Now let us turn together to 1
Peter and chapter 4, 1 Peter and chapter 4 as we continue
our expositions of this portion of the Word of God. And I shall
read in your hearing verses 7 through 11 of 1 Peter 4. But the end of all things is
at hand. Therefore, be of a sound mind
and sober unto prayer, above all things being fervent in your
love among yourselves. For love covers a multitude of
sins, using hospitality one to another without murmuring, according
as each has received a gift ministering it among yourselves as good stewards
of the manifold grace of God. If any man speaks, speaking as
it were oracles of God, if any man ministers or serves, serving
as of the strength which God supplies, that in all things
God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory
and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Well, let us again
pray and ask God by his Holy Spirit to come and help preacher
and listener alike to know the mind of God as contained in his
Holy Word. Let us pray. Our Father we have owned in the
language of the hymn we have just sung that we are natively
blind and that you must show us the road and therefore with
the psalmist we too pray open my eyes that I may behold wondrous
things out of your law. Father take away anything and
everything that would keep us from hearing, understanding,
and receiving in faith and obedience that portion of your word, which
together we will now seek to understand in dependence upon
your spirit. Come then and meet with us, we
plead, in Jesus' name. Amen. When we pick up our Bibles and
read the New Testament with anything approaching serious attention,
one thing among many other things becomes unmistakably evident,
and that is this, that neither Jesus nor his apostles were ever
dishonest. in setting forth both the privileges
and the liabilities of becoming a true follower of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Jesus never conned people into
making a quote decision to trust him or to follow him. On one
occasion People were pressing in as his apparent followers
and he turned and said, oh wait, count the cost of becoming my
follower. And likewise, when we read the
account of how the apostles preached and how they made disciples,
they never tricked people into decisions. They laid before them
the glorious privileges of salvation in Christ and then called men
and women to repentance and faith and to radical discipleship. Peter used those very words on
the day of Pentecost. After saying you must repent,
you must be baptized, then he said save yourselves from this
crooked, this perverse, this untoward generation. And while they continually offer
forgiveness and pardon for sin as the present possession of
all who believe, they nonetheless make it plain that to possess
those blessings in Christ is to be united to Christ and to
be united to Christ is to share in the fellowship of the sufferings
of Christ. It is for this reason, among
others, that the book of 1 Peter is a peculiar help to the people
of God as they seek to think as they ought about suffering
for righteousness sake and as they seek to act as they ought
in the midst of their suffering so as to glorify God and to validate
the transforming power of the gospel of Christ. Now in the
midst of imparting instruction and encouragement to the people
of God in Asia Minor, how they are to think and how they are
to act in the midst of their suffering, Peter directs them
in the beginning of this chapter to arm themselves with the mind
of Christ. And in that context, the mind
of Christ is a mindset that is committed to this simple principle. it is better to suffer than to
sin that was the mindset of our Lord Jesus who facing the most
serious the most traumatic suffering of his entire life there in the
garden of Gethsemane and feeling in his own soul and in his own
holy humanity a desire to draw back from the cup he says nevertheless
not my will but yours be done. It is better to suffer than to
sin and Peter writes this to these Perhaps some very young
Christians, perhaps some mature Christians, and the one imperative
in that first paragraph of chapter 4 is the imperative to be armed
with the same mindset or thought of Christ. And then Peter goes
on to say, armed with that mindset, you are then manifesting that
sin's dominion has been broken in your life. that you are committed
to the very purpose for which God has laid hold of you in Christ
that you should no longer walk in the old patterns but should
now live to the will of God and he encourages them that the day
of judgment is coming when those who oppose them will be dealt
with by God and they and their fellow believers who have already
died and gone before them will be vindicated in that day Now
in verse 7 he's going to make a transition into directives
to these suffering saints that now take within their compass
their horizontal relationships and responsibilities within the
various churches who would have received this letter as it circulated
among those Roman provinces there in Asia Minor. And as Peter is
about to transition into these horizontal duties and privileges,
he begins with that imperative in verse 7, the end of all things
is at hand, be therefore of a sound mind and be sober unto prayer. He is nailing down the principle
that if we are to fulfill our horizontal duties as we ought,
We will only do so as we maintain soundness of mind and spiritual
sobriety which will always lead us to conscious dependence upon
God which in turn will give birth to a life of prayerfulness. It
is in that setting then that he sets out in the remainder
of this paragraph their duties, their responsibilities concerning
their life together. Last Lord's Day we looked at
the first of these directives. It's what I call the directive
concerning mutual love. Above all things being fervent
in your love among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of
sins, using hospitality one to another without murmuring. And in those verses we saw the
importance of mutual love above all things. The quality of that
love. It is agape love. It is to be
fervent. It is to be love on the stretch. Love that is not in its most
meager amounts and degrees, but in its heightened degree manifested
among the people of God. And then he underscores two activities
of that love. It is that love that will cover
a multitude of sins. It will give a prevailing disposition
that delights to cover those multitudes of shortcomings and
foibles born of our ignorance and our remaining sin and our
weakness as creatures of the dust. And then it will also express
itself in being hospitable one to another without murmuring. Now we come this morning to the
second directive that Peter gives, having laid out the directive
concerning mutual love, he now gives us a directive concerning
mutual service. And I make this a second heading,
though a number of the commentators subsume this under another manifestation
of love. Love covers sin. Love creates
the open door and the open table. Love creates a climate of delighting
to serve one another with our gifts. And I would not quarrel
with that, but because so much of the text is given to this
matter of mutual service, it is not included in just one verse
but as you look at your Bible just visually you can see that
from verse 10 to the end of the paragraph the subject of mutual
gifts and their exercise within the body is to the forefront
in Peter's mind and therefore I'm setting it out in a second
heading having looked at the directive to mutual love we will
consider the directive concerning mutual service. And that will
take us to verses 10 and 11a, and then God willing next Lord's
Day morning, the third heading, the overall end and purpose in
both the directives. The directive for mutual love
and the directive for mutual service have a common end and
purpose in the mind and will of God. Namely, that in all things
God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory
and dominion forever and ever. Amen. So then, we take up the
directive concerning mutual service. And as I seek to unpack the text,
we'll do so under four headings. The first is this. Note with
me, first of all, the foundational assumption. The foundational
assumption. Peter writes, according as each
has received a gift. And in those words, Peter is
setting before us what I am calling his foundational assumption. And I trust it's clear to each
one of us as Peter sits perhaps at a table there where he was
perhaps imprisoned at Rome and he's been thinking of the saints
of God up there in Asia Minor in these Roman provinces. He's
been laying out all of the grand indicatives of what they have
in Christ. various lines of imperatives
what they are to do and to be in the light of what they are
and they have and starting in chapter 3 he has come to the
central burden of his letter the subject of suffering from
chapter 3 in verse 13 onward and he has been opening up various
strands of pastoral concern to these suffering saints, instructing,
encouraging, admonishing them how they are to respond to this
suffering so as to glorify God and advance the cause of the
gospel and as he thinks of those people The very people whom he
has described in chapter 1 as having been begotten again unto
a living hope by the resurrection of Christ. A people, the end
of chapter 1, who've been redeemed, whose souls have been purified,
who've been begotten again. On into chapter 2, they've been
made living stones in God's spiritual temple, a company of priests.
As he thinks of who and what they are, He pauses and as he
is about to lay out their duties one to another, he assumes that
everyone who fits the description of a Christian in all of the
previous part of the epistle, that all of those are gifted
men and women. He does not suddenly say, now
to some of you, who have in common this great salvation but do not
have in common any gift of service. His words are very simple and
the assumption that undergirds them is very clear. According
as each has received a gift. He's not saying seek a gift.
According as some may have and some may eventually, there is
a foundational assumption that no one is a vital member of Christ
in the living temple of God, a possessor of the salvation
of God who has not been gifted in some way by that God of redemptive
grace. Now what precisely was the gift
which Peter assumes each church member in Asia Minor would possess? well the word here used for gift
is the one that is used in parallel passages dealing with the subject
of spiritual gifts in Romans 12 and verse 6 the Apostle uses
the same word in the midst of that section where the issue
of gifts is being addressed and having gifts there's our word
differing according to the grace of God 1st Corinthians 12 and
verse 4 second of three major gift passages in the New Testament
epistles and here he says there are diversities of gifts, same
word but the same spirit and that word is the word from which
we get our modern word charismatics, it's charisma and it's the same
root word as the word for grace, charis grace, charis, gift, charisma
and we miss that in coming over into the English and I do that
not to try to show off a poor pronunciation of Erasmian Greek
but because it helps us to appreciate what Peter is assuming when he
sits to pen his letter at his desk or at his table the parchment
spread before him and he writes according as each has received
a charisma as each has received a gift or gift that is to be
understood as an undeserved, sovereignly bestowed capacity
that can be employed in the service of God. That's what a gift is. It is a gift. It comes in the
orbit of grace. It is a charisma. It is a grace endowment. And whenever we think grace,
we think sovereign, undeserved, freely bestowed favor from God. And so Peter, thinking of the
believers there in Asia Minor, writes with this assumption,
according as each has received a gift. Each has received in
an undeserved, sovereignly bestowed manner, some capacity that can
be employed in the service of the people of God. Now is Peter
referring to those supernatural endowments of gifts such as are
listed in 1 Corinthians 12, tongues, prophecy, interpretation of tongues,
they are called gifts, they are charisma, they are divine endowments
in that church at Corinth. or is he using it in the broader
sense of any endowment whether the endowment was initially implanted
in our mother's wombs as a natural capacity cultivated and acquired
by diligence in our days or years of maturity Peter is thinking
of a gift in terms of any capacity, however acquired, as it is now
the blood-bought possession of Jesus Christ and has known the
infusion of the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. so that when
the Spirit of God regenerates a man and he is united to Christ
by faith, is given the spirit of adoption, the indwelling of
the Holy Spirit in the life of that believer takes every endowment
that he has that can be used for the service of the people
of God and constitutes that a gift for service. Listen to the helpful layman's
descriptions of what precisely this gift is that Peter assumes
is present in all of these believers. Edmund Clowney in his commentary
writes, every gift given to us in creation has been now touched
by the spirit in our re-creation. Every gift given to us in our
creation has been, in the case of God's people, touched by the
Spirit in our re-creation and is therefore to be used for the
benefit of our brethren. Hebert, in this context, quote,
a gift is any capacity or endowment that can be used for the benefit
of the church. Or John Lilly, Whatever in fact
one possesses of a faculty for doing good and edifying the church,
that may properly be called his gift. Now some would debate that. And I would answer by saying
there is nothing in the context here to indicate that any of
these supernatural gifts or sign gifts as they are sometimes called
was present in any of those churches in Asia Minor. There's no reference
to any of them. The gift of apostleship is mentioned,
but there is no mention of those gifts that are mentioned in the
list in 1 Corinthians 12 and in 1 Corinthians 14. Furthermore, when we take the
formal list of gifts, Romans chapter 12, 1 Corinthians 12
and into 14, and Ephesians chapter 4, none of the lists are the
same. None of the lists include everything mentioned in the other
list. And God wants us to cull these and come to the conclusion
there is no exhaustive list of all of the gifts that are present
in the people of God in any one place at any one time. and therefore to feel at home
with Peter's language as one of the elders or someone with
a gift of public reading is reading this epistle for remember that's
how it would first come to the gatherings of God's people they
didn't run down to the local store where you could get a Xerox
copy for five cents and then appear on Sunday morning or have
an overhead projector and say here's the letter from the apostle
let's all look at it and we'll comment upon it As the epistle
would be read, the end of all things is at hand, all of you
be of a sound mind, all of you be sober unto prayer, above all
things being fervent in your love among yourselves, using
hospitality one to another, according as each has received a gift.
Sitting there, you would have every right to say, wait a minute,
the apostle is assuming that each of us has received a gift.
And unless the language and the analogy of scripture drives us
to another conclusion, we are forced to acknowledge that when
this directive for mutual service is given, it is given with this
foundational assumption that there is no ungifted member in
the various assemblies to whom this letter was sent. As then, so now. in the blessed
dynamics of new covenant salvation, when one is made by God's grace
a living member of Jesus Christ, baptized into Christ, becomes
a part of the body of Christ, God puts no paralyzed, lifeless,
dead members into his body. all the members incorporated
into the body are living members drawing life from Christ their
head as that life courses through the body in the person and ministry
of the indwelling Holy Spirit and therefore in that crucial
parallel passage on gifts Paul can write as he does in Ephesians
4.16 from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together
through that which every joint supplies, according to the working
in due measure of each several part, makes the increase of the
body unto the building up of itself in love. Verse 7 of the same chapter,
but unto each one of us was the grace given according to the
measure of the gift of Christ. And here you have again, charis
and charisma in the original. So that we cannot think of gifts
apart from grace, but the grace that has won us, act us down
and brought us in penitence and faith to God through Christ.
The grace that has caused the Spirit of God to take up His
room and home in us so that we become living members of Jesus
Christ. That grace has imparted a charisma
or more than one gift to all who are part of the body. there
is the foundational assumption now then come with me in the
second place to look at the heart of this directive from the foundational
assumption according as each has received a gift here's now
the heart of the directive ministering it among yourselves ministering
it among yourselves the word rendered ministering is a simple
present participle of the common word in the New Testament for
serving. It doesn't mean ministering in
the sense that, well, he's a minister. He has an office and a particular
and high-profile function in the church. No, it's not used
that way. The work of ministering in that sense is called a ministry,
particularly in several key passages in 2 Corinthians, but it's the
general word for serving. In Mark 10.45 Jesus said, the
Son of Man came not to be, here's our word, ministered unto, not
to be served, but to serve, to minister, and to give his life
a ransom for many. Most of you know the well-known
story about Mary and Martha. And what was Martha's complaint? In Luke 10, 40, Martha complained
to the Lord, saying, My sister has left me, here's our word,
to serve alone. My sister has left all the serving
to me. I've got to put the plates on,
and I've got to bring out the main course and the appetizers,
and I've got to clean off... My sister has left the serving
to me. And the essence of its meaning
is any helpful service freely rendered to another. It comes
to be used as the very technical word for the service of a deacon
in 1 Timothy 3.13. They that serve well as deacons,
there's our verb, but it has this more general use. Now think
of it in this context. Peter writes, assuming that all
of the members have at least a gift, some may have many gifts,
and in the heart of his directive he says, what do you do with
that gift? You are to minister it, you are to use it as a vehicle
of service among yourselves. You see the focus here is not
those gifts that may be used primarily in the multiplication
of the church, but it's speaking of the church in its ministry
to itself. That's the focus in this particular
context. And he says the heart of this
directive, though it is not an imperative, it's just a present
participle, Yet in the setting in which it comes, it has the
weight of an imperative. Some of the grammarians call
it an imperatival participle. They give it fancy names. And
Peter is saying, this is what you do with that gift, that divine
endowment, that capacity for service. And it's brought forward
in the original. It is an into or among yourselves. serving with that gift in other words as we are unable
to identify our gift or gifts we are to think of that gift
or gifts never as a pedestal on which we stand to parade ourselves
but think of it in terms of the Lord Jesus in John 13 who wrapped
himself with a towel, took a basin, and washed the disciples' feet.
Every gift is a call to the towel and to the basin. Never, never
the wood and the nails and the saw and the hammer to make a
pedestal on which to parade yourself, to draw attention to yourself.
To give yourself some sense of identity by displaying your gift,
no. Peter says, as each has received
a gift, serving, ministering it among yourselves. Every gift is a call to the towel
and to the basin. That's what it is. the towel
in the basin, in the midst of the family of God, whatever gift,
however it has come, whether it began to be given in the womb,
whether it was supernaturally imparted at our conversion or
subsequent to our conversion, whatever the gift may be, it
is an eloquent and an unending call to the towel. and to the
basin, ministering it, serving with it among yourselves. At the most practical level,
this means that when I look about me in the assembly as a long-time
member or perhaps someone who's just been attending regularly,
beginning to get an idea of who we are, what we stand for, who
these people are, we must not think in terms of the common
mindset. What has this church got to offer
to me, almighty me? We ought rather to be asking,
what have I got to contribute to God's people? Now you won't
often find me quoting former President John Kennedy, but there's
one thing he said that's worthy of being quoted. Ask not what
your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your
country. Peter's writing, he predated
Kennedy. Think not, do not be concerned
what the church can do for you, but be concerned what can you
do given God's gifts to you in order to benefit the church.
Ministering it among yourselves. That's the heart of the directive.
Now we've looked at the foundational assumption, according as each
has received a good. The heart of the directive, ministering
it among yourselves. Now thirdly, note the governing
perspective. As we seek by the grace of God
to discern soberly what our gift or gifts are, Romans 12 in verse
3, and as by the grace of God we stand with a disposition of
readiness to have our gift be a call to the towel and to the
basin, prepared to minister it, to serve with it among the people
of God, what is to be the governing perspective? Look at the text.
As as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. That's to be the
governing perspective, as good stewards of the manifold grace
of God. We are to minister or serve in
the personal consciousness of our identity as stewards and
with a godly ambition to be reckoned by God as good stewards. So we are to have a conscious
identity. With this gift, I am now a steward. And with this
gift, desiring to use it as the occasion of towel and basin service
to my brothers and sisters, I want this to be my goal, that my God
will account me a good steward. So it has to do with our consciousness
of our identity, and holy ambition to have the commendation of God.
Now then, that leads to several questions. What in the world
is a steward? The only thing I know about a
steward is I saw in a movie or a television program someone
who keeps people happy on a cruise ship and he's called a steward.
And they used to call female stewards on airplanes, stewardesses. Now they're called flight attendants
because that's gender neutral. That didn't happen by accident,
folks. You won't see the word stewardess used in any of the
official literature of any of the airlines now. They are flight
attendants. Why? It's gender neutral. I never
thought of that. Well, you think about it and
you start listening and looking and you'll find right through
our whole society there's a concerted effort to get everything gender
neutral. that's just a little aside I
had to get it out of my system when studying the word steward
what was a steward? well in the New Testament a steward
was one to whom property or money was entrusted to be administered
according to the owner's will and often the one to whom property
or money was entrusted would be a slave so a steward then
is someone who receives a trust from the master either in the
form of money, goods, oversight of an enterprise and he is to
administer the money he is to administer the sphere of his
responsibility not according to his own whims or his own ambitions
but according to the revealed will of the master or the owner
let's look at just a couple of passages that make this clear
in Luke chapter 12 Luke chapter 12 Here our word is found, verses
42 and 43. Back up to verse 41. And Peter
said, Lord, do you speak this parable unto us, or even unto
all? And the Lord said, Who then is
the faithful and wise steward whom his Lord shall set over
his household to give them their portion of food in due season?
Now you see what the picture of a steward is here? Someone
charged to manage a household and to dispense food according
to the previous directions of the master of the house. In verse
43, that person is called the servant or the slave. Blessed
is that servant or slave whom his lord when he comes shall
find so doing. So you see all of those ideas
are wrapped up in this one short compass. What is the steward?
The steward is one who has goods and responsibility entrusted
to him. In this instance, that steward
happened to be a house slave. Luke 16, 1-3, in the parable
of the unjust steward. Speaking of our Lord, and he
said also unto the disciples, there was a certain rich man
who had a steward. And the same was accused unto
him that he was wasting his goods. Whose goods? The master's goods.
He had a stewardship entrusted, but he was not a good steward. He was wasting the capital entrusted
to him by his master. This is why in passages such
as Matthew 25 and the parable of the talents in Luke 19, a
similar parable, that you have not the word steward, but the
whole framework of stewardship, but you have bond slave or servant,
because often the steward was a slave or a house servant. Now, I've taken the time to try
to demonstrate from the scriptures the significance of the concept
of stewards. because it's not one that is
readily available in our own 20th century American social
life. You've got to put yourself back in the mindset of biblical
times so when Peter writes and says to these people All of you
have a divine endowment. According as each, hath a gift. Here is the heart of my directive,
ministering it among yourselves, the towel and the basin, posture
for the good of your brethren, but do it with the consciousness
that you are stewards. This gift has been an entrustment
from your God. It has been given not for you
to use as you please, not for you to abuse, not for you to
neglect, but to use it for the purposes that I, your Master,
have outlined for you in my own expressed will, as stewards,
and that good stewards of the manifold grace of God. So having
asked and answered the question, in New Testament times, what
was a steward? It leads to the second question,
what would constitute a man, a woman, a good steward? Well, the scripture answers that
in very simple language in 1 Corinthians chapter 4. In a section rich in wonderful
teaching on the nature and blessings, responsibilities, trials of the
Christian ministry, Paul writes, let a man so account of us as
ministers, servants, there's our word, servants of Christ,
now notice, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Paul said,
I want you to think of us who minister the word of God to you
in terms of what we really are. On the one hand, we are servants
of Christ, and on the other hand, we are stewards of the mysteries. The revealed secrets of God,
now openly displayed in the gospel, have been entrusted to us in
the capacity of stewards. Let a man so account of us in
terms of what we really are, servants of Christ, stewards
of the mysteries of God. Now look at verse 2. Here, moreover,
in our common experience, which the Corinthians would have well
known, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. Trustworthy. What is required
of a steward is not to demonstrate that he's more clever than his
master. He's not to demonstrate that he's more clever than the
steward who's operating out of a man's house down the block. No, he is to be faithful to the
trust he has received as a steward. Whatever's been put in his hands
and however the master says it's to be dispensed, it is required
of stewards that they be faithful. carry out the will of the owner
or the master, so as to fulfill the purpose for which the stewardship
was given. You see, it's the opposite of
being an unprofitable steward, an unfaithful steward, or an
unwise steward. Listen to the very perceptive
words of John Brown, addressing this question, what constitutes
someone a good steward? He who neglects the gift that
is in him is an unprofitable steward. The master gives a deposit. It's neglected. He is an unprofitable
servant. Like the man who took the talent
and hid it. The master comes back and says,
look, at least you should have put it in the bank and I'd get a
little interest. You are a wicked and an unprofitable servant. He who converts his gift into
a means of gaining selfish objects, the gratification of his own
private taste, or the purposes and interest of his own ambition,
instead of devoting it to the edification of his brethren,
he is an unfaithful steward. He who neglects it, unprofitable.
He who converts it into a means of gaining selfish, self-centered,
self-serving ends, unfaithful steward. He who instead of cultivating
and exercising his own gift, attempts to exercise a gift he
has not received, and in this way occupy a field for which
he's not fitted, and others are more fitted to occupy. He is
an unwise steward, and I might say he becomes a pain in the
neck steward. always concerned that the rest of the world won't
recognize that his stewardship is over here. When anyone in
any discernment agrees that that's not the field for which God has
suited him to function as a steward. So what is a good steward? Well,
it's the opposite, you see, of the unprofitable steward who
buries his gift and does not ply and use the gift among the
body of Christ for their profit. The unfaithful steward is the
one who uses his gift to his own self-centered ends. And the
unwise steward is the one who attempts to exercise a gift he
has not received. So when Peter writes to these
people and is about to encourage them or is in the midst of encouraging
them in spite of the sufferings, in spite of the opposition, he
does not give a call to a lessened commitment to healthy vigorous
churchmanship. He gives a call to an augmented
and an intensified churchmanship in the midst of the sufferings.
This very directive is bounded on the one hand in verses 1 to
5 with a constant reminder of 1 to 6 of the suffering they
were experiencing and then in verse 12 he says it's going to
get hotter and the opposition is going to get worse. What do
we do in the midst of it? Run from the church? No. We tighten
our ranks. We circle the wagons and we commit
ourselves afresh to minister one to another. as each hath
received a gift, the foundational assumption, the heart of the
directive, ministering it among yourselves, the governing perspective,
as good stewards, but then notice the final qualifying phrase,
as good stewards of what? Good stewards of the manifold
grace of God. We've asked and answered the
question, what is a steward? We've asked the question and
answered it, what constitutes a good steward? The third question
is, how is the stewardship of our gifts described? As to its
origin, it is a manifestation of the manifold grace of God. The word manifold means many-sided. In secular Greek, in the first
century, it's the word you would use to describe something that
had many colors. It is the manifold, the many-sided,
the many-colored. Now notice he comes back to grace
again. Grace of God. As good stewards,
in the exercise of your gift or gifts, you are to recognize
that that gift is a manifestation of the many-sided, the many-colored,
the full spectrum of the colors of God's grace. His grace has
perceived the need for those gifts within the body of God's
people. His grace has conferred them,
some from the womb, some in the period of maturation, some supernaturally
with an endowment of the Spirit, but whatever they be, in whatever
way they function, they are all subsumed under the grace of God. The many colored, the multi-faceted
grace of God. God's grace is like the white
light that passing through the prism of that assembly breaks
out into the full spectrum of the beautiful colors in that
white beam of light. And Peter says, this is how you
are to view the various gifts and those in their giftedness
among you as you serve them and they serve you. Everywhere you
turn and see another facet of a gift, you're to say, that's
a gift of grace. The manifold, the many faceted,
the many sided grace of God. So then the governing perspective
which is to accompany the exercise of our gift or gifts is good
stewards of the manifold grace of God. Each of us bears a solemn
responsibility before God to discern his gift or gifts of
grace and to distribute the master's goods to the other members of
the master's household. with a passionate desire that
in the last day he will reckon us as good stewards of his manifold
grace. Now then, Peter moves on, and
this is our fourth and final heading, to two specific examples So often the biblical writers
state a principle and then they descend from what we would call
the divinely inspired theoretical to the divinely inspired practical,
the delineation of specifics. So now Peter is going to be specific
and he writes in verse 11, if any man speaks and if you have
a translation that is a good translation and has the word
speaking and ministering it'll be in italics there's no repetition
of the verb either as a finite verb or a participle literally
if any man speaks as it were oracles of God if any man ministers
or serves as of the strength which God supplies Here we have
two specific examples of gifts, if any man or anyone speaks,
if anyone serves. Now then we have a problem, how
are we to understand these things? Well some say, well what Peter
is doing is, he is summarizing the primary gifts that are necessary
in the two offices in the church. and what he is doing is he's
focusing in upon those who have gifts and graces that warrant
their being given an official ministry of teaching and preaching
in New Testament times perhaps prophesying and Peter is saying
those who have the gift of speaking a gift recognized by the church
and therefore it is an official speaking they should do this
as oracles of God serving is a summary statement of that other
office, deacons who serve and they are to do it this way. So
that is the more narrow understanding of Peter's use of these two terms,
if any speaks, if any serves. And there are some very trustworthy,
reliable, reputable commentators who take that position. Among
them, Calvin, and John Brown. I don't differ with Calvin and
John Brown without good and compelling reasons, but there are many other
commentators, among them Hebert and Lenski and Grudem of a modern
commentator, who take a broader understanding and they say, no,
what Peter is doing is he is ranging all the possible gifts
of service within the church under two major headings, speaking
gifts and serving gifts. So, whoever you are, as you discern
your gift of grace, and you're committed to wrap the towel and
take the basin and serve the people of God, if it is a speaking
gift, it ought to be exercised this way. If it is a serving
gift, it ought to be exercised this way. Now I am presently
inclined to believe the broader understanding is the right one
and that for several reasons. Peter is in a very short time
going to speak directly to elders and he makes no question that
that's what he's doing. Chapter 5 verse 1, the elders
therefore among you I exhort. So he's going to address these
office bearers and he leaves no question. Furthermore the
terminology used, if any man speak This word can be used of
a tongue speaker, a prophet who speaks, 1 Corinthians 14, but
it is a general word for speaking and it has no inherent technical
significance and furthermore, the broader understanding includes
the narrower. If my arms can encompass this
pulpit, they certainly can encompass this microphone. So if we take
the broader understanding, it includes the narrower. So in
the light of those reasons, I'm going to expound the text, believing
that Peter is not giving specific directions to office bearers
who speak and office bearers who serve, but he is ranging
the full gamut of gifts within the church under these two broad
headings, speaking gifts and serving gifts. Now, what does
he say with regard to speaking gifts? If those who have any
speaking gift, see themselves as stewards and they long to
be good stewards of this aspect of God's grace shown to them
in that speaking gift. What is to regulate the exercise
of that gift? Look at the text. If any speaks
as it were oracles of God, literally sayings of God. Now this is technical
terminology in passages such as Acts 7.38 and Romans 3.2 for
the Old Testament scriptures. To them the Jews were committed
the oracles, the sayings of God. It was a term that would have
been used in the heathen society from which many of these people
were converted. Their idols and the prophets
of these idols would speak of the oracle, the sayings of their
gods. It is my understanding with my
present life that what Peter is saying is simply this. Any
of you in any situation who are to exercise a speaking gift among
yourselves, do so conscious that you are to speak the sayings
of God. In other words, you do not minister
one to another to edification, giving your own perverted notions,
giving your own distorted views of reality in so far as you speak
according to the word of God you speak unto the edification
of your brothers and sisters. Isaiah 8.20 to the law to the
testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there
is no light in them or no dawning for them. I think two examples
of this clear examples in the New Testament would be 1st Thessalonians
4.18 Some of the brethren in Thessalonica were ignorant of
what happened to their dead loved ones and fellow believers and
what would happen, not what happened to them when they died, but what
would happen to them when Christ came again. And Paul writes to
enlarge their understanding, to correct misunderstanding and
says, this we say unto you by the word of the Lord. We don't
want you to be ignorant concerning those that have fallen asleep.
The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with
the voice of the archangel, the trump of God. The dead in Christ
shall rise first. We who are alive and remain unto
the coming of the Lord shall be caught up together with them
to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the
Lord. Wherefore, Wherefore, comfort
one another with what? With these words. You leave the
assembly. The first Lord's Day, the letter
was read. and one of your friends who was
troubled about this whole matter and wondering where would their
departed loved ones who died in Christ be if Christ were to
come again the next day when this letter is read you nudge
him and say brother did you hear that and his face lights up but
a week later he's forgotten And he comes and says, you know,
I'm troubled about my Aunt Jessie who died three weeks ago. He said, look, don't you remember?
Here are the words that were given to us by the Apostle. And
though he might not be giving a verbatim repetition of those
words, he's taking the oracle of God and speaking as of that
oracle consistent with God's revealed sayings. And he is comforting
and exhorting and strengthening the faith of his brethren. Colossians
3.17, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom
speaking and admonishing one another, and even letting the
word of Christ that dwells in us richly, the sayings of God,
the word of Christ, coming out in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, Peter is saying to these people, whatever speaking gift
you may have, make sure that in the exercising of it, you
represent the mind of God in the content of what you speak
and the seriousness and the weight of the Word of God in the manner
in which you speak. No one ever spoke the literal,
direct oracles of God trying to make everybody be persuaded
he was a clown. Or to have a slot on the late
night show or show up at Dave Letterman's and make people laugh.
That's why clowning is out of place in this pulpit. This is
a place for the oracles of God. And when you're comforting a
brother or sister, when you're exhorting, when you're seeking
to encourage, there is a place for innocent clowning. But when
you're exercising a gift of utterance, see the difference? Being friends
means that we have deep friendships that can stand both the strain
and welcome the pressure of innocent jesting with one another. It's
a manifestation of a solid friendship. when you're not nervous about
every word you've got to say to someone. But that's not exercising
your gift. He is saying in the exercise
of a gift, a speaking gift, speaking as oracles of God. And then with
serving gifts, notice what he says, strange, we would think
it'd be perhaps something else. And those who exercise serving
gifts as of the strength which God is supplying. And most of
the commentators point out that this word for supplying is a
fascinating word. It originally meant someone securing
a choir for a stage production and then securing the choir they
had to provide for them and eventually it merged into the first century
Greek language in secular literature to speak of a supply that was
lavish. If you can afford to put on a
big production at the Met, you can afford to spread out a nice
food for the chorus. And that's the word he uses,
as of the strength which God freely and lavishly is supplying. So when you are serving, you
are to think the strength to serve. as a steward of God, the
disposition to serve, and to maintain the disposition to serve,
and the ability in terms of dispensing of energy, and of stuff, and
of money, and of goods, whatever it is, he said, when serving
among yourselves, constantly remember the words of Christ
without me. You can be nothing. Abide in
me. Herein is my Father glorified
that you bear much fruit. Any gift of service, be it caring
for the sick, visiting the sick and needy, babysitting for couples
so they can have a romantic evening as some of you did. I want to
commend you. I never heard of anything like that before. I'm
thankful you saw. You maybe didn't put it in that
category. But here was a gift some of you had, to watch someone
else's kids. Ah, but did you do it saying,
Lord Jesus, help us to do this in a way that will bring optimum
glory to you, joy to these couples that we're relieving and giving
a night out together. That's what Peter's talking about.
There is no service so menial, so obscure, but what the one
who serves needs to serve as of the strength which God supplies. You see, and that all leads,
we can't get into it this morning, but you see how it's all tied
together? And he says that in all things God may be glorified
through Jesus Christ. You do it out of a sense of self-sufficiency,
out of a sense of self-strength, and all the praise will go to
yourself. But when you do it as of the strength which God
supplies, and someone says, you know, we really appreciate the
fact that you watched our kids and we could have a romantic
hour. It's not hard for you to say, Bless God that he put that
in my heart. Bless God that he's helped me
to do something. And God is glorified when what
we do in the service of Christ is consciously derived from the
grace and strength of Christ. Then all the glory flows back
to Christ. And in all things, God is glorified
through Jesus Christ. And at that point, I'm ready
to break out in the doxology like Peter was. Whose is the
glory forever and ever? Amen. You see what he's saying? This
is why I'm persuaded according to my present life, though I'm
ready to be persuaded otherwise, that Peter when he writes in
this heading of these two specific areas is speaking generically
of speaking gifts and of serving gifts. And in highlighting these
two broad categories, the speaking and the serving, and underscoring
the ideas of the oracles of God, out of the strength which God
supplies, do you see the pervasive God-centeredness that Peter gives
to this whole issue of the charisma? When He touches on the gifts,
they are gifts of grace. When He's giving directives for
their exercise, in their origin they come from God's free grace. In their exercise, the speaking
gifts are to be based upon and shaped by the inspired Word of
God. In our serving it's to be empowered
by the strength of God. There is a pervasive God-centeredness
in the most practical instruction concerning this matter of the
mutual service we render in the exercise of our gifts. And that
leads me to my final question with which I close this morning.
Why could Peter assume that in approaching the whole subject
of each having received a gift, ministering it among yourselves
as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Why could he assume
that this God-centered perspective would take root and percolate
down into the very fibers of that congregation? Well, I'll
tell you why. It's because of what he knew
was true of these people as clearly expounded in the previous chapters.
He knew he was writing to a group of people who had been begotten
again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. A people whom he describes in
chapter 1 in verse 22, who have purified their souls and their
obedience to the truth unto unfamed love of the brethren, having
been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by
the word of God that lives and abides forever. He was convinced
they were exactly what he describes at the end of chapter 2, for
you were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the
shepherd and bishop of your souls. He can give this God-centered
perspective because he was convinced that the gospel produced a God-centered
group of hell-deserving sinners who now loved and trusted Jesus
Christ. That's why He didn't have to
go into a lengthy dissertation and say, by the way, I want to
begin to introduce to you the notion that the church and its
service and ministry has something to do with God. Go to the average
evangelical church and you wouldn't get that notion in ten months.
It's your felt needs and we exist to meet your needs. Tell us what
your needs are. And God doesn't enter the picture.
For Peter, God not only entered the picture, He dominated it.
He dominated it. Why? Because they were converted.
And my friend, if God isn't the dominant reality in the picture
of your life, it's because you're unconverted. It's because you're
still a strange sheep. who's gone astray from the God
who made you that you might know him and have fellowship with
him and glorify him and in a proper sense of the word have a sanctified
obsession with God as he's revealed in Jesus Christ and you see coming
to a passage like this you say well where's the gospel in here
this passage will never be here without the gospel Peter knew
this would resonate in the hearts of those people because of all
the things they had experienced in Jesus Christ. And if they
don't resonate in your heart, my friend, let me use the occasion
of opening up this passage once again to issue that general,
sincere, well-meant call to repent and to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Turn from your self-centered
way. Throw yourself upon the mercy
of God in Christ. and then you will know what it
is to eagerly receive and joyfully welcome practical instructions
as to how you can live a God-centered life to the praise of God in
the fellowship and in the ministry of his church. Let us pray. Our Father, how we thank you
again for your holy word We thank you that it is a lamp to our
feet and a light to our path and we pray that you would help
us by your grace to understand and to appropriate and by your
Spirit's enablement to obey these directives given by your Spirit
through the pen of the Apostle that we as a people will more
and more know what it is to exercise our God-given gifts as stewards
who long to be reckoned in the last day as good stewards. We plead with you, our Father,
to bless your truth to our hearts and we plead as well that you
would deal in mercy with those who are utterly indifferent to
this portion of your word because they are indifferent to you.
Be gracious to them, Father, and will you not yet so lay hold
of them that they would understand and rejoice in the very things
that have gladdened the hearts of your people today. Dismiss
us with your blessing. Continue with us throughout this
day that we may honor you and that you will continue to minister
to our hearts. We ask in Jesus name.