Sermon Text:
1 Peter 4:8-11
The church’s purpose is to “make much of God” by loving one another and living in authentic community together, empowered by the Holy Spirit. God enables us to love and serve one another generously with our whole hearts and lives. When those outside the church look in, we hope they see a people who love one another so fully and so well, that they are drawn to the Gospel and the amazing love of Christ, all for the glory of God.
Sermon Transcript:
(transcribed with AI)
Well, good morning. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Justin and I am not the pastor here. I'm actually one of the elders, serve as one of the elders here, and once in a while I get to preach. So Jonathan is away. He's at down at the main campus, I believe, for the last time.
And as Tyler said earlier, the kids are in the service, so we've got a little special something for your kids. If you got some coloring books and whatnot back there, and if you're really quiet and really good during the service, we might just have a treat for you at the welcome desk after. So on your way out, go check out the welcome desk. I think there's some candies back there.
We were talking this morning, we're kind of excited. This is our last week as a campus of Central. Tomorrow we're going, or next week we're going to be under the banner of Promontory Community Church. We're soon going to be making that transition from a campus to our own autonomous church, and we're excited about this.
As we've been preparing to do this, we've been going through the sermon series this summer titled The Church Is and throughout this series we've been looking at different aspects of the church, different attributes and purposes of the church, and hopefully it's giving us a bit of perspective as to what it means to be a church as we set off. But the church is not just an institution or an organization or even this Sunday morning gathering. More broadly speaking, the church is the community of believers for all time. It's made up of everyone who puts their faith in Jesus.
Now, the Greek word ecclesia, which we translated church actually means assembly. Which means the church in its most basic form is an assembly of believers in Jesus. Now, I don't know where your brain goes when it thinks assembly, but I think of something like assembling a car. There's all these different parts and they all do different things and they're all connected to each other in different ways, but they're ultimately all pieced to form one vehicle that can safely transport you from one place to another.
Now, you could, if you had never seen a car before and you held up two completely unrelated pieces seemingly like let's say the rearview mirror and the alternator. You would look at them and be like, these don't connect. They don't fit together, they cannot possibly belong to the same thing. They couldn't possibly have anything in common. And you're right, they don't do the same job, but their ultimate purpose as parts of the whole car is the same. In a similar way, the church is made up of people with various personalities and gifts and abilities, and sometimes it seems that those parts are wildly incompatible. But we all share the same ultimate purpose.
Now, what purpose is that exactly? The question of purpose or meaning is actually one of the most fundamental questions we ask ourselves both as human beings, as the church, like what is our purpose as people, as human beings. Now people have been trying to answer this question for as long as time itself, it seems. A lot of philosophy and theology and big thinkers have been dedicated to trying to articulate what the meaning of life is. Now, I'm not a great philosopher or theologian, so don't expect me to give you a perfect answer to that question this morning. But I'm really compelled by the answer given in the Westminster catechism.
For those of you that are theology nerds, we're gonna find out real quick. I'm gonna ask the question and I'll see how many people know the answer. Westminster catechism asks this, what is the chief end of man? If you know, say it. Yeah, there we go. Yes, the Westminster catechism says that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
The catechism posits that our purpose as human beings is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And this has been our purpose ever since creation. When God was creating people in Genesis one, it says that God created people in his own image and gave them dominion over creation. The very first thing the Bible says about humankind is that we are image bearers of God. It is our primary identity and purpose. We are to be living representations of Him on earth to reflect His glory and rule over creation.
And this isn't just an individual task, but it's a corporate one. Genesis one says that human beings were created male and female to bear his image, not just the male bears his image, not just the female, but both together. Ephesians 5 says that the husband and the wife relationship reflects the relationship between Christ and the church. So from Genesis to Ephesians, the Bible is showing us that people in their relationships and their coming together in their assembly. Corporately reflect the image of God as well.
So it follows that the church being made up of image bearers of God, is meant to reflect Him and His glory to the world. The church is the assembly of image bearers of Christ. The church is meant to be the corporate expression of humanity's ultimate purpose to glorify God.
Now, before we dive in any further, I want to clarify one thing. I want to define what we mean by the word glorify, cause that's a very churchy word. And we kind of throw it around sometimes and sometimes we misunderstand what glorifying God really means. When we say that we glorify God, we're not saying, or what we're not saying is that we're somehow trying to make him more glorious. God is immeasurably glorious without our help. He doesn't actually need us to add more glory points to his score. Trying to add glory to God is kind of like trying to point a flashlight at the sun in order to make it brighter.
What we mean when we say we glorify God is that we aim to show His glory to others. It means that we make much of God and little of ourselves. To go back to the sun analogy, if we want to show how great the sun is, we don't point a flashlight at it to make it brighter. But we can look at its effects all around us. We can see how it warms the earth, how it helps plants to grow, helps life to even exist and flourish. And actually recently, people even sent a probe to the sun to learn more about it.
Glorifying God is similar in that it is a matter of recognizing His power and effect over all things. And we point that out and we learn more about him and share what we learn with others. We aren't adding to or growing his glory. We're simply helping to point out and reveal to others what's already there.
Now that sounds great and simple, but how exactly do we do that? Well, the book of Ecclesiastes concludes that the whole duty of man is to fear God and keep his commands. So if our ultimate purpose is to glorify God, then our duty and job or like how to do that is to fear God and keep his commands. And his commands are written in his word.
Which leads us to our passage this morning. So if you want to start turning there, this is gonna be 1 Peter 4:8 to 11. This little passage in First Peter is giving us a snapshot as to how exactly we are to glorify God, not just as individuals but as a group, as the church. So please stand if you're able, we're going to read 1 Peter 4:8-11.
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 strengths that God supplies. In order that everything that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Please be seated. So here in these few verses, we're given a very concise explanation of how the people of God are to glorify Him. Now perhaps you may have noticed that the author repeats a phrase a few times. He repeats the phrase one another 3 times. Love one another, show hospitality to one another, serve one another. These commands are not just commands to personal piety or individual action, rather, they're commands meant to be acted out to one another. We glorify God in our actions toward one another.
Now you could spend hours a day in prayer and scripture reading, but if none of it ended up manifesting itself in action to others, it would be meaningless. Now don't hear me wrong. I'm not saying that individual prayer and reading and devotions are detrimental. They are fantastic ways to build us up individually. They're absolutely worth doing. But here in our passage, we have a call to love and serve one another. Expressing our faith and glorifying God, it's not just an individual pursuit, but one enacted in this one anotherness.
The first line of our passage is above all, keep loving one another. Above all, Peter says. He has just been writing about personal piety actually. He just listed off a bunch of things to abstain from. He's encouraging the people to be self-controlled and sober minded. But then he says, above all. Above all, is like more important, of higher priority. It's the corporate expression of love, loving one another.
I'm reminded of the parable of the Good Samaritan here and these religious leaders who walk past this man that's dying on the side of the road, and they don't help him because they're more concerned with remaining ceremonially clean than loving their neighbor. They're more concerned with their personal religiosity than lending a helping hand to one another. Love was not their first priority.
Jesus says this to his disciples in John 13:34-35. He says:
A new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
This echoes what he says again in Matthew 22 when he says that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and the second greatest is to love your neighbor as yourself. The command to love both God and one another is the greatest commandment, the commandment above all the rest.
So, in fact, our passage then goes on to say that love covers a multitude of sins. Now, we could read that and think, OK, so if I love people, then God will forgive my sins. That's not what this passage is saying. It's actually a lot more practical and less theological than that. You may remember that Jesus taught us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. Well, the same applies for our friends and brothers who sin against us.
The reality is, as we aim to glorify God, we all actually fail in this job, and we act poorly to one another. We slight each other, we hurt each other, we do things that divide us from each other. But Jesus teaches us to love in response to hurts and slights, rather than retaliate. Our passage says, love covers a multitude of sins. When we choose to love each other, it's much easier to let some of those hurts go. It's also much harder to keep sinning against someone who keeps loving you back in return. That's what's being taught here. Overcoming sin with love, overcoming evil with good.
God is glorified when the way of love wins. God is glorified when we love despite the sins against us. God is glorified when we choose unity over the differences that divide us. But the world kind of applauds revenge, doesn't it? It applauds getting back at the bad guys. If you look at the movies, especially a lot of the shoot em ups where it's almost always some hero getting vengeance on the people that wronged him. Characters like John Wick are seen as heroes for their violent action against evil. Their vengeance and violence are glorified.
But you see, vengeance seeks glory for ourselves. We want the satisfaction of taking matters into our own hands. I recently watched a show called The Terminalist, and it's about a Navy SEAL who goes on this rampage to avenge his murdered family and teammates. Classic. But there's a scene where he finally catches up with the assassin who murdered his family. And he gets his revenge. And you know what? Even the movies wouldn't lie that the revenge did not satisfy. He actually remains the tortured soul that he was before. It ultimately didn't satisfy him. There's not actually any glory in revenge, and we're deceived if we think there is.
So instead of turning to revenge and retaliation. What if we focused on loving those around us? Rather than seek our own glory and trying to right the wrongs against us, we're commanded to love each other instead.
Again, that sounds great, but how exactly, how practically do we do that? Well, our passage has two more one and others that it commands, commands us to show hospitality to one another and to serve one another. Showing love in a way that glorifies God is actually very simple and fairly ordinary. We aren't talking about grand gestures or extravagant gifts, we're talking about simple hospitality and serving others.
Now, hospitality comes in a variety of forms, but at its most basic, it's to invite people in and serve their basic needs. Most commonly food and shelter. It's about offering people a place to stay or a meal to eat, and to offer it willingly, not begrudgingly out of duty or with grumbling as our passage says. Hebrews 13:2 echoes this. It says:
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unaware.
Or Matthew 25:40, Jesus says:
Truly I say to you, as you did to one of the least of these brothers, you did it to me.
When we are hospitable and generous to others, we aren't just doing it for them, but in a way we're doing it for Jesus. Being hospitable very tangibly glorifies and shows honor to God.
Our passage then goes on to talk about using our gifts to serve one another. Verse 10 says:
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.
What it's saying here is that your giftings and talents are actually a little bit of God's grace that you are meant to share. It's a bit of God's grace in you that you are to display to others. It's kind of like how a museum curator displays a work of art. Now, the curator is not the artist themselves. They can take no credit for the painting or the sculpture. But they are the steward of someone's art piece with a responsibility to make sure it is shown and displayed properly.
In the same way, your gifts and talents are not by your own genius or your own making, but they're actually rather the handiwork of God that he has tasked you to show to others. So think about what you're good at. What are your natural talents or what are the things that you're really passionate about? It's likely that those things are or closely related to the gifts of God's grace that you are called to serve others with.
Now Peter gives us two categories of gifts here, speaking and serving. In other words, words and deeds, talking and actions, theoretical versus practical. This is not a comprehensive list of the spiritual gifts by any means, but it's a more general overview of a couple of the main categories. Basically, what he's saying is whether you're more of a hands-on person or more of a talk and ideas kind of person. You are to use the gifts God has given you to serve others for the glory of God.
He says to those who speak, speak as one who speaks oracles of God. In other words, if you speak or preach or teach Sunday school or maybe evangelize to people in your workplace. Or maybe you're just more of an ideas and talk about ideas type of person. Then let your speech and ideas come from God's word, not your own wisdom.
When I first started preaching, I took a preaching lab led by Central with Pastor Matt and Pastor Jonathan. And one of the things we were taught was to do our best to get our own biases and ideas out of the way and let the text speak, let God's word speak. The line we were told was, the point of the text is the point of the sermon. You don't just take a text and then come up with your own theme, use it as a springboard to talk about whatever you want to talk about.
So for those of us that have the responsibility of preaching or teaching, there's a responsibility to represent God's word correctly. I just can't come up here and start spouting off my opinion about theology or politics or whatever else. We are to speak as those who speak oracles of God. I have to speak with what is in line with his word, and it must be his words, not mine. I have to use the gift God has given me to display His wisdom, not what I think is clever.
For those of us that serve practically, we are to serve by the strength that God supplies. I think about those of you that are on setup or worship team or making the coffee, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking, you know, how great we are that we got the whole church set up in 45 minutes this time. We nailed the music set on the first run through. We managed to get all the coffee brewed in time and managed not to spill a drop. But it's God that gives us the strength and grace to get things prepared on time, not our own prowess.
Believe me, we give, he gives us enough hiccups and mishaps here early on a Sunday morning that you don't see to remind us that we're not all that. But somehow he always provides a means to get it done.
So whatever your gifts are, we are called to recognize that they are gifts from God. Little bits of his grace to be shared with others so that others would see him through our serving, the ultimate goal being to glorify him and not ourselves. That means if you're say, let's say you're a greeter, you're not thinking to yourself, man, I am so charming. If I could just meet everyone that comes through that door, they will definitely come to this church. Like, of course not. If you want to be charming for your own glory, you go be a salesperson or a stand-up comedian.
If you serve as a greeter, that's not your mindset. Your mindset is probably more along the lines that you love people. And that God has given you a welcoming spirit and that you want to use those gifts to help others feel welcomed in God's house in order that they would encounter him, not your charm.
If you're on the worship team, you're not saying to yourself, I am so good at shredding on the guitar, I can't wait to get up there and show people how awesome I am. Like, no, if you want people to know how awesome you are, you start a band in your mom's garage and I'm sure the neighbors will be astounded by your talents. When you serve on the worship team, and I know this about those that serve on the worship team. Your heart is that you're using your musical talents to complement the rest of the team and lead others to worship, to make music in such a way that it invites others to participate and direct that worship to God.
Now, if you're serving in the sound booth or tech, a little shout out to you guys. You're not back there thinking, I'm going to make everything sound so great and make everything look so amazing that everyone will compliment me after. First of all, that never happens. That is one of the most thankless jobs around here. And we could probably stand a fire or compliment their way a little more often. But these guys do it day in and day out, not for their own glory, but because they want to use their gifts and talents to honor God and help others glorify Him. Thanks guys.
Well, speaking of thankless jobs, our Sunday school teachers are definitely not in it for their own glory. I could not do that job, I would be pulling my hair out. Yeah. Metaphorically, of course, God has gifted them with a patience I just don't comprehend, and they have a passion to see the next generation know Jesus. And they use those gifts to provide a place for our kids to learn about the Lord while the rest of us get to grab a coffee and take in a sermon.
Now, I'm not saying all this to say, look how great our servers are. That'd be contrary to the point. The point is, those that serve here are serving because they love God and they love His people, and they're leveraging their gifts and talents and abilities that God has given them for his glory and not their own.
So I want to encourage you, if you're not already doing so, find a way to use your gifts to glorify God. It doesn't have to be here, although we could always use more volunteers. It could be out there, it could be in your workplace. But what makes you good at your job or maybe your favorite hobby? What makes you really good at it? Is there a way you could use that talent or that skill to further God's kingdom as well?
God gave you talents, gifts and passions. They are all part of His grace. They're all part of that image of God that he created you to be. To glorify God is to let those things be used and seen. Because glorifying God is not just the job of the church, it's the chief end of man. It's what you were created to do. It is your purpose in life. God made you to glorify Him. And he is best glorified when your gifts are used to serve and build up others and there direct their gaze to him.
When people are using their gifts to serve and build up each other for God's glory, to build up, we call that assembly, that building up the church. And it's bigger and broader than just what we do here on a Sunday morning. These gatherings are just kind of the tip of the iceberg of the church. So I want to encourage you and challenge you all to think about your gifts, your talents and passions. Consider how you could begin to use those to serve others for God's glory, to take no credit for yourselves, to point to him as the one who strengthens you, to let him have the glory.
Now, before we wrap up, I want to address one thing. And that is, we've been talking about how the church is meant to glorify God and how we are meant to glorify God. But the reality is, the church has actually often failed at this, and we as Christians often fail at this. Many people walk away from the faith in the church because of the way they have been treated by the church or Christians.
I had a college roommate in my first year of university, randomly assigned. He grew up in this Christian college town, and he rebelled against it. One of his favorite lines was:
I don't mind Jesus, but I hate his fan club.
If that's your experience. I want to say that I'm sorry. We have been given the responsibility to represent God and His glory here on earth. And when we don't. The failure seems that much more devastating.
The reality is, the church is made up of sinners. Yes, we're image bearers of God, but we're also all sinners in need of saving. And more often than not, it seems that people see the sinner part of us and not the image of God part of us. And often the problems begin when people in the church start doing things for their own glory and not for the glory of God.
The reality is our own glory is not all that glorious. It's like a flashlight next to the sun. When we try to display our own glory, it just makes people cringe and walk away. We put the sinner on display rather than the image of God in us. So we need to humbly acknowledge that if there's any good in us at all, it's only by God's grace and a gift from him. We need to acknowledge that we need a savior. We need Jesus to cover up our multitude of sins by his love and kindness.
You know, Jesus lived a very inglorious life and died a very inglorious death in order to pay the penalty for our sins. He served without seeking any glory for himself but always pointed to the father. But now he's raised in glory to be seated at the right hand of the Father. It is our job now as believers to follow in his footsteps, to live a life that doesn't seek glory for ourselves, but rather points to the one who already has all the glory. We are to love by caring for and serving others, and through that loving service, we pray that God's glory would be seen.
As we close, I want to end with this benediction from the end of our passage. Church, may you serve one another by the grace of God. In order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to Him belong the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Let's pray. God, you are so good. God, you are glorious beyond what we can even begin to understand, Lord. And we confess that we do not always represent your glory well. We're meant to bear your image, Lord, and we often fail to show you to others. We thank you that you forgive us. Thank you that your son came to die to set us free from the wages of sin Lord and.
We pray that you go with us, go forward, teach us how to be more loving, how to be more hospitable, how to serve better. Help us to find those little bits of good. Those little images of you that you've placed in us that we can show those parts to others and to the world around us. Pray that as we go into this week, Lord, we would reflect your glory to those around us. It would contemplate how we could serve you better. And ultimately, Lord, that we would get out of the way and let others see you instead of ourselves. In your name we pray. Amen.