy of God's word you have in front of you.

1 Peter chapter four then beginning in verse one. Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same understanding because the one who suffers in the flesh is finished with sin in order to live the remaining time in the flesh, no longer for human desires, but for God's will.

For there has been enough time spent already in doing what the Gentiles choose to do, carrying on in unrestrained behavior, evil desires, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and carrying, excuse me, carousing and lawless idolatry, excuse me.

They are surprised when you don't join them in the same flood of wild living and they slander you. They will give an account to the one who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.

For this reason, the gospel was also preached to those who are now dead, so that although they might be judged in the flesh according to human standards, they might live in the spirit according to God's standards.

The end of all things is near. Therefore, be alert and sober minded for prayer.

Above all, maintain constant love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins.

Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the varied grace of God.

If anyone speaks, let it be as one who speaks God's words. If anyone serves, let it be from the strength

God provides, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything.

To him be the glory and the power forever and ever, amen.

The gospel is the flower fades, but this word of God will abide forever. Join with me as I pray, ask for the spirit's help, and we get to work in this text this afternoon.

Let's pray together. Well, precious Lord, as we come to study your word, we pray that your spirit would be at work, opening our eyes and granting our hearts enlightenment, so that we may learn wonderful things from your word.

And Father, as we pray that for us, I pray for my brother, Pastor Quentin, and Pastor Mark over at Cornerstone Christian Church.

Thank you for the glorious relationship we have with them. Pray for them as they get ready for their evening service, that as the word of God is proclaimed, as they come before the

Lord's table, and as they enjoy fellowship, that your spirit would use these things to build up that body there.

Father, we thank you for them. And Father, I thank you for my brothers and sisters who are here. Pray that this time will be a blessing to them.

We ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. Amen. Please be seated.

Well, as I said, this is message number 10 in our study of 1 Peter, and I've titled it this afternoon,

Grounded in Our Perspective. Grounded in Our Perspective.

As you all can see this afternoon, I made a point of putting on my glasses today. I'm actually really bad about wearing my glasses.

I'm supposed to wear them a lot more than I do. But one of the reasons I wear glasses is I am long -sighted in one of my eyes.

And one of the things about being long -sighted is it does not help you with perspective. Struggle to see things when they're fairly far away.

I see things a good distance. If I take off my glasses,

I can see most of your faces in here. But by and large, I, for example,

I wear them whenever I drive. I keep a pair in the car just because in the last few years it's become more apparent.

Yeah, I need my glasses. Well, one of the things about wearing glasses is that when

I don't wear them, my perspective can be slightly off. I do a lot of design work, a lot of the things you see in church

I design. And when I do that, I make it a point to wear my glasses because if I'm not careful, I can have something in the wrong place and it looks okay, but then

I'll look at it later like, oh, that was off. Perspective is a very important, a very powerful thing, isn't it?

More so than when you're driving or when you're designing something. I think perspective is important even in life.

The way in which you view things and the vantage point from which you view things proves itself to be critical when it comes to this thing we call life in Christ.

And one of the dangers is as things get difficult, as things get tough, we can lose our perspective.

Sometimes it's not a massive shift in perspective. Sometimes it's just minor things that kind of knock us off course. But the reality is if we're knocked off course even a little bit, a little bit of deviation becomes a lot of deviation over time.

Some of you are more handy than me. You know that if you miss something by a few inches over time, that can be a real problem. And I would argue that that is exactly the same thing that we encounter in life.

As we come to our text here in 1 Peter, as I said, as I have said, excuse me, over and over and over again, 1

Peter is a really simple book. You have your introduction, you've got a conclusion at the end, and in between you've got these three major sections.

And what we're coming to in this text is really a hinge between the second and the third sections.

So the second section deals with us being anchored in the reality of suffering. Remember I changed that a little bit from last time?

So we're in that section, but as we cross into verses seven to 11 later on, we're actually gonna move into the third and final section, which deals with being anchored in the return of the

Savior. And really the thing that connects these two sort of bridge sections in Peter is this idea of perspective.

You see, as people who are more than acquainted with the sufferings and pains of life, if our perspective is off, our practice is going to be off.

If we're looking in the wrong direction, we're going to do the wrong things. In fact,

Jesus had a word to say about that. In Matthew chapter six, verse 22 and 23, listen to what

Jesus said. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.

But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?

Jesus essentially says, listen, if your perspective is off, if what your eyes sees is nothing but darkness, well, your body is full of darkness.

And as Jesus says, how great is that darkness? If our perspective is off, then our practice ends up being off.

And if our practice is off, then we are unable to glorify God as his people, which for those of you who've been here in our study of 1

Peter, that is a vital theme that comes up again and again and again.

And so this issue of perspective becomes incredibly important for us as God's people. And so this afternoon,

I want to help us a little bit. Really, I want us to think for a moment about what is the wise approach for a

Christian who is living in a world that is opposed to God? How should we properly think about living in a world that is, as it were, very hostile in its view of God?

How do we as God's people live in such a way as to glorify

God in a world that wants to do everything but glorify God? Well, here's my big idea for this message.

If you don't remember anything else, remember this. Believers need to develop the right perspective if they're going to glorify

God. That's really all I want to get at this afternoon. The reality that as believers, we want to glorify

God by getting the right perspective. Well, if we're going to glorify

God by having the right perspective, then we need some help with that, don't we? For the rest of our time this afternoon,

I want to consider two vital areas where believers need to have proper perspective if they're going to glorify

God in thought, word, and deed. If we're truly going to be the kinds of people who glorify

God and do that which pleases Him, well, we're going to need to think clearly in two vital areas.

And I think Peter's going to give us some help as we come to this passage. So two vital areas where believers need to have proper perspective if they're going to glorify

God in thought, word, and deed. Consider the first of all, the fact that we need to get the proper perspective on ourselves.

Getting the proper perspective on self, verses one through six. In verses one through six,

Peter's focus is on the individual believer, which makes sense because the church, which we'll get to in verses seven through 11, the church is made up of individuals.

This is not just a organization that you can kind of just fill in with people as the case may be.

No, the church is designed in the mind of God as the kind of thing that is made up of individual

Christians. It's individual Christians coming together to glorify God. So before we can talk about how the church gains some perspective, which we'll see in our second point, we need to talk about ourselves as individuals.

And in this passage, Peter gives us a number of areas where we need to get a proper perspective on ourselves.

I count four of them in this text. The first of them that we need to consider is this. We need to understand, or we need to be understanding what

Christ has done. So again, look at chapter four, verse one. Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same understanding.

Peter picks up his argument right where he left it last time in chapter three. Remember the end of chapter three, verses 18 to 22, he makes that point about Christ suffering for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.

Now, Peter isn't quite done with that point yet. He hasn't quite let go of that. He says, since that was the case, since Jesus suffered in the flesh for us, well, we as Christians ought to arm ourselves with the right understanding, the same understanding, he says.

You see, it's Christ's suffering that provides both the motivation and the example for our conduct.

So it's not so much, okay, here's what Jesus did for you. Now, pull up your bootstraps, try harder and do better.

That's not the Bible's understanding. The Bible's understanding is, here is what Jesus has done for you.

The believer looks upon that, and as the believer looks upon that, they find strength. Then the believer says,

I'm encouraged, I'm strengthened, and I'm filled with gratitude. Now I will in turn live in this kind of way.

And you'll notice, for those of you who've been here, when Peter brings up the example of Jesus, he's done it twice already, once in chapter two and once in chapter three.

Every time he does that, he brings up, either before or after, some point of action that we are called to.

Because every time that Jesus' example is mentioned, there is some corresponding action that's attached to that.

Well, that's the case here. So look again at verse one. Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, here's the action for you, believer.

Arm yourselves also with the same understanding. This term, arm yourself, is pretty consistent with a theme that is picked up throughout the

New Testament. A theme that, unfortunately, I don't think we talk about as often as we should, but the

New Testament doesn't shy away from. The theme that this language of arming yourself picks up on is this theme of the

Christian life as one of warfare. That in the Christian life, this Christian life is not just,

I have forgiveness of sins, I'm going to heaven, life is gonna be great. I mean, all of that is true in the ultimate sense.

But for the Christian, we recognize that the Christian life is this weird paradox of both rest and warfare.

A few texts from the New Testament, I think, make this point. Romans chapter six, verse 13. Paul is talking about sanctification, and he says there that we are not to offer any parts of our bodies, as some of your translations will say instruments.

This isn't the time for me to get all technical. Suffice it to say the word there for instruments isn't the word instruments, it's literally the word weapons.

It's the same word that's used here, just the noun. That's why the CSB translates it as, and do not offer any parts of it, your body, as weapons for unrighteousness, but as those who are alive from the dead.

Offer yourselves to God and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.

Romans chapter 13 and verse 12, Paul says, the night is nearly over. The day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Same root word here. Second Corinthians chapter six, verse seven,

Paul talks about his own ministry, and he says that he conducted his ministry in truthful speech and in the power of God with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left.

Passage we quote often, second Corinthians chapter 10, verse three and four. Though we live in the world, we don't wage war as the world does, excuse me.

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

Weapons, same language. And I need to pause here for a moment. I have us read those verses because at times you'll hear

Christians and they'll speak as though there are only one of two realities that are true. That either you view the

Christian life as just rest. All of the Christian life is just rest.

So like the passage we read in our assurance of pardon, Matthew chapter 11, verse 28 to 30, or Ephesians two, eight, and nine, or Titus three, five, and six.

They'll read passage and be like, see, that's the whole of the Christian life. We just rest. We just receive what

God has done for us. We don't do anything. But then you'll meet folks who kind of are on the other ditch on the other side of the road.

They're the folks who, the entire Christian life is basically you doing everything. It's all warfare all the time.

So they know passages like second Corinthians 10, three through five, and the armor of God passage in Ephesians six that we've preached here, or Isaiah 54, 17, no weapon that's for.

They know all of those verses because the entirety of their Christian life revolves around this idea that the

Christian life is nothing but war all the time. Well, who's right?

Are the folks who are big into grace and into rest and all of that, are they right?

Or are the folks who are into warfare and fighting and all of those verses, are they right? Well, I put it to you that actually both of those emphases are true at the same time.

And in fact, you can't have one without the other. You see, believer, if you understand the grace of God and the rest that we have in Christ, and let's be clear,

I am a grace preacher and I believe in preaching the rest we have in Christ. In fact, we build it into every worship service for a reason.

I agree with the great reformer, Martin Luther, who said, I preach the gospel to my people every week because they forget it. And so I fully affirm the need to preach the grace of God and the rest that we have in Christ.

But I put it to you that if you understand that, then you understand that as believers, yes, we war in this life.

But can I put it to you, brother and sister, that we war not for the victory, we war from it.

We fight from the reality that somebody already won the victory for us. And all we are doing, as remember back to the message in Ephesians six a few months ago, those of you who were here, if you missed it, it's on our website.

For those of you who were here, remember what we said in Ephesians six? That Christ has already won and he calls us basically to hold the ground.

And so if we understand the grace of God, then we war from the victory. And here's the thing, if we understand that the Christian life is warfare, then every chance we get, we're going to go back to the

Lord for relief every time the battle gets intense. So actually it's not grace versus warfare or grace versus action.

Both of them come together beautifully if we understand the gospel.

Come back to our text for Peter and for anybody who takes God's word for what it is, for anyone who rightly understands, we talk about this often, the distinction between law and gospel.

For those people who understand that, these two perspectives, no pun intended, these two perspectives of grace and warfare are not enemies, they're vital partners.

It's the understanding of what Jesus has done for us, his faithful life, his victorious death, his glorious ascension and never ending intercession.

Those are the realities that propel us to war rightly.

And can I put it to you faith family that as days get darker, it's imperative for us as God's people to not just understand the gospel, not just understand the glorious truths of what

God has done for us in Christ, but can I put it to you that we need to take those truths and wrap them around ourselves like armor because as the days get darker, we need to be arming ourselves with a gospel perspective.

And so Peter says that we need to be understanding what Christ has done, but not only do we need to understand what

Christ has done, secondly, we need to understand our relationship to sin. So look at the end of verse one into verse two.

Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same understanding because the one who suffers in the flesh is finished with sin.

In order to live the remaining time in the flesh, no longer for human desires, but for God's will.

Follow Peter's logic here for a moment. Look how he says this. Christ suffered for the believer. The believer having seen

Christ's example suffers for righteousness sake. But here's what happens as the believer seeing

Christ's example suffers for righteousness sake. What happens is as we make the decision to follow

Christ on the road of suffering, it causes us day by day, moment by moment, imperfectly to be sure, but it causes us to choose righteousness over sin for us to put

God's will first above our own will. Paul makes the same point.

If you're taking notes, Romans chapter six and verses six and seven, Paul says, for we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin since a person who has died is freed from sin.

Same idea. God once for all in Christ, when we were justified, dealt with the problem of our sin.

In regeneration, the old nature was rendered powerless. As a result of that, the person who knows what

God has done for them, Paul says is freed from sin. Not that they become sinlessly perfect, but that sin no longer has governing power over them.

It's understanding, again, this is why understanding what Christ has done and understanding our responsibility becomes so important.

Because Christian, you might feel as though the fight with remaining sin, and every Christian battles against remaining sin.

You might feel that the fight against remaining sin is unwinnable, but verses like first Peter chapter four and Romans chapter six are not meant to condemn you.

They're meant to comfort you. You see, if the Christian in Christ has experienced a definite break with sin, if that is true, and Paul and Peter both agree that it is, if that is true, when suffering tempts us to choose sin,

Peter's point is this. Suffering is one of the tools that God uses to enable us to say no.

As Peter has told us again and again, our response to unjust and unreasonable suffering is not sin.

No, we don't sin when we suffer. If anything, we draw closer to the Lord in those times. And because we have proper perspective, end of verse one, he can say verse two, that we no longer spend the rest of the time in the flesh on what the

Gentiles choose to do. What he says in verse two, no longer for human desires. We don't spend our time on those things.

No, we devote ourselves to God's will. And so understanding what Jesus does helps us to put sin in its proper perspective.

Why would I choose sin when I no longer have to? Why would

I choose that which doesn't glorify God when God has so powerfully worked to ensure that I can glorify him in the choices that I make?

If we're going to maintain a proper perspective on self, we need to understand what Jesus has done. We need to understand our relationship to sin in light of that.

Thirdly, we need to understand what time is. We need to understand what time is, verses three and four.

So Peter makes an appeal to the time. You see that there in verse three? For there has already been enough time spent in doing what the

Gentiles choose to do. He says, listen, when you were non -Christians, you had all the time in the world to do that stuff.

You had all the time in the world to pursue all of the sinful desires. When he says the Gentiles here, he's making a very interesting point that because we're united to Jesus, who is the true

Israel, we become part of spiritual Israel. That's a whole other topic for another time. But for now, here's the big picture.

Since we are now part of God's people, we don't act like those who weren't God's people. And Peter gives us a straightforward list of the things that non -Christians do, carrying on an unrestrained behavior, evil desires, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and lawless idolatry, which in the first century, lots of non -Christians liked to do it.

And Peter essentially says for all of those things, time is up. Paul makes a similar point

I've alluded to already. Romans chapter 13 from verse 11 to 14. Romans 13, 11 to 14, he says, besides this, since you already know the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep because our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

The night is nearly over and the day is near. So let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Let us walk with decency as in the daytime. And here's a similar list to what we see in 1

Peter, carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual impurity and promiscuity, not in quarreling and jealousy.

Verse 14, but put on the Lord Jesus and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

Both Paul and Peter are saying the same thing, but here's what's interesting. They're looking at the same thing and the same truth from different vantage points.

A few times already in 1 Peter, I've pointed out that there are two different words for time in the New Testament, that there is time as in a season, a window, as it were.

We use that in English. We'll say that this is the right time to do something. Otherwise it's the right window of opportunity to do something.

Well, there's one word in Greek for that. And then there's another word in Greek, which literally means minutes and seconds.

You know, the thing that I've got my watch going here, those sorts of measurements of time.

Paul uses the word for season, but Peter doesn't. In our text here, Peter uses a different word for the same concept.

He literally uses the minutes and seconds word for time, as it were. He says, listen, time as we know it, this commodity, this thing we call time, brothers and sisters, it's running out.

In fact, for the person who was a Christian, enough time has been spent doing all of those things.

There are some new things that should occupy your time. And I would argue that when

Peter talks here about there's enough time, he's referring to the fact that, listen, our glorious savior, the

Lord Jesus is coming. Now that was the expectation of every generation of Christians, even back in the first century.

Have you ever wondered why so many, I was thinking about this this week. Why is it that so many generations of Christians spent so much mental space, so much of their songs and hymnody, so many of their sermons, why they devoted so much of that to the fact that Jesus is coming again?

Have you ever wondered about that? Why was it that important that they need to devote that much time to it?

I have to be honest and say at the age of 31, I think about my generation, and I can't say that we've paid equally, not even more, equally as much attention to the fact that Jesus is coming again.

In fact, it was fascinating this week. I looked at all the books that are out there, and go on to say there's some bad stuff that's written on this.

But I looked at all the stuff, just I jumped on Amazon, typed in the second coming, which is always a dangerous affair, but I typed that in.

And as I typed that in, what I saw was all of the good books, there's a lot of weird stuff out there which we can just completely discount.

All the good stuff tends to be older on this subject, almost as though people in my generation aren't spending any time to write on this.

And of course, as someone who teaches and preaches God's word and gives pastoral leadership to this church,

I have to ask myself the question, why? Why is it my generation seems not to care for the fact that Jesus is coming back?

I mean, after all, if you knew Jesus was coming back tomorrow, wouldn't that change the way you live today? Think about it. If I told you right now, you have 20,

I have on good authority, you have 24 hours from this point before Jesus came back, you would all live very differently, wouldn't you?

I know I would. There's a lot of things I would do very differently if I knew I had that much time left.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help that at times I will hear some Christians use the term escapism to describe

Christians who are eager for Jesus to return. Well, we don't want to be escapist. We want to engage the world that we're in right now.

Almost as though we're saying, you can either think about this world, follow the logic with me of what they're saying.

You can either think about this world or the world to come, but you can't do both. Listen, give me somebody who is over obsessed with the fact that Jesus is coming back over somebody who just doesn't care.

You see, you've heard the expression, right? It's easy to turn a boiling pot down to heat a pot up. The person who's over obsessed, okay, you can give them some balance.

Show them from God's word, teach them other things. You can balance that person. It's very hard to take somebody who's cold to a subject to be interested.

Give me somebody who is over obsessed and excited that Jesus is coming back versus the person who thinks that they are too refined for what, you know,

Jude 21. He says that we are to be waiting anxiously for the return of Jesus.

Give me the person who's waiting anxiously. At least we can calm them down a little bit and give them some balance. Listen to this in Peter.

Lord willing, next summer, we'll do second Peter. This is what Peter said in second Peter. Second Peter three, 11 to 14.

Since all these things, referring to the earth, the heavens and the earth, since all these things are to be dissolved in this way.

It's interesting. The CSB translates this as a statement, but it's a question originally. Peter says, what sort of people should you be in holy conduct and godliness as you wait for the day of God and hasten its coming?

John 19 verse 14 of second Peter three. He says, therefore, dear friends, while you wait for these things, the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells, while you wait for these things, make every effort to be found without spot or blemish in his sight at peace.

Far from making us insular and not care about the world around us, the return of Jesus is a massive motivation.

And maybe I put it to you that the church of Jesus Christ struggles like it does at times because we've cut ourselves off from what

God intended to be a life -giving source of motivation for us as God's people. That those who have a proper perspective on self realize that I don't have time to spend on the things of this world because there is a world to come that I'm eagerly waiting for.

Unbelievers see that, or they should see that anyway. And so Peter says, verse four, that they are surprised that you don't join them in the same flood of wild living and they slander you.

He says, they look at you and they think you're mad. They're literally, that term is surprises.

They're astonished. They don't get it. And so they speak evil of us.

But it's okay. It's okay because ultimately we recognize that though they may speak evil of us and they may be surprised, well, we just see things from a very different vantage point compared to them.

Not only do we understand what Jesus did, not only do we understand what our new relationship to sin is, not only do we understand what time it is, but fourthly, we understand what the stakes are.

We understand what the stakes are, verses five and six. So look what Peter says.

They, the unbelievers who think, who are astonished and speak evil of us, they will give an account to the one who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.

Time is running out. And the time that's running out is only heading in one direction, towards the judgment seat of God.

One day, all humanity will stand before God as their final judge, and they will experience the moment of judgment.

And while they may associate it with fear for the Christian, here's the good news.

We already know what the verdict is. Can I put it to you that we who are believers, we know somebody on the inside and he told us what the verdict is.

The beautiful thing about the gospel is that for those who have believed in Jesus, I'm not scared of the final day because I know what the verdict is now.

And it's not just not guilty, it's righteous. I'm not waiting for some, if I can get technical for a moment, there are some who teach that there is a second justification that we are waiting for on the final day.

I don't see that anywhere in the Bible. My Bible tells me that I am declared righteous here and now for the

Christian in the present world. Yeah, the world doesn't exactly Lord us and grant us awards for being called of God.

Yes, the world thinks that we are nuts because we don't live like them. They speak evil of us, but ultimately they act like that as though they are our judges.

But here's the wonderful thing for the Christian. Here's how we keep some perspective. Though the world might act like our judge,

Peter would have us to understand that the world is not our judge. That one day all in this world who spoke of the people of God eventually have to, if I can put it colloquially for a moment, they'll have to say it to God's face.

All that chat you had, please. I've got, I can just imagine, I don't want to be sacrilegious, but I can imagine

God on His throne saying, we have time today. Please tell me all that. Of course, the

Bible says the world will be silent before Him. So I imagine not much talking will happen that day. They can talk all they want now, but one day they will have to give an account to the one, the only one who has the right to judge.

And that's why Peter can say verse six, for this reason, the gospel also was preached to those who are now dead, so that although they might be judged in the flesh according to human standards, they might live in the spirit according to God's standards.

Now for some, this is a complicated text, but I think Peter's point is actually very simple. You see, the hope of the gospel is that when this life ends, whether it's by natural causes, and I would argue that Peter seems to imply that the people he's talking about who are now dead, their lives didn't end by natural causes.

Do you know that he says that though they are judged by human standards, I think he's talking about those who were martyred.

I think there's a good case to be made just looking at that closely, that they were judged in the flesh according to human standards.

They may well have lost their lives for the cause of Christ. And Peter says, for those people, yes, the world thought that they were wrong and they were evil, and ultimately the world spilled their blood.

But here's the hope, that for them and for those, whether you go by natural causes or this world takes you out that we go into God's eternal presence.

That's why Peter can say that though they are judged in the flesh by human standards, they're not judged in the spirit, they live in the spirit according to God's standards.

They enjoy eternal life and they enjoy it because of God's righteousness.

John MacArthur in his commentary on 1 Peter puts it like this. He says that though some of the dead believers were judged in the flesh as men physically put to death, they were triumphantly alive in the spirit according to God's will.

Peter's point is that even under unjust treatment, including death, believers should be willing and unafraid to suffer knowing that all death can do is triumphantly bring their eternal spirits into everlasting life in heaven.

End quote. And sure the unbelievers may say what they wish, but I would venture to think that those who have gone on to glory and see

God's presence unmediated and see his face unrestrained, that they're not much too bothered what people in this world had to say.

And that's how the gospel ought to inform our perspective on ourselves. But the gospel is not just an individual affair, is it?

The good news of the gospel doesn't just deal with individual Christians. Jesus saves sinners and then makes them into a body.

And so this gospel is also a corporate affair. And so Peter has some application to the life of the church.

Because you see, if we're going to truly glorify God in thought, word, and deed, not only will we need perspective on self, but secondly, we're gonna need to get a proper perspective on one another.

We're going to need to get a proper perspective on one another, verses seven through 11. Now, I'm not gonna hit this as hard as I'd like to, because actually in our next sermon series, we're going to look at the doctrine of the church.

And so I'll have more time to say some of the stuff that I would want to say now. But I do want to do the theme some justice since we are in first Peter.

So let's, for the remaining few minutes, let's take a few moments and see what it is to get a proper perspective, not just on ourselves, but on our relationships to one another.

So verse seven, like I said, we've now moved into the section that deals fully with the return of Christ.

And in verse seven, we start with another call back to the end of all things. So look at verse seven with me.

Look at what Peter says. He says, the end of all things is near. Therefore, be alert and sober -minded for prayer.

Again, Peter, like much of the New Testament, in fact, there are 27 books in your English New Testament, 26 of them mention the return of Jesus.

26 out of 27, only one doesn't. Fun fact for you this week, go find out which one doesn't.

But 26 out of 27, that tells me this was kind of a big deal. And Peter, like much of the

New Testament, grounds his instruction to God's people in the reality of Christ's return.

You see, the reason why Peter feels the need to ground what he's about to say in the fact that Christ is going to return is very simple.

You see, it's the people with a future hope who are able to live with present focus.

Let me put it another way, if I can. If you don't know the destination, you'll waste time on the journey.

We've all been in cars with people who drive without maps. Anyone else?

Just me? We're going somewhere. I have no idea where we're going. I just want to enjoy the journey.

Please don't put me in a car with someone like that. We're going to have problems. I'm the type of person, I'd like to know that you know where you're going, that you thought about this long before we got there.

Why? Because if you don't know where you're going and I'm following you, well, guess what? We're all going nowhere, aren't we?

And so that's why I think this section in verses seven to 11 begins with Peter saying, the end of all things is near.

We are nearing the finish line, so to speak. And so if we are nearing the finish line, if we are, to use a term that's not always the most popular, but I think it's biblical in this context, if we are end time people, people at the end of time, well, how do end time people live?

Like I said, I'm not going to spend too long on all of this, but again, just as he gave us four commitments for self, he gives us four commitments for the body.

First of all, end time people have a commitment to fervent prayer. End time people have a commitment to fervent prayer.

So look at verse seven, the end of all things is near. Therefore, since the end is near, be alert and sober -minded for prayer.

The two adjectives there, be alert and sober -minded, both of them, if you put them together, they carry this idea of fervency.

The word be alert carries the idea of keep your head, be prudent, be serious about this.

Sober -minded speaks to the idea of being well -balanced. Don't be a person of extremes, don't go off one end or the other, be well -balanced.

And remember, Peter's not writing this to individuals, he's writing this to the church. He's saying, all of you be alert and sober -minded for prayer.

Again, I think it's interesting that Peter doesn't say, be sober -minded and alert in prayer.

He says, be sober -minded and alert for prayer. Some of your translations will say, for the sake of your prayers.

Peter isn't so much talking about what you do when you come to pray, he's talking about how you prepare to pray.

I don't know about you, but I have sat in a lot of prayer meetings in my life that were neither serious nor focused if you actually stopped and thought about them.

I don't think it's by accident that you look at so many churches. Some of you know

I dabble in web design some. I look at church websites all the time. You know one thing that I notice on lots of church websites that is conspicuous in its absence?

You know what I notice? Prayer meetings. It's very rare that a church has a prayer meeting anymore.

They'll do every event and every program and everything under the sun. But gather people to pray, eh, kind of hard.

It's fascinating to me when I will talk to pastors who are around my own age. I often ask them about, I'll ask about that, like, hey, does your church have a prayer meeting?

No, people can pray on their own. We don't need to come together and take up people's time to do that. Nevermind all the injunctions in the

Bible that are written to groups of believers encouraging them to pray.

When I put this message together, I wanted to go off into a long excursion about what the Bible says about prayer, why we do it and all.

And I decided not to. Because I think Peter's point is actually pretty simple. Peter's not telling us about how to pray.

He's telling us how to prepare to pray. You see, brother and sisters, if a church is going to survive trying times, and can we all agree we live in trying times?

If a church is going to survive trying times, can I put it to you that we don't do so being aggressive and fighting about everything, but we do so on our knees?

It's the weird paradox of the Christian life. You actually make more progress on your knees than you do on your feet. That's a whole other sermon for another time.

But the reality is, if a church, let's get personal, if Redeemer Bible Fellowship is going to navigate the choppy waters that are ahead of us, as this culture makes its stance against holiness all too clear, if we're going to make it, allow me to get painfully practical for a moment.

Can I put it to you that maybe we might want to make our prayer meetings a priority? One of my historical heroes was

Charles Adams Spurgeon, passing the Metropolitan Tabernacle in South London. Spurgeon loved his prayer meetings at the

Tabernacle. Loved them. And he famously said that the corporate prayer of the church was the engine room of the church.

That that was what powered the Tabernacle. There's a famous story. Some of you have heard it. A guy from the US came to visit

Mr. Spurgeon. And the story goes that Mr. Spurgeon was showing him around the Tabernacle. This guy was an engineer.

So he was fascinated by, how do you keep this massive building, which in his day seated 3 ,000? How do you keep this building of 3 ,000 heated?

And Mr. Spurgeon, if you read his writings, he was very cheeky. He's very entertaining to read in that way. So he kept asking

Mr. Spurgeon, how do you keep this place heated? How do you keep this place heated? And Mr. Spurgeon said, fine, I'll show you.

And the story goes that Mr. Spurgeon took this visitor down into the basement of the

Tabernacle. And he took him to a room and the guy thought, aha, engineer,

I'm gonna see where the heating system is. Maybe they've got like a system of cellars going 24 -7. I'm gonna see how they do this, because this is amazing.

But the man was surprised, the story goes, when Mr. Spurgeon very gently and very quietly pushed open the door and he showed a group of people in prayer, and the story goes,

Mr. Spurgeon whispered, that's what keeps the Tabernacle hot. In fact, there's an excellent book that has been published by Christian Focus called

Only a Prayer Meeting. And it's a list of the addresses Mr. Spurgeon would give short 10, 15 -minute addresses to start every prayer meeting.

That's their custom to this day. Still happens at the Tabernacle every Monday night. And he said in one of those, that without the engine room of the church being kept white hot,

Mr. Spurgeon put it quite simply, churches die. So first and foremost, we have to commit ourselves to fervent prayer, not just, okay,

I'll just kind of mosey my way into the time of prayer, but that I'm focused, I'm diligent, I'm prepared to pray.

But not only that, he calls us secondly to a commitment to radical love. A commitment to radical love, verse eight.

To verse eight, above all, maintain constant love for one another since love covers a multitude of sins. Again, you have to remember, all of these are given in the context of the fact that the end of all things is near.

The fact that the end is near ought to propel us and to motivate us to love as God's people.

Now in church, that's one of those things you can say, and it sounds really nice. You all know I'm on a crusade against churchy words, words that we just kind of use and we never explain.

So allow me for a moment to kind of push the envelope here. The word that's translated constant carries this idea of unwavering or persevering.

Faith family, I put it to you that this is not a kind of play it safe, comfortable sort of love.

No, the kind of love that Peter is calling us to here, I think constant's actually not a bad translation. It's all out.

We are constantly, it's intense. Let's use that word. It's intense. And if the intensity of this love is hard to swallow, the follow -up might be even more hard to follow.

You see what he says there? Above all, maintain constant love for one another since love covers a multitude of sins.

That's a quotation, by the way, from Proverbs chapter 10 and verse 12. Essentially, Peter takes from his Bible, the

Old Testament, all the Bible they had, he takes from his Bible and says, listen, this is what God's word tells you to do. I grew up in church.

Grew up around church. Heard a lot of stories. Seen one or two things. I am convinced, and I became convinced this a few years ago, but I am convinced that if we took this single verse, 1

Peter 4, 8 seriously, and we allowed love to cover a multitude of sins, and by the way,

I'll get to what he means by sins. He's not saying don't actually deal with egregious sin. That's not his point. Peter's talking about those relational sins that happen between us.

The moments where we do things that offend one another or that maybe even hurt one another. He's saying, listen, love covers a multitude of those things.

But I became convinced that if 90%, excuse me, if we understood this verse properly, 90 % of the conflicts that you hear about in church would be dead before they started.

That if we understood what this text was saying and we simply just said, we didn't try to rationalize it. We're often good at this.

You've heard me say it before, the theology of yeah, but. Yeah, this text says that, but if we didn't do that, if we just took this text at face value,

I put it to you that most of the things that people get really bent out of shape about and start arguing about in church probably would be dead before they started.

I mean, the implication of Peter's words here, they're easy to say and they're hard to swallow to quote my friend,

Steve Lawson. I'm not sure. I say it all the time because of the truth. Christians sin against each other.

Sometimes they are going to do things that hurt you. They do. And at times, again, depending on the nature of the hit or the nature of the sin,

I should say, we might have to take the hit and just say, you know what? I'm not gonna make a big thing of this. I'm going to conceal that.

I'm going to cover that. Does that make it easy?

No. No. I mean, allow me to be transparent with you, faith family. Just this week,

I had a situation that pushed my own commitment to this idea. I won't go into the details because it's not really relevant.

Suffice it to say, I spent multiple hours this week in prayer because everything in me wanted to ignore this verse and go take some matters into my own hands.

And some of you know exactly how that feels, don't you? You have been wronged by, not non -Christians.

We kind of accept it from non -Christians. But you've been wronged by Christians. And I don't know about you, but for me,

I'll just be honest. I take it way more painfully when Christians do things to me than non -Christians do.

In the words of my friend, Dr. Voldy Barkham, Christians ought to know better. Actually, he put out this,

Christians ought to do more better. But that's a conversation for another time. It's hard.

That's why Pete, I'll send it to the guys I was with Eddie and Brad this morning. And I said to them that,

I'm convinced the Bible commands us to do things because we naturally will not do them unless we're told. Of course this is hard.

And why, think about this with me for a moment. I'm trying to land as quickly as I can. Why on earth would we choose to conceal personal slights and wrongs when they are very clearly slights and wrongs?

Well, remember how we started in verse seven, the end of all things is near.

And this is what I had to comfort myself with this week. Kofi, if the end of all things is near, you can take a little inconvenience now, it'll be over eventually.

And yes, you might not get the vindication you want in this life. You might not get the resolution you want in this life.

But faith family, can I comfort you with the thought that had to comfort me this week? What's a little inconvenience when you know that eternity is not that far away?

We have to develop a commitment to fervent prayer, a commitment to radical love. Thirdly, a commitment to shared life together.

A commitment to shared life together. Verse nine, Peter says, be hospitable to one another without complaining. There's so much

I'd like to say about hospitality. Time is vastly gaining on me. I'll just stick to one thing.

Hospitality in the Bible simply just means the love of strangers. That's literally the word.

It's two words pushed together into one. Love for strangers. It's two words smashed together.

That's our word for hospitality in the Bible. I put it to you that many of us maybe struggle with hospitality because unfortunately in the

Western world, we've made hospitality way more than it was ever intended to be. But Peter calls us to be hospitable, to love those who are different to us.

And he says to do so without complaining. Again, precisely because let's be honest, when you have to keep opening your home and opening your heart to people constantly, it can get a little bit wearisome.

And so he has to say, listen, do this without complaining. But after all, if we're people who know that the end is near, we're not trying to hold on to as much of our stuff as we can.

We're willing to let that stuff go for the encouragement and fellowship of others in the gospel, aren't we? A commitment to fervent prayer, commitment to radical love, a commitment to shared life.

Finally, a commitment to diligent service. A commitment to diligent service, verses 10 and 11.

Now, thankfully, I don't need to spend too long here because I did a teaching last year on the person and work of the

Holy Spirit. And one of my, I wanna say it was the second to last message in that series was called

Gifted. What does the Bible teach about spiritual gifts? You can find that on our website. Thankfully, I've done the hard work there, so I don't have to do quite as much here.

A lot of the groundwork as to what spiritual gifts are, how you can know what your gift is, those sorts of things I tackle in that message.

I encourage you to go listen to that. For now, as I conclude, I've only got five minutes,

I wanna give you just a simple definition of what a gift is, because that's what Peter refers to here in verse 10, just as each one has received a gift.

I'm gonna tell you what a gift is, and then I'm gonna leave you with three observations and we'll be done. What's a spiritual gift first and foremost?

A spiritual gift is a ministry assignment given to a believer for the building up of the body of Christ.

Now you'll notice I didn't use the word ability. The reason I don't is as I've studied the

New Testament, I've become convinced that spiritual gifts are less about the ability to do something and more about the assignment we have to serve.

Again, I refer you to the teaching from last year called Gifted, where I lay this out in much more detail. But for now, let's just say that's what a gift is.

A spiritual gift is a ministry assignment come back to our text, I wanna make three observations and I'll be done. First observation we see here is that every believer has a mandate to serve.

You see it there in verse 10, just as each one has received a gift, use it. I'll come to the second half of that clause in a minute.

Every believer has a mandate to serve. God has gifted you, I'm talking to you, individual

Christian, God has gifted you with an area of ministry that you are called to serve in.

Well, I don't know where it is. You can find it. I don't think

God's will is supposed to be a mystery and I don't think finding your spiritual gift is supposed to be a mystery either. Peter clearly says every believer has a mandate to serve.

But secondly, he says every believer has a mandate to serve others. So I stopped midway through the sentence there, just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others.

Peter says that this service of others is, you see how he calls it there? It's being a good steward of God's varied grace.

You see, I wish I had more time. I've got to fly through some of this. God gives his gifts to us as his people, not for the benefit of ourselves.

That's why I personally am suspect of any teaching on spiritual gifts that becomes more about you than it comes about serving others.

God gives his grace to us for the purpose of serving others. And if your understanding of spiritual gifts is all about you, we might want to say you've missed the point of spiritual gifts entirely.

Every believer has a mandate to serve. Every believer has a mandate to serve others. My third observation and I'm done.

Every believer has a mandate to serve others in God's power and for his glory.

Did you notice that Peter kind of breaks up the assignments in two categories? He says that some people speak and he says that if you speak, you speak not your own words, but God's words.

That's why some traditions, they say that the preaching of the word of God is the word of God. It's channeling the sense that if anybody's gonna stand before God's people, that they don't just speak their own words, but in as much as they are faithful to God's word, they are speaking

God's very words. But some people don't speak, they just serve.

They do things. And Peter says to those people, you don't serve in your own strength.

But do you see it there in verse text? It's in the strength that God supplies. And beloved, whether we speak or we serve,

Peter lets us know that all of this happens for the glory, right there at the end of verse 11, he says, we do this so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything.

To him be the glory and the power forever and ever, amen.

Ultimately, that's why not just this piece is about serving, but why all of this matters. All of this matters because all of it is about our precious savior.

All of it is about the one who lived for us, who died for us, who is seated at the father's right hand, interceding for us.

Ultimately, we seek a right perspective on ourselves and on one another, because we want to be those who glorify

God in thought, in word, and in deed. And gracious savior, we are so thankful that you indeed empower us by your spirit and for your glory to do all things to your glory.

Father, we've thought about so much in this message. I pray that by your spirit's enabling power, you would help us, helpless as we are without you, to do the things that glorify you.

Whether that is in view of ourselves or our relationships with one another as God's people, help us to gain the proper perspective and to lay hold of that which your word says is truly life.