Dennis Tuuri

# Spiritual Gifts, Part Four
## 1 Peter 4 | Sermon by Pastor Dennis Tuuri
## February 24, 2013

This is the season of Lent. And so we’re singing some of the penitential psalms. Psalm 51 is quite instructive. If you see the arc of the psalm, we just sang about the first two-thirds of it. We didn’t quite get to the end of Psalm 51 in that version of it. It’s quite important. It kind of matches the flow of our worship service. Psalm 51 is about confession of sins. And so we come together as sinners, those who have been by God’s grace brought to repentance for our sins.

David’s sin was tremendous and great, greater than probably any of you have committed this week. And you need to know that just as David was forgiven of his sin, so you’ve been forgiven by the grace of God for your sins as you’ve repented of them this morning. It’s so important to know that. But understand that’s not just so you can have a nice life. That’s to the end that you could come to this part of the service to hear the word of God being preached and to change your life based on that word and to speak that word and to obey that word in your life to teach sinners the way.

David moves from tremendous sin and forgiveness for that sin to then telling sinners of the glory of Jesus Christ, the redeemer to come. Did you notice that? And that’s the last verse we just sang: “Then I shall teach sinners your ways.” So, you know, we’re called away from sin, no matter how great it might be, to the end that we might indeed not just be forgiven, but be channels of the grace of God in serving other people and in telling them the wondrous ways of God.

Now, the third movement of Psalm 51 we didn’t quite get to in that sung version of it, and that’s the last few verses. It talks about the significance of Zion: “Do good in your good pleasure to Zion; build the walls of Jerusalem; then you shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness.” So the psalm ends not just with personal forgiveness and then personal service, but the psalm ends with a desire for corporate integrity, in a corporate sense, that Zion might be built.

And today as we look at spiritual gifts again, that’s again the focus in this fourth text we’ve looked at. The four major texts that we’ve looked at all have emphasized the significance of the church and very practically the particular church in which you are for the use of these spiritual gifts. And so it’s not just personal; there’s this corporate aspect that is the climax of Psalm 51. And unfortunately, we have no verse at the end of that psalm.

Perhaps one of us could write a verse based on the last couple of verses of Psalm 51, so that the next time we sing it, we’ll be reminded of the threefold movement: repentance and assurance of forgiveness, and then being used as servants of Jesus Christ for the purpose of building the church, building God’s Zion.

Today we return to the topic of spiritual gifts, and I’m going to read the first eleven verses of 1 Peter 4. We’re going to kind of focus on the primary verses that are looked at for spiritual gifts, verses 10 and 11. But I wanted to sort of put them in their context. And we’ve seen this so far—that the context is pretty important. Hopefully, if you’ve been paying attention to these sermons, you know how different 1 Corinthians 12’s treatment of spiritual gifts is from Romans 12 and Ephesians 4.

Romans 12 and Ephesians 4 are normative. The agenda portion of those two epistles begins with an emphasis on the service that we have to the body of Christ, and as part of the body of Christ, spiritual gifts. Corinthians is a writing back to a problem going on in Corinth, so you hopefully you’ve kind of gotten that distinction. And you’ve gotten the distinction that we’ve made: that in Romans it seems like the manner of how we exercise these gifts is stressed. We’ll return to that next week as we begin to go through the specific lists or examples of gifts or ministries in the church given in Romans 12.

And then in Ephesians 4, what’s the emphasis? Maturity. The purpose of these gifts and ministries in the church is that we might be mature as individuals, but also as a corporate entity. And let me just say one thing that I’ve noticed in my counseling in the last month: Marriages mature. And don’t think that if your marriage is getting different than it was early on that’s some big problem, or even that you’re having difficulties now, because trials and tribulations are part of the maturation process.

When a husband and wife join together in marriage, they’re one person. And just as you as a person mature in your faith—Ephesians 4—that’s the purpose of these gifts in the body, so your marriage will mature. And frequently that will happen through difficulties. So get ready for blessing if you begin to encounter problems in your marriages. I’m serious about that. It means there’s sin that God’s going to be weeding out, and there’s just maturation that’s going to happen. Don’t give up hope for your marriage if you have struggles. In fact, get excited about your marriage, because God’s going to make it into a better thing. That’s what he does.

So Spiritual gifts are given for maturity. And in today’s text, what we’ll see as we look at this text is that spiritual gifts are given for churches in troubled times, times of persecution, times of cultural drift, times when difficult things are happening. And so we can apply this to our own time to some extent. But of course, what he’s talking about here is the coming judgment on the Jerusalem apostate church in AD 70 and the sufferings and tribulations that lead up to that and that have caused these particular Christians to go abroad into Asia Minor and establish other congregations.

All right, so let’s turn to 1 Peter 4. We’ll read verses 1 to 11. Please stand for God’s word.

*1 Peter 4, beginning at verse one:*

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking. For whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God. For the time that is passed suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality and sensual passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you. But they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God. Whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies, in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you that this isn’t some kind of prayer about your glory. This is a statement of fact to you: to belong glory and power and dominion forever and ever, age upon age. Bless us now that we might increase the world’s apprehension of your glory by becoming more mature individually, corporately, and in our homes. Bless us, Lord God, with an understanding, a continuing growth in our understanding of the need to be actively involved in the local church, and through that involvement to show forth your power and your wisdom. Bless us, Father, with an understanding of 1 Peter 4. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Now, I want to begin by quoting some stuff from an article by Vern Poythress called “What Are Spiritual Gifts?” Well, actually, let me begin with the very end of the outline where it says “Discussion Questions.” One of the community groups has already decided to meet weekly. So now we need weekly discussion questions of the sermon to hand to the group for their use.

And I got to thinking about this. I thought about actually writing the discussion questions like I did the first one and putting them on the outline, but then I thought, no—most ministries I know of, most churches I know of, they actually don’t have the man preaching the sermon write the discussion questions. And I think the reason for that is that other perspectives, other voices are good to hear and might be useful rather than just the guy that did the sermon again, and you’re going to get the same thing.

So, I am encouraging some of you to think about your ministry at this church as contributing discussion questions that we could then distribute to the nine community groups for their discussion in their Bible section of their community group meetings. Okay? So, maybe that’s something you might think about wanting to do occasionally or regularly. And if you do that, it would be great.

Now, for the same reason, I wanted to quote from Vern Poythress. You know, I always think I’m clear, but a lot of times other people don’t. And so I have a particular voice, vocabulary, set of things I say. And it’s good to hear the same thing from another voice.

We’ll look a little later at the verse that says “the strength that God supplies” to us. The word for “supply” there was originally a term that meant to give a gift to an organization that would form a musical choir, so that this choir could sing beautiful harmonized parts. And so God’s supplying of the spiritual gifts to the church and the power to fulfill them is to the end that we could say, by way of analogy, that we might be a beautiful choir as a church. Not all doing the same thing, not all eyes, not all ears, not all hands, but that we would all harmonize with one another, assist one another in the body of Christ through the diversity of gifts and the diversity of people that are exercising those ministries.

So to that end, let me read a few citations here from Vern Poythress.

Vern Poythress has a PhD in mathematics. He’s got a book in Gary North’s book *Foundations of Christian Scholarship*, which some of the old-timers here read thirty years ago, on mathematics and the biblical basis for it. He also teaches New Testament. He’s the professor of New Testament theology, I think still, at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia—a friend for years of Jim B. Jordan, etc. Well, anyway, let me just read these simple statements from this online article called “What Are Spiritual Gifts?” by Vern Poythress, which is actually a condensation of a bigger article that he’s written. But I’ll just read from the condensation.

So here’s what he says: “The Bible indicates in several places that God equips and empowers people for service within the church, which is the body of Christ. Since God is the source for our abilities, these empowerments may be called gifts from God.”

So these empowerments are gifts from God. Now it’s interesting we use the term “spiritual gifts.” And actually that kind of comes from 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul says, “Now concerning pneumaticos”—spiritual gifts, spiritual things, the spiritual. And then Paul, when he talks about it, uses the term he uses here in 1 Peter 4 and in other places: *charisma*. So Paul’s chosen term is *charisma*, which means a manifestation, a putting flesh, so to speak, to grace. The root of *charisma* is *charis*, grace. So God’s grace, you know, in terms of an abstract concept, is made visible and put into practice and incarnated—we could say—through the *charismata*, the gifts, the graces that he gives to each of us individually that we use then to minister to the body of Christ. That’s God’s turn.

Now, the Corinthians were kind of messed up, and they were really into the ecstatic stuff. And so they wanted to talk about the spirit, the spirit, the spirit, the spirit. And that’s why Paul uses that term, because that was their term. But as Paul moves to the end of 1 Corinthians 12, this is review for most of you—the spirit goes away. The spirit’s certainly part of what’s going on. But the emphasis is not the spirit. The emphasis rather is God, the trinitarian God in 1 Corinthians 12.

So anyway, the fact that we call them “spiritual gifts” is a bit of a problem actually. They’re really these graces that are trinitarian. But in any event, that’s what these things are.

And then secondly, Poythress says this: “The more detailed lists, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, give us a sampling of the kinds of service that God brings about among the people in the church.” Excellent comment. It’s a sampling. It’s not an exhaustive list, and we’ll go to those again next week.

Poythress goes on to say this: “Every person who trusts in Christ for salvation belongs to Christ. And so belongs to the church, the body of Christ.” And then he quotes 1 Corinthians 12: “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. God does not want Christians to live in isolation but as part of the special community, the church.”

So this is an implication of the doctrine of the spiritual gifts, and it’s such an important one for our day and age. Because what we’ve seen emerge in America over the last thirty, forty, fifty years is an amorphous Christianity that doesn’t have a relationship to the church of Jesus Christ established by God in local churches and then in city churches. And that is a big movement, my friends. That is a big movement.

And so spiritual gifts remind us—now the significance here is that you minister this in the context of the body of Christ, which is the church. And so spiritual gifts are in part a reminder of the obligations we have, the joy we have of living not in isolation from other believers but in community with them as one body, as members of a church, as members of one body.

And then Poythress talks about the trinity in relationship to these gifts: “God the Father empowers all these services. The services take place in the body of Christ. Christ and the Holy Spirit apportion gifts to each. All three persons of the Godhead are active.” And we saw that from 1 Corinthians 12. It’s a trinitarian truth.

Now, in today’s text, we’ll see, when we get to the verses involved, it’s God, God, God, God. So the emphasis is on God and by implication, God the Father through Jesus Christ. And the spirit really isn’t mentioned much except at the very beginning of the text that I read, where he says, “This is how you live in the spirit.” So this is life in the spirit, but the life in the spirit focuses upon God the Father through the work of Jesus Christ. But it’s trinitarian, and that’s why “spiritual gifts” makes it a little difficult way to talk about it.

Let’s see what else does Poythress say: “Members are not expected to sit passively knowing they are part of the body of Christ. They are to participate. They are to interact and serve each other.”

Okay. So this is a huge deal, and this is why the community groups right now are focusing upon “What are you doing to serve other people?” I was watching an online video, kind of a training session for leaders of small groups and churches, and the man was talking about the Bono factor—hip, relevant talk. So Bono from YouTube, and the Bono factor is: What are you doing to serve others? It’s a simple thing to ask, but it’s an important thing to ask. And that’s what spiritual gifts are: empowerments from God and ministries in the church to serve others.

And so the question is, what are you doing to do that? And if your answer is “not much,” then you need to stay with this series, and you need to look, as we’ll look next week, at some examples of things that you might be interested in doing.

Today’s text puts it under two headings: word gifts—teaching—and then service, hands, tongue and hand, word and deed, love in action, whatever you want to refer to it as. There’s a sense in which I think the long lists of examples are given two headers, and that’s very helpful, right? You’re trying to figure out, “What can I do to serve Jesus in his body?” And you know, well, the first kind of delineation is: Are you a talker or are you a doer? Not that you can’t do both, but what are you more comfortable with? What has God called you to do, it seems? And then you can go through the examples of ministry and then these particular ministries that are available at this church or in other ministries that serve the broader body of Jesus in the church in Oregon City, etc.

Okay. Poythress goes on to say: “We should earnestly and actively seek to serve Christ with more consistency and fervor, right?” The spiritual gifts in Ephesians 4 are for the purpose of maturing, pressing toward the mark. And that’s always important, but even more so in the context of a culture that is a youth culture and stresses youth goals and visions. And youth are great, but they’re supposed to mature into adult life. And so, this is the purpose: you’re to seek more consistency and fervor.

That’s why these community groups are trying to create a sense—and you know, you may not be able to measure it or look at what they’re doing, but a sense of intentional discipleship where everybody is being urged, prayed for, to mature in their walk with Jesus Christ, right? And to get more consistent and more engaged in service for Jesus and whatever calling the Lord has given to you—at vocation or your ministry at a church—more consistency and fervor. We should earnestly desire spiritual gifts as part of our zeal to serve him.

So if we’re maturing, we want to do it in part by trying to figure out and earnestly desiring ministry some way or fashion, small or big, quiet or loud, whatever it might be—deeds or words—something that we’re to do to serve Jesus Christ in his body through gifts.

Poythress goes on to say that in practical terms, “We are to seek Christ and all he has to give and then to serve his people. In so doing, gifts will come to light.” So, you know, it reminds me of what a rock musician said: “You get the beat going and you get the body moving and their spirits will follow.” Well, it’s sort of like that in the church, too. You get yourself going, you get doing something, and you’ll figure out what it is that God has called you to do.

And so we’re trying to encourage you through the community groups and through this series of sermons to do something, small, big, different—something in the context of ministry for the body of Jesus Christ. And you’ll discover spiritual gift ministry as you just start to work and see how people respond to the particular ministry you’re engaged with. More about that next week.

All right. So let’s talk now specifically about 1 Peter 4. And the first thing we recognize here: remember we started this in Romans 12, that there were bookends to the stuff on spiritual gifts? You remember, beginning of Romans 12, you know, “be transformed, not conformed to the world.” And then at the end of Romans 12, victory is the result. And in the middle is the means of accomplishing this transformation and victory over the world and the new creation being manifest. And that means is the exercise of spiritual gifts, ministries in the church that have an impact on the broader culture for the church as well. Remember, evangelists are in there. So it’s kind of an outward-focusing ministry of the church.

So those were the bookends there. Well, here the bookends are trials and tribulations, right? Christ suffered. He says, “The end of all things is now at hand.” What’s he talking about? He’s talking about the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, which was the definitive end of the old world and the rise of the new creation that would supplant the old creation and was very specifically a time of great trouble for the church.

So, he says, “You’re facing problems here for the next—whatever it is—ten, twenty, thirty years. Don’t know when the thing was written. But you know, for the next decade or two, you’re going to have some real tough times.” And then after he gets done with this instruction—then that follows—he says the same thing. He gets back to the topic of suffering with Jesus. So the bookends for the discussion of gifts here are difficult cultural times, cultural times that, you know, are cataclysmic almost, which is certainly not what we’re in.

But I’d say that we also have a time for lots of reasons and in lots of dimensions. Lots of things are better in our world today than it was, you know, fifty years ago, frankly. I mean, the sort of discrimination that went on toward races, for instance, was just abominable, completely unchristian. So, there’s a lot of things that are better. But then there’s a general—seems like there’s a movement away from not just the church, but now even Christianity being mocked, etc.

So, I’m not saying we’re going through what these guys had to go through—the end of all things. No. But I am saying that we find ourselves to a certain degree in cultural times that are going to test the Christian faith, and which more and more social issues, for instance, are going in a direction that’s going to make it very difficult for Christians and churches to have a consistent biblical witness in things without appearing as if they’re haters or something.

So, we live in difficult times, and not as bad as then, but somewhat difficult. And what Peter told the Christians in Asia Minor churches that he was writing to is that this is the key to getting through these difficult times. This is how to, in the words of verse one, “arm yourself” to get ready for what’s coming down the pike. And we don’t know what’s coming down the pike in this country. I don’t want to be over-inflammatory and say, “Oh my, you know, the sky is falling.” No. But I am saying it doesn’t seem like Christianity is on the ascendancy. Some of the fruit of Christianity is on the ascendancy. Frankly, a lot of good things happening in various directions. But there’s some real bad things happening.

And so, I think that spiritual gifts are important for us in the same way: to get ready for whatever we’re going to have to face in the next ten, twenty, thirty years, including potentially financial collapse. Who knows? But that was the sort of thing that happened in the life of these Christians as well—great cataclysmic social change. And the way to arm for that was what we’re going to talk about here in the middle of this text, including the use of spiritual gifts.

One commentator put it this way: “In the nearness of the end and the urgency of the impending crisis that supremely demands unity and cohesion among the people of God. It is perhaps this emphasis that distinguishes this passage from Paul’s generalized words to the Roman church in Romans 12.”

So unity and cohesion—that’s what he’s talking about—the use of spiritual gifts and love, etc. This is particularly what’s needed, and this is particularly what is being driven apart in the context of our culture. To have a family grow up and then live in the same area is unusual. And then to have them actually be part of the same church multigenerationally is very unusual, even though it’s happening at this church. But that’s unusual. Cohesion and unity are difficult things to come by, and that’s why they’re urged by Peter here.

He talks about the hope of vindication at the last day requires corporate unity and cohesion from those who share in that hope of vindication. So they’re going to be persecuted. They want to be vindicated. You know, you’re suffering unjustly. You want to be vindicated. Vindication is a huge deal in the scriptures. And it’s going on here. And vindication requires this same cohesion and unity and a sharing in that hope.

Peter is here attempting to foster these qualities in the congregation to which he writes. This is important.

Now, the household duty code which was in 1 Peter 2 and 3, right? We always go to 1 Peter 2 and 3 about husband-wife relationships. It’s one of those texts. But he says it did not have the same purpose. Their presupposition for the most part was that one’s enemies are those of one’s own household—Micah 7:6. Unity and stability to face the end of all things according to Peter is found not in the household but in the worshiping and ministering congregation.

Now, you may disagree with that statement, but I think it’s right. When he gets here to talking about these bookends of trouble and trial and what he tells us about in the middle of that: the way to live through those kind of times is not an emphasis on family roles primarily. It’s an emphasis upon the body of Christ, because it’s in the context of the body of Christ that we learn how those household roles are fulfilled. For instance, when we have people who are gifted to encourage us to mature in our household duties and roles. So you get rid of the church, you get rid of all hope for most everything else, including the family.

So, very importantly, the discussion of spiritual gifts here has as its direct context an emphasis again on the local church. And this is always important. It’s particularly important today because the local church is so denigrated in the context of even the Christian culture. Everything is Christianity. And we would say we need to replace some amorphous Christianity with a sense of the body of Christ and specifically your participation in a local body of Christ and then in a citywide body of Christ as well, the way these terms are used.

Okay. And he says—this commentator says—”His concern is simply that all ministries be respected and that God be glorified in the life Christians share together in the places to which he writes. When that is the case, they will be ready for the end of all things and whatever trials may precede it.”

So an appreciation for the varied ministries that exist—Peter says, under these two headings of teaching and serving, word and deed—an appreciation for that diversity is essential in preparing us, arming us, helping us to live the spiritual life in the middle of cultural trials and tribulations.

All right, so let’s look very quickly at the specific details. Most of this stuff you sort of know. And so as we come out of the preparation for what’s going to happen, and then in verse 7, he says, “The end of all things is at hand. Therefore”—so what’s at the top of his list?

Difficult times are coming. Therefore, be what? Self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayer.

So, first of all, self-controlled, right? Serious, disciplined, under the control of the Holy Spirit ultimately, but we can say self-controlled. Mark 5 says this: “They came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had the legion, sitting there, clothed in his right mind. And they were afraid.” It’s the same word. So first of all, you got to get in your right mind, which means being self-controlled, which means not being blown about here and there.

Remember the purpose of maturity? So that we don’t get blown about by all different doctrines and things going on in our lives and this and that cultural deal that happens. So, we’re to be self-controlled in the context of who we are as individuals.

Romans 12:3 says this: “For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.”

So, self-control is related to humility before God. And it’s the insane person who thinks he’s the center of everything. When we exhibit pride, as opposed to humility, to one another, we’re not self-controlled. And you know how it works: something happens, you kind of lose your cool. But it’s pride. And you are essentially taking off the armor that God has given to you of self-control, being ready for the kind of difficult situations the world brings.

And we know that the Proverbs tell us: the man who lacks self-control, who can’t control his speech in a tense situation or whatever it is, you know, in addition to being prideful—is the other old adage—pride comes before a fall. If you can’t control your spirit, then you know, it’s like a city without walls. A city without walls. So, we’re in a battle. And to fight that battle, we want to be self-controlled.

Secondly, we want to be sober-minded—this is the second term that’s used here. Sober-minded. This term is used in 1 Thessalonians 5:6: “So then, let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober”—an awareness of the situation around you and particularly the difficulties that may come. A readiness, a preparedness, so you don’t get, you know, caught off-guard.

I would suggest that one of the things that you don’t want to do is have yourself inundated with the popular media. The popular media puts you to sleep literally and figuratively. You know that sixty hertz scan? Rather, you want to take a nap—a lot of us at least just look at that for a little bit and boom. Marshall McLuhan, who said, “the medium is the message,” his big difficulty with television was not what you’re watching. It was what you’re not doing—what you’re not reading, studying, ministering. What you’re not doing with that four, six, eight hours a day? In the case of some of our young people, if you want to include video games, that is a way to move away from sober-mindedness, ready for what’s happening. All you’re doing is kind of putting yourself in a haze, and that does not prepare you. That does not arm you for what’s coming down the road.

1 Thessalonians 5:8 says: “Since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.” We’re of the day. The day is now increasing. The old world is darkening and going away. We’re of the day. And therefore, we’re to be sober-minded.

So, self-controlled and sober-minded is what the first thing that Peter says to arm ourselves with.

Secondly, he says maintain constant love. So, looking at the text again in verse 8: “Keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.”

So keep loving one another. Keep at it. Keep moving at it. It’s not an occasional love that occasionally does something for somebody else and then drifts back to a selfishness. It’s an active serving or loving of one another. And then he not only does he say “keep loving,” but he says “keep loving earnestly.” Not enough just not to offend people. Not enough just not to lose your temper at people. We are called positively to love each other in the context of the church.

And again, we talked about this before, but that love is the greatest apologetic for the lordship of Jesus Christ. So, we’re to love each other fervently, continually, in a big way. We’re to make ourselves available to each other, and we’re to be practically helpful toward one another.

So that’s the second arming. One has to do with our attitude. The other has to do with our actions—not just our attitude, but it includes our attitude toward those that we’re called to. And what Peter is doing now is he’s moving away from this discussion of living in the midst of unbelievers and our relationships with them. And now Peter is moving to the church and what we’re to do in the context of the church.

So, you know, the love that he’s talking about here is primarily a love for the body of Christ. Again, that’s the context here. And now he’s talking about what happens in the context of the church—what our attitudes are to be to the church. So, he’s making a shift now. And he’s telling us that our love is first and foremost primarily for the household of faith.

You know, the guy that loves everybody and loves the world but doesn’t love the person sitting next to him—that’s not love. And the Bible says that quite clearly: How can you say you love God, whom you don’t see, if you don’t love your neighbor, your fellow person sitting next to you in the pew, the person you see as you come up to communion, the person in your community group? If you don’t love them, don’t pretend you love God, he says.

So when we talk about a fervent act of love here, it is exemplified in the context of our relationships with one another in the local church, the body of Christ. That’s what Peter is positing as the way to make it through the difficult times ahead of us. And that local church then is the subject of our particular love. And if you’re not loving the unlovable people in this church, you’re not getting the point of this text, you see?

So love, you know, must be particularly aimed at the household of faith. And so, yes, it extends out to our neighbors. It extends out to other people and friends and other Christians. But I think what Peter is focusing on here is the local church. And what Peter is telling us today is: if you want to arm yourselves for what’s coming down the pike, don’t think some kind of general love for Christians is going to cut it. You want a community of people—the body of Jesus Christ. You love Jesus. If you do, you’ll love his body. And that means you’ll love actively the people in the context of the local church.

And it says that the result of this is the covering of sin, right? “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

And you know, there’s different ways to take that expression. In James 5:20, we read: “Let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” Proverbs 10:12: “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.” I don’t think it means covering up a sin that’s undealt with. And I don’t think it means necessarily confronting a sin of somebody in love, although both those things are good. We have to overlook lots of things, and there are things we surely shouldn’t overlook, in love.

I think more generally though what it’s saying is that when love is happening in the context of a church—active, ongoing, fervent attempts to love one another—sin decreases. I think that’s what it’s talking about. Sin decreases. Conversely, when you see a lot of sin starting to erupt in the context of the church, then we all need to tell each other, “Hey, let’s get actively, constantly, and energetically loving each other again, and it will drive sin away from these relationships.”

All right. Third: hospitality without grumbling. All right. “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling” (verse 9).

So we’ll talk more about this next week, but what it’s telling us is: it’s not enough to love. You got to do it constantly and energetically. And it’s not enough to show hospitality. You want to do it without murmuring about it. You know, you have people over, you put them up, and then you go off to the bedroom with your wife and say, “Well, I don’t like the way they are,” and you start to murmur. And you say it low so that people won’t hear you in the house. That’s grumbling about it.

Now, again, here it’s important for us, but there’s a little bit of context we got to remember. They’re being armed, you know, for the next ten, twenty years of some real difficulties, and they’ve already gone through a lot. Hospitality wasn’t just some nice thing about having the neighbors over. Hospitality was a life-and-death issue, because people would be fleeing the Roman authorities or persecuting Jews or whatever it was, and you’d have to put them up—like Corrie ten Boom, sort of hospitality. Or people would be starving to death, and if you didn’t have shelter, and if you didn’t have them in your home eating with you, they would die.

Okay. So that’s the context I think for this call here for hospitality. I don’t want to soften its impact for us. Hospitality is a significant part of arming yourself. Why? Again, as the Bible commentary says, the cohesion and unity of the local church is really the thing that’s going on here—that will arm you for difficult cultural times. And so if we want to get ready for whatever is going to happen in the next ten, twenty years, we want to work together on loving, on having sound minds and not being prideful, on actively and consistently and energetically loving one another, and about getting our heads wrapped around the fact that we should be hospitable to each other because it’s going to become potentially more and more necessary.

So, hospitality without grumbling.

Fourth: stewarding your spiritual gift. Okay, and this is where it gets to a direct application of spiritual gifts.

Verse 10: “As each has received a gift”—that’s that *charisma* word, a manifestation of grace, a way that grace is actually incarnated, so to speak, through a personal ministry of yours—”as each has received a gift, use it.”

That’s number one. If you’re good at teaching, if you’re good at speaking, if you’re good at taking the word of God and making people understand it, use that gift here. If you’re good at organizing things and have a passion for Sunday school, use that gift. Be the Sunday school superintendent. Release Michael to become head of CE. I mean, so first of all, if you’ve got some ability, some gift, and we’ll go over the specific details of some next week, you use it.

And then it says, “Use it to serve one another.” Again, see the gift is not for self-aggrandizement. It’s to serve one another in the body of Christ. Yes, it has an outward-facing dimension at times, but it is primarily for the purpose of serving one another in the local church as good stewards of God’s varied graces.

So God’s varied graces—God has grace, but that grace is manifested in different ways. His varied or manifold graces are seen through the various ministries, or spiritual gifts we can call them, that people exercise in the local church.

It was cool at our community group last week. I think everybody’s doing something except there’s one couple that are on their one-year year of exclusion for newlyweds. That’s great. But I mean, everybody’s doing something, and that’s great. Maybe that’s true of all of us here. I don’t know. But that’s a wonderful deal to have that kind of level of engagement. And what you see then is, as you talk about it, you see what you should be thinking. You’re looking at the manifold, the varied graces of God at work through these various things people are doing—all kinds of different things. Those are all manifestations of the varied grace of God. And our job—it says—is to be good stewards of those gifts.

Now, a steward—you know, this is like an econ term. That’s what it’s sort of like. It’s *oikos nomos*. So it’s *oikos*, right, which means home, and *nomos*, which means law. So the law of the home. And that becomes then our word for economics. “Household economy” was really a better term for economics than the way we think of it today, which is strictly business-wise and with money. Economics is a broad-based understanding of the way things are governed. And there’s lots of different kinds of houses.

So a steward is kind of a manager of something, and in this case he’s a manager of his particular gift, his or her particular gift. So if you’ve got some ability, you know, whatever it’s in, whether it’s a deed thing or a word thing, whether it’s showing hospitality, giving money, managing people and administrating people—that’s a gift we’ll look at in Romans next week—teaching, exhorting, encouraging, whatever it is, you’re supposed to see that as a stewardship responsibility.

It’s required of a steward that he be found faithful. And Paul just before he says that says, “I’m a steward of the grace of God.” And that’s true of Paul. And it’s true of each and every one of you. You are a steward of a particular aspect of the grace of God because each and every one of you has giftings and abilities given to you by God for ministry in the local church, and you’re supposed to be a good steward of that thing—which means you’re supposed to use it. And actually, it implies you’re supposed to develop it, right?

Jesus says to a steward—he says, “You know, you got to give an account of your stewardship at some point in time. I’m coming back, and when I come back, I want to know: What do you do with that gift? With that gift to teach? With that gift of exhortation? With that gift of making things orderly in the physical structure of the building? With that gift of making things beautiful? With that gift of playing the piano or singing, or whatever it is, with that gift that God has given you?” He’s going to demand an accounting.

Now, if today is that day, if you die at the agape—not from the agape, but at the agape—if you die and you stand before Jesus, he said, “What do you do with the gift I gave you?” Nothing. So, you’re going to give an account. And so, because of that, we should understand the stewardship responsibilities. We should get serious about what we’re doing, and we should apply ourselves.

Now, a steward also seeks to build his talents, right? So, if you’re good at teaching, that’s great. But that doesn’t mean you’re done learning how to teach. You’re going to be a better teacher. Remember, the purpose is maturity of all of us. So, you got these manifold demonstrations of the grace of God, people. The grace of God is flowing through your words and deeds, and they are making themselves manifest in this church, in all these churches, in these various ministries. The grace of God is incarnated in that way through what we do.

Okay? And what we do is causing all of us individually and corporately to mature. And what that means is our gifts are going to mature. We’re going to take ten talents and turn them into a hundred, right? We’re going to exercise stewardship. So, we’re supposed to, you know, blow out our gift. We’re supposed to make it grow. It’s a new creation thing. And you’re a vine. And that vine is going to grow and grow and grow and become more effective for the work of the kingdom.

So for you’re supposed to steward your gift.

Isn’t it the steward of Gondor that doesn’t want to give? Am I right there? He was really a bad guy in the *Lord of the Rings* thing. Somebody tell me. Yeah, he was the bad guy, right? Yeah. So the king is ready to come back, and the steward says, “Oh no, I” (lousy guy). “I don’t like him.” You know, that’s the problem. Stewards can begin to think that thing is theirs. “It’s my ability to teach. It’s my money. It’s my piano playing. And you look as reprehensible to God as that steward of Gondor did—trying to burn his own son up there in that movie or whatever it was.”

You see? So that’s the danger: when the king comes back to the man in accounting, you say, “Hey, who the heck are you? It was my money. It was my talent. It was my ability to teach. It was my ability to encourage people. It was my ability to learn foreign languages and help people out.”

So, you know, we’re called to be stewards, and that’s what this text tells us about spiritual gifts. We’ve each received a gift. We’re to use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace. So, *charisma* coming from *charis*, the grace of God made manifest.

So that’s number four on your outline: that you’re supposed to do that as a good steward of God.

And then he gives a particular couple of aspects, and I’ve got a chart for you on page number two. This again is from Vern Poythress, and it’s no big deal, but you might look at it in preparation for next week when we’re going to talk about some of these specific examples of ministries. But what he does there is in the right-hand column he shows these next two things that Peter is going to say: speaking and serving. And then he shows how the rest of the lists of gifts can be correlated under those two headings. So that’s kind of the purpose of that chart: to get you thinking that way.

And next week we’ll layer on kind of a prophet, priest, and king thing to those gifts as well. But for now, I think that’s what Peter is doing. Instead of listing a bunch of examples of the gifts, he’s just listing the two headings that most of these gifts happen in the context of.

And the first one of these headings is: speaking the very words of God. Okay.

So speaking—he says, “As he just received a gift, let us do it as stewards of God’s very grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks words of God,” or “oracles of God”—it’s in the plural here. There’s no definite article. It doesn’t mean you got to quote scripture all day long.

But when you speak in your ministry role, whatever it might be, your speaking should be based—explicitly or so people can tell—upon the word of God. So you’re not speaking your own words. You’re speaking essentially God’s word. So God’s word, which formed the world and is recreating the world, is channeled through your speaking if it’s a speaking ministry—preaching, teaching, exhorting, encouraging, evangelizing—all kinds of different teaching gifts. The word of God is being channeled through you and is an extension of grace in the world.

So your speaking gift is specifically tied to reflect the words of God. So you don’t speak of your own ability; you speak of God’s word.

So another way to put this: “Whoever does the speaking, do it as one bringing words from God.”

So, you know, your speaking is important. Do it as one speaking the words of God.

Lensky says: “The thought seems to be that in their talk, Christians are to be governed by the pertinent things that God has said in their talk, in their ministry particularly.”

Okay. So we are speaking, and this puts a huge emphasis on what we say. By the way, our words that we speak to each other—I think it’s talking about ministry, but the implication as well goes into our common talk.

We got a wonderful email this week from a member of the church—the elders did—and they said that after Toby’s talks at family camp last year, it was really great. And then the evangelistic sort of nights at Chris W.’s house on Mondays. She didn’t mention it, but I would imagine Doug H.’s “Conundrums, Questions and Conundrums” thing. Also, the point of the email was, you know, the younger adults at this church, when they get together now, they’re not so much talking about, “How’s the weather?” or “Who’s the best actor going to be won by tonight?” or whatever it is. They’re talking about things of God, right? As they relate to all of their lives.

And that’s what this is all about. So your conversation should be peppered with an understanding of everything you’re talking about that’s somehow tied to God’s word, God’s world, and God’s word.

So speaking. And then the next thing he talks about is serving, right?

So you serve with the strength that God supplies. Okay?

“Whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies.”

By the way, you can sort of see elder and deacon there, right? And this “service” word is actually *diakonos*, servant. So the elders and deacons are kind of a visual representation to you. They will be at this table of, you know, those that primarily function through speech and those that primarily function through service. And those are the two headings that are talked about here.

Well, those that serve are supposed to do so as serving by the strength that God supplies.

Two things here: that “supply” thing is that provision for a chorus that I talked about, and the “strength” thing should be a reminder that the strength of God, the grace of God, brings the strength of God to your life. So, you’re strong in the power and might of the Lord Jesus Christ. You have strength to do these things and to serve in the way that God has called us to serve.

And again, that’s, you know, not grudgingly. It’s not complaining. It’s not exercising lordship like the Gentiles. There’s a love to it that’s evident. “How can we serve you?” That kind of stuff. And there’s a strength that you need to do that. And that strength is exactly what God gives you with that ministry. God supplies strength. God is no buttercup. God is a God of strength and power, right? And so, you’re exercising that strength and power in the gift that God gives you.

Particularly, there’s an old song, and probably if we sang it, you would—the younger people would—not like it a whole lot, I would think. But I like it. It’s called “Channels Only.” Let me read the first verse:

*How I praise thee, precious Savior,*
*That thy love laid hold of me.*
*Thou hast saved and cleansed and filled me*
*That I might thy channel be.*

And then the chorus:

*Channels only, blessed Master,*
*But with all thy wondrous power*
*Flowing through us, thou canst use us*
*Every day and every hour.*

I know these days you’re “channeling” somebody. It seems weird and a little spiritualistic or something. But that’s what’s really being described here—in our teaching God’s words or in our serving with the power of God. We are channels of the grace of God that God uses every day and every hour. That’s who we are. We’re channels of the incredible power and grace and love and wisdom of God.

And without those channels, this is the way God has decided to work in the world—through us, through the silly little things that we think are silly but are not silly to God—through the little tiny things that we do in our lives. Paul—or Peter—says that’s how you’re going to keep from being blown away by whatever is coming down the pike, culturally and politically, in your world. You are the power of God to affect the new creation in the world by his word and by his deeds flowing through you as channels only.

Isn’t that wonderful? I mean, what more could you want out of life? Honestly, I hope I’m not being goofy here, but what more could you want? That is an incredible gift, privilege, amazing thing—that our lives are called to be in the providence of God.

Praise God for that. And that’s exactly what he goes on to talk about. The end result of this is: “In order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.”

What’s the reason we’re doing this? The reason we’re doing this is to glorify God through Jesus. You can’t leave Jesus out. But to glorify the Father through Jesus. That’s kind of it. We’re doing this not to glorify ourselves but to glorify God.

But the ultimate reason is not to bring him glory. It is to say he is all glorious. You see the difference? “To him is glory and power.” The reason we do this is not so that he can become glorious. It’s because he is glorious, and his life is being manifest in the world.

The reason why we’re to minister in these small ways—but significant ways—to one another is for the glory of God, to make manifest to the world his glory. But the ultimate idea behind it is that we’re doing it because God is all glorious. He is wonderful. He is most blessed, most powerful, most wise, most at work in this world. He is glorious. “To him belongs praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

Amen. Verily, that’s why we do this—because of who he is, not what we can make out of him by our work, but because of who he is. And that life is being channeled through us so the world can see who God is and respond with blessing and glory and honor to God the Father.

That’s our purpose. That’s why spiritual gifts are given to us. And that’s your motivation. Not because Pastor Tuuri says you got to do a ministry at the church. Your motivation for figuring out how to use your spiritual gift, what is that stewardship thing you’ve been given, how can you work on it, how can you be held accountable for it, how can you develop it? The reason I want you to have for doing that, and why I’d like you to commit to doing that today, is because God is glorious. God is glorious. And he has brought you into that glorious life so that you might be a channel of his glory, power, strength, mercy, and love through deeds and through words.

Praise his name.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for your glory, that it fills the earth. It’s a fact. It’s a reality. Bless us, Lord God, with a sense of tremendous gratitude that you are willing to work through us to make manifest this glory in the world. Bless this church with unity and strength and love and grace and compassion and ministry one to the other. And so prepare us to be a part of resisting the cultural difficulties that may lie ahead of us. And more than that, that your new creation might flow through us and the rest of the church in Oregon City to the end that the cities we live in would be transformed by your glory and power.

We ask this in Jesus’ name and for the sake of his kingdom, not ours. Amen.