Serving Through Suffering
1 Peter 4:7-11
The final stages or steps of any journey, program, or strategy are crucial ones because they determine the outcome of all that has come before and whether the journey, program, or strategy will ultimately be successful.
Highschool and college or university seniors, for instance, follow details checklists of action items, classes, and projects to complete so they can graduate.
On the other side of adulthood, many people make careful plans for that time of life when they will be unable to work as aggressively as they once did – some call this retirement. As people approach this stage of life, they often become members of a nationwide nonprofit called AARP (originally American Association of Retired Persons. In 2018, this organization had more than 38 million members.
This organization receives members who are 50 yrs. and older. They provide a nonpartisan lobbying presence in Washington D.C. to advocate for the interests and needs of its members and provides a variety of networking, resources, and other services which help people navigate the challenges of late adulthood well.
We are not on this journey alone.
As believers, we face all sorts of challenges and trials as we take our next steps in following Christ. As we do, we can easily lose enthusiasm and hope, wearing down over time. Since this is a real possibility, Peter reminds us that we are not on this journey alone.
Just as the AARP helps people band together to face a challenging stage of life together well, followers of Christ should band together to face a challenging stage in world history together well.
But the end of all things is at hand; therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers.
Peter calls this stage of history “the end of all things,” which describes the final stage of God’s comprehensive plan for the ages by which he will establish his eternal, perfect, and righteous kingdom completely and forever.
“Is at hand” tells us that God could set in motion the final stages and steps of this plan at any time. This has been true from the moment Christ resurrected until now.
Knowing that God’s final purge of sin from the world, judgment of sinners, and recreation and restoration of a new heavens and Earth is pending and “just around the corner,” this reality should influence in a significant way how we choose to live, but how?
Many believers live as though they have all the time in the world, motivated little if at all by the possibility of Christ’s soon return. Then those who do pay attention to this reality may mistakenly respond with some sort of fear, panic, and sensationalism.
Peter tells us how to respond to being so near to the completion of God’s eternal plans. His instructions remind us of how Martin Luther answered a person who asked him what he’d do if he knew the end would come today. He said, “I’d plant a tree and pay my taxes.”
This wise answer reveals that knowing we are near the end should not cause us to behave in an irrational or panicked way but should inspire us to be more deeply committed to being and doing those things which we should be and do already.
Having said this, Peter gives us two simple but crucial commands, two things we should do with greater dedication and determination knowing that the end is near. We should pray well and love well. These two priorities underscore our two spiritual relationship priorities as followers of Christ – God (our Father) and the church (our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ).
We should pray to God well.
But the end of all things is at hand; therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers.
“Prayers” describes speaking to God and reminds us to actually speak to God, to say things to him from our hearts. As followers of Christ, we believe that praying is important, but how much do we actually pray – how much do we actually talk to God? Did you speak to God frequently last week?
Peter tells us that our prayers should be “serious” and “watchful.” Serious means “clear-minded” and watchful means “self-controlled.”
Serious and clear-minded prayers means that we should pray focused and intentional prayers, prayers that say what we need to say and prayers which reflect a very accurate and informed perspective about who God is, what God says in his Word, and what is true about the situation you are facing. This type of praying also anticipates a consistent discipline of prayer, building a habit of praying to God frequently and regularly.
The opposite of this kind of prayer is ecstatic, emotionally charged, erratic, or sensational prayer, prayer that doesn’t communicate anything clearly, does not reflect a biblical view of God and life, is reactive rather than proactive, and expresses impulsive, selfish desires rather than self-controlled, Christ-centered desires.
Unlike the AARP, we do not need professional lobbyists to advocate for our needs in these difficult final days of God’s plan for history. We can and must speak directly to God on a disciplined, regular basis with a clear knowledge of what God’s Word clearly says.
We should love the church well.
And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.”
Just as the AARP offers advocacy, it also offers a network of people who are facing similar challenges together as a group. As followers of Christ who are facing the challenges of following Christ in these last days, we also need the camaraderie and support of a group – and this group is called the church. We need the support of a loving community made up of others who are also following Christ, sharing the same challenges together.
Peter underscores this need for being a part of the church by saying “above all things,” emphasizing the great importance of being and providing a loving church family. In other words, this should be a very high – even top – priority for you.
As a church, a group of committed followers of Christ who are also committed to each other, we should love one another well.
What does it mean to love? To treat other people as though you genuinely care about them, are interested in them, and value them more than you value yourself. It is caring for people so genuinely and sincerely in the affections of your heart that you care for them personally and practically through the actions of your hands. If you say you love your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ but do nothing or nearly nothing to make a meaningful difference in their lives, then your love is likely no more than a dream rather than a reality.
Peter tells us who to love, “one another.” Though we should love everyone, we should love one another within the church in an extra special way.
Peter tells us how we should love, “fervently.” This means to love each other eagerly, earnestly, and intensely over a long period of time. This is enthusiastic, sincere, and persistent love which does not stop even when the hard times come. And even more to Peter’s point here, our love for one another should not stop even when we make it hard to be loved.
Peter says that our love for one another should “cover a multitude of sins.” Though some sins are so egregious that they cannot be overlooked, love learns how to overlook some sins which are not so egregious. In other words, love for one another should shrink the list of behaviors and failures which offend us. If the actions and words of other believers which can disturb or offend you and get under your skin is long, then you will find it difficult to maintain close, loving relationships in the church.
Our love for one another should include hospitality. This means we should make our homes (and apartments) available to one another as needed. When we open up our homes – our personal space – to one another as needs arise and to encourage Bible study, friendship, and fellowship together, we demonstrate Christian love in a special way.
As special as providing hospitality may be, Christian love requires that we provide hospitality without grumbling. To grumble means “to complain.” One Bible dictionary describes this term as “the expression of secret and sullen discontent, murmuring, complaint” (Mounce).
So, Peter envisions a person who offers hospitality but complains in the process. This person complains about having to do it, complains about having to do it too much, complains about being underappreciated, complains about the inconvenience, or complains about other people not rising to the occasion. When we provide hospitality – or any other act of service – we should do so in genuine Christian love without grumbling.
Elsewhere, Paul expands this warning against grumbling beyond hospitality to every other kind of act of love and Christian service:
Do all things without complaining and disputing. (Phil 2:14)
Paul also connects this complaining, grumbling attitude and behavior to the kind of attitude and behavior which caused God to judge Israel severely in the wilderness.
Nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. (1 Cor 10:9-12)
We should serve one another with the abilities and resources God has given us. Beyond hospitality, we should serve one another in all sorts of other ways as well. No follower of Christ should be “along for the ride,” benefiting from the loving service of others while offering no loving service of our own. We should all find ways to serve one another since that is why God has given us our gifts, abilities, and resources in the first place.
Speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. (Eph 4:15-16)
Our talk should be shaped by the Word of God. One way that we can serve one another is to speak to one another through advice, conversation, and teaching. In all that we say, we should speak in ways that are shaped by the Word of God. The more that the Word of God influences the words that we speak to each other and the way that we speak to each other, the more we will encourage and equip each other to suffer triumphantly.
Our service to one another should be reliant upon God’s supernatural grace. As we serve each other, we should do so in a humble and reliant way, depending upon God to give us the strength and wisdom we need to make a Christlike, God-sized difference in each other’s lives.
As we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, & individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, w/ liberality; he who leads, w/ diligence; he who shows mercy, w/ cheerfulness. (Rom 12:4-8)
When we love one another this way, we are not only better able to face our suffering together, but we provide the world with a better, clearer, more compelling view of God. This is the goal – not just to survive our suffering or to triumph through our suffering but to bring the people in our lives, whether one another or the nonbelievers around us, to a closer, more compelling vision of God through the love of Christ in our lives.
