Alright, the lesson this morning
is in 1 Peter chapter 4. We've been going verse by verse
through Peter's first epistle. Today we'll be looking at verses
8 through 10. And the subject of these verses
is being good stewards of the manifold grace of God. We've
been looking at Peter's teaching, or more to the point, the Holy
Ghost teaching. We often refer to the apostles,
and they are the writers of this. And it's OK to refer to them
as their writings, because we're built upon the foundation of
the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief
cornerstone. But it's also true to say that
what these men wrote the Holy Ghost inspired them to write. And so, it's right to say that
the Holy Ghost teaches us these things. And what He's been teaching
us here in these verses is the character and attitude of the
believer. Now, the believer's attitude
and character is drawn from three sources. Three sources. First, it's drawn from the Word
of God. In John's first epistle, he wrote
about such things, he said, as he had seen with his eyes, heard
with his ears, and his hands had handled. He had a first-hand
experience and knew personally the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
said, I'm writing these things to you. I'm writing this. He
said, I've seen the word of life and declare unto you those things
that we've seen and heard. And he says, I'm doing this that
we might have fellowship, that you might have fellowship with
me, that you might come to know him. that we might have some share
in these things, that we might know the same things. He said,
that's why I'm writing these things to you. And so we draw
from the sources, and the first source is the word of God. We
draw from that. He said, I write these things
unto you that your joy may be full. You can't have joy apart
from some understanding of the Word of God. I mean, we have
people in our day that jump up and down on TV. I see them in
there behind rails and things and jumping up and down and clapping
their hands and acting like they're just full of joy, singing about
joy, but they don't know God. And what John says is, I'm writing
some things to you that you might know Him, that we might have
some fellowship, and in having that fellowship, that your joy
might be full. You'd be full of some true joy,
divine joy. So the Word of God is our rule
for faith and practice. And then secondly, believers
draw from the preaching of the Gospel. I read this Bible all
my young life. And I didn't draw anything from
it except fear. Just fear. I saw in there things
that were supposed to do, things that were commanded to do, but
had no ability to do them. And I never really got anything
out of it except fear. Fear. And ignorance. It exposes
your ignorance. You go in here and you read these
things and you don't understand what in the world he's talking
about. And you don't want to appear like an idiot, like the
house idiot, so you go along with it. And you act like you
understand it, but you don't really understand it. And that's
religion. That's the way it is. But we
draw from the preaching of the gospel. In the gospel, we We
see where mercy and truth meets together on that cross. We begin
to understand something of the purpose of God, something of
the Savior that God has provided for us, something of God's everlasting
love and mercy and grace. We begin to learn those things,
and we learn those things through the preaching of the gospel.
And through the preaching of the gospel, we begin to understand
that that's the message of the Word. That's why this book is
recorded. It records God's testimony that
He's given unto us eternal life, and this life's in His Son. And
that's the sum and substance of this book. We learn these
things. We learn about mercy and truth
and justice and righteousness and mercy and grace and the very
love of God manifested in our great Redeemer and Mediator.
And then to prove that, we draw from this. Listen to this scripture.
And now he's going to talk about the husband. We're talking about
the character of the believer. And here's the character of the
believer in relationship with his wife. So how am I going to
describe that to him? How am I going to convey that
to him? What a believer's character ought
to be. Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church and
gave himself to her. You see what I'm saying? We draw
from the gospel, and that's what forms this character. And it's
this gospel as it's recorded in the book of God. It's not
some man's opinion or some man's doctrine, but it's actually the
message of God. And it's the message of this
book. Paul mentioned over in Ephesians 4 several evil practices
carried out by ungodly men who walk in the vanity of their minds
and being alienated from God through the darkness that's in
them and so on. And then he says in Ephesians
4.20, but ye have not so learned Christ. How did they learn Christ? Through the gospel. Through the
gospel. It is the gospel of Christ. And
he said, if so be that you've heard him and been taught by
him as the truth is in him. Men and women are not born with
an innate knowledge of God or of Christ. We have to be taught. You know, back in John 6, there's
not a more basic passage of Scripture anywhere in the Bible than John
chapter 6. And he was talking to them about that manna. And
he said, I'm the manna. I'm the bread. which God has
sent down from heaven. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. I come down from heaven not to
do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. This is
the will of him that sent me, that all which he hath given
me I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last
day. And boy, those Jews heard that, and they began to murmur.
And he said, don't murmur. Don't murmur. No man can come
to me, that coming to me that I just declared to you, no man
can come to me except my Father draw him. As it is written, now
listen, they shall all be taught of God. They're going to be taught
of God. How does God teach a man? Through
the preaching of the gospel. You can't find any other source
in here. He teaches you through the preaching
of the gospel. So we draw our character and
attitude from the Word of God and from the preaching of the
gospel, and thirdly, from our experience of grace. That's the
third source of this knowledge. Turn back a few pages with me
to 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 1. That is, being born of God, being
brought to this knowledge of Christ, being drawn, being taught
of God, coming to Christ, being born again. Wherefore, laying
aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies,
and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk
of the word that you may grow thereby. Now watch this. If so
be. that you've tasted that the Lord
is gracious. If so be, you've experienced
this new birth. If so be, you've experienced
the grace of God. The grace of God that bring us
salvation, he wrote in the scriptures, teaches us, teaches us to be
sober, teaches us to be godly. It teaches us this grace of God. And then he says some other things
there in 1 Peter 2, and then down in verse 7, he said, unto
you therefore which believe, He is precious. He is precious. This experience of grace teaches
us that Christ is precious. That's what it does. It teaches
us the precious. There's just one Savior. Just
one mediator between God and me and the man Christ Jesus. Other foundation can no man lay
than that which is laid. He's precious. He's all precious. And that's what Peter said, so
be you tasted of this preciousness. Believers are men and women born
of God. And that which is in them is
not a remodeling of the old man or a reformation of the old man. It's a new creation. And believers
draw from this experience. Now, I want you to listen to
me for just a second. We're talking about experiences
here, and I'm not talking about something you experienced 40
years ago. You may very well have experienced
it. I'm not trying to challenge your
experience. I'm simply saying, if you have
to go back 40 years to draw on this experience, it ain't the
experience I'm talking about. You ought to be able to draw
from it right now, right here this morning. And if you can't,
what happened 40 years ago ain't going to amount to much. What
happened last week ain't going to amount to much. I'm talking about an ongoing
experience of grace that will continue with you until you die
and die. And the believer's attitude and
conduct draws from the Word of God. It draws from the preaching
of the Gospel. And it draws from an experiential
knowledge of God in Christ. Alright, now let's look at the
lesson here for today. 1 Peter 4, verse 8. Above all things, have fervent
charity among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude
of sins. Now I told this congregation
one time, I gave you the definition of charity. Does anybody recall
what I said? Charity is love in motion. It's active love. There is no
other kind of love. That's why he substitutes the
name charity for love. But there's a little difference
in the term. And charity means active love. It means love in motion. It means
love practiced. It means love manifested. God commended His love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's charity. That's charity. When we were yet without strength
and due time, Christ died for the ungodly. That's charity.
And charity, Paul said, suffereth long. My soul, you think, You think
of God's long-suffering toward you, toward me. Love suffereth
long. It suffers long. Love is kind. You know, I might just eat a
stranger alive, but somebody I love is kind. Love is kind. Love envieth not. vaunteth not
itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh
not her own, and is not easily provoked, and it thinks no evil. It rejoiceth not in iniquity,
but true love, true charity rejoiceth in the truth, and it bears all
things, and believes all things, and hopes all things, and endures
all things. And charity never faileth. It
can't. It can't fail. Charity never
faileth. And he said, now abideth faith,
hope, and charity, but the greatest of these. What do we emphasize
the most? Faith, don't we? You read these
epistles, and you'll find something different. What they major on
in here is charity above one another. Huh? Love one another. Isn't that what he says here
in this passage? Now listen, above all things. What's that mean? That means
the top of the list. The top of the list. Above all
things. He said, have fervent charity
among yourselves. Four, now here's the reason.
Charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Now wait a minute. I thought the blood of Christ
covered my sins. That's what Scripture teaches
isn't it? I thought the blood of Christ,
I thought Christ bore my sins in His own body on the tree and
by that one sacrifice He put my sins away forever. He did. But atonement for sin is not
what Peter's talking about here. He's talking about criticism
of others. You hear what Winston did last
week? Love covers that. He's talking about the criticism
of others, fault finding, exposing our weaknesses and failures and
shortcomings. Is that how you talk about your
own children? You find everything in the world that they do wrong,
and then when you get in a company, a bunch of companies, you start,
you ask my daughter, let me tell you about her. And you start,
no, that ain't how you talk about your daughter. Uh-uh. Now, love covereth. It hides. It hides. Brethren as believers, you and
I are sinners being saved, being saved by the grace of God. We're sinners. The sooner we
come to accept that and submit to that, the better off we're
going to be. We're sinners. I went to sleep last night a
sinner. I woke up this morning a sinner. My hope is that I'm
being saved from my sins by the grace of God. But He'll watch. If I confess my sins to Him,
He'll forgive me my sins. He's faithful just to forgive
me my sins and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. But I'm
a sinner. And I tell you, the more I learn
in the Word of God and the more I learn about the Gospel, the
greater sinner I see myself to be. You think, and religion promotes
it as the opposite. They say we're getting better
and better. Paul got worse and worse. And our lives, whether we know
it or not, is plagued with sins. Sins of pride and jealousy and
envy and covetousness, evil imagination, and a thousand lusts of the flesh.
And that's not to mention our unfaithfulness to God. That's not to mention our indifference
sometimes to the Scriptures. And that's not to mention our
apathy concerning the worship when we gather here to worship.
Peter's not talking here about our attitude toward the world,
but toward other believers. And he speaks of this charity
covering, now listen, the multitude of sins. He's talking about believers,
Winston. He's not talking about a few
slips. He says the multitude of sins
it's going to cover. My friend, you and I are sinners.
That's what we are. And our hope is to be saved by
the grace of God. Our sins have been taken into
account, charged our substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, who bore
our sins in His own body on the tree. He put away our sins, and
one day I'll be raised incorruptible and sin no more. But till that
day, I'm a sinner. You know, in Romans 7, that's
what Paul deals with all the way through that chapter. He's
talking about two eyes. That which I would not, that's
what I do. He had two eyes. He had an old
man and a new man. And the new man, wouldn't do
this. The old man wouldn't do anything else. He gets through
there and he said, I find then a law, a principle, something
fixed, something I can't do anything about. He said, I find then a
law in my members when I would do good, evil's present with
me. With me. You know what he said
right after that? Oh, wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this dead? I thank God through my Lord Jesus
Christ. So then, with the mind, I serve
the law of Christ. Huh? We walk with the mind of
Christ. We walk being saved by grace,
looking forward to that day when we'll be raised from that old
box in the earth, incorruptible. Or maybe he'll come back before
we ever go in the box and just call us up to be with him in
the air. Either way, we'd be incorruptible. We'd be changed. And this mortal's going to put
on immortality. But right now, I'm a sinner being
saved by grace. And John said, if we say we had
no sin, we deceive ourselves. And if we say we have not sinned,
we make God a liar. But if we confess our sins, That's
the route to go. Now listen to me. This is a,
when you delve into these things, you delve into these arguments
and things and this teaching, the natural man will run with
it. He'll grab it like a bass does a bass bait and he'll take
off with it as fast as he can go. He'll go this way and he'll
go that way. Now, we're sinners. We're sinners. We need to accept that. We need
to learn to live with that. We know where forgiveness is
and who it's with and how to obtain it. We know those things.
But we're sinners being saved by grace. He doesn't tell us
here to encourage men to sin. And He doesn't tell us here to
justify their sins. He just simply tells us not to
make their sins the object of our conversation. Charity covers
the multitude of sins. Verse 9, back in 1 Peter chapter
4. Use hospitality one to another
without grudging. Generosity and hospitality are
marks of grace. Grace says, come on in. I got
some smelly socks on the floor. You got me by surprise. I got
some damp towels on the floor in the bathroom. Come on in.
Come on in. Have you eaten? Let me fix you
something to eat. That's what grace says. Grace
says, come in. Come on in. These are evidences of the work
of God in the heart. We're to be generous, hospitable,
not only to other believers, but to all men. If the opportunity
comes our way to help the poor or feed the hungry or donate
some clothes to somebody who's had a fire or experienced a flood, be ready to do that. Don't hold
back. Be ready to do that. And he says, do it willingly
and cheerfully with a good spirit, not grudgingly. Well, I'm a believer, I guess
I have to. No. No. That's not how it's done. Willingly. Come on in. Come on in. All right, verse 10. Just without
grudging means without reluctance. I'm going to do it, but I don't
want to. It means without regret. Boy, I wish I hadn't invited
him in. Without regret, it means without
uneasiness. All right, verse 10, back to
1 Peter chapter 4. As every man hath received the
gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards
of the manifold grace of God. Now let's talk about the gift.
He didn't say as you've received the gifts. I mean a bunch of
gifts, various gifts. The gift. The gift. What gift? I believe he's talking about
the gift of God's grace. Now, you can put grace up here
at the top of the page if you take a note, and then you can
put all these other things down under it. Because if you receive
this grace up here, all these other things belong to you. So what gifts do I have? I know I have the gift, but what
gifts has the gift brought to me? Do you have some knowledge? It was the gift of God. It was
given to you. You thought you discovered it,
didn't you? You thought, well, I'm just smarter than everybody
else. I can see this and they can't. No. If you got it, you
know where you got it. You got it from God. It's the
gift of God. Do you have some income? How
come? How come? It's the gift of God. You got some food in your house.
I remember moving down here, and my wife and I don't live
week to week. We try to buy things by the month.
And so I have a freezer. And we buy stuff and try to get
it on sale and get enough for the month and put it in the freezer.
And then I've got a small garden and we raise some things and
when we can, we freeze it, put it in the freezer. And then you
just go get it out of the freezer and fix it. And I'll never forget
Walter opening up that freezer and he said, wow, we won't have
to pay you for a month. You got some food in your house?
Where'd you get it? Huh? God give it to you. God give it to you. Now, I know
you work for what you have, but somebody gave you the willingness
to work. Huh? Somebody opened that door
of providence for you to get that job. Huh? Where'd that work come from?
How come you're doing this and there's so many over here who
wouldn't work in a pie factory? How come you do? It's the gift
of God. Believers especially, they know
that everything they have is the gift of God. It's given unto
you, he said, to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but unto
them it's not given. That's why they're all murmuring
over there in the corner. That's why they won't receive
it. That's why they talk bad about you. That's why they're
trying to trap me in my conversation. It's not given to them. It's
given to you. He said, I hath not seen nor
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of mankind the
things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God
hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. By grace are you saved through
faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of
works that any man should boast. There's nothing that we have
in nature or grace that's not the gift of God. Nothing. And as we're recipients of the
grace of God, we become stewards of this grace. And we're to share
it as God gives us opportunity. Peter uses a word here that's
not used very often in the scripture. He uses this word manifold. We're stewards of the manifold
grace of God. That's an unusual term. We don't
use that much today. The very same word is translated
over in Hebrews chapter 1, divers. The very same word. Manifold
and diapers. And then it's used in other places
in other terms. But the word means various or
many-sided. This jewel of God's grace, if
you can imagine God's grace as a diamond. You know, you take
an old diamond and you dig it up out of the ground, it doesn't
look like much. But somebody with the with the
talent, somebody with the gift can take that old rock and he
can shape that thing and he puts what's called facets, he puts
these sides to that diamond. And man, that thing, you can
put that thing in the light and it just, no matter how you turn
it, it just glistens. That's the grace of God. It's
many faceted. That's what Peter is telling
us here. We're stewards of the many-sided, the many-faceted
grace of God. These facets, intelligence, talent,
money, caring attitude, we're to use these gifts as God gives
them and share them for His glory and for the good of others. And
we're to use these things for the furtherance of His kingdom.
All right, let's move into the last thing that he teaches us
here. We're stewards. Steward. Anybody here go on a ship anywhere? You got stewards on there, don't
you? It's his job. It's been given to him by that
shipping line. He's been appointed as the one
who distributes the gifts of the company. He distributes these
gifts to the passengers. Everybody's on the vessel. Everybody
that belongs there and has a right to be there, their steward will
come along and he'll bring you anything you need. Whatever you
need, he's there to provide it. He'll knock on your door. You
need information, he'll tell you where to go. You need something
to eat, he'll go get it. You want some coffee in the morning,
he'll bring it to you. He's a steward. He's a steward.
That's his job. We're stewards of the manifold
grace of God. Now, we get on an airplane ride,
and sometimes these women come around and wait on you. They're
called stewardesses. It means the same thing. It means the same thing. They're
there to serve you. That's their job. And that's
what we are, and that's our job. We're stewards of the manifold
grace of God. It's to minister such things
to others as we've been called to give. And as far as I can tell in the
Scriptures, there's only one requirement for a steward. In
1 Corinthians 4, verse 2, it gives us the requirement. It
is required of stewards that a man be found faithful. Faithful to do his job, and faithful
to do it in the character required by station. If we're stewards,
it requires a certain character. The believer has that character.
God give it to him. And he's given him these gifts,
and he dispenses them. And he dispenses them in that
character.