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This is day four together of our look through 1st Peter chapter four. Yesterday
we began a look at suffering being short term and that our short time on this
earth is a motivation for serving others. And Peter walks through a few things
that we can do in serving others.

First he says you do it by praying. Now in verses eight to eleven, well in verse
eight he begins very broadly by saying above all love each other deeply because
love covers over a multitude of sins. You serve others by loving others.

You can't serve others truly without loving others. Love each other. He says
deeply, deeply.

That word has behind it the idea of stretching itself out. The idea of keeping
itself constantly on the edge. Love is something that has to continue in life.

And so the idea here of this deep kind of love is it's not a sprint. It's more
of a marathon. It's a consistent, it's a continuing kind of love.

It's always stretching, always reaching towards the goal, but it's running the
marathon of life. And then this wonderful phrase, love covers over a multitude
of sins. That's true in your life.

Jesus' love covers your sins. But as you think about the way that you serve
others, it's also true in our relationships towards others. Our love through
Christ covers over a multitude of other sins.

If you're going to serve in a church for any length of time, like over a month
or two, if you're going to be in a family for any length of time, like over a
day or two, you're going to find out that the people in your family and the
people in your church are all sinners just like you are. So if you're going to
serve together, if you're going to love together, you need to recognize the
power of love to cover over a multitude of sins. We're not here to judge each
other.

We are here to serve with each other. And in serving with each other, we have
the opportunity to see Jesus' forgiveness in every one of our lives. To love
each other deeply is to recognize this need.

And then Peter immediately says, "Okay, if you've got this kind of love, what
does it do? Let's get practical. " Immediately he says in verse 9, "Offer
hospitality to one another without grumbling.

" I love the honesty of scriptures. Offer hospitality, but then immediately
without grumbling, by the way. It is so easy to have a grumbling spirit when
you're offering hospitality.

They ate too much. They didn't eat enough. They talked too much.

They didn't say anything. They stayed too long. They stayed way too long.

They didn't even say thank you. It's so easy when you're offering hospitality to
imperfect people to notice how imperfect they are and to feel like my
hospitality was wasted. It was not.

Imperfect people like you and me need hospitality. Hospitality of serving people
food, hospitality of bringing people into your home, hospitality of offering
people kindness, hospitality of being there for them in their days of hurt,
hospitality of being there with them in their days of joy. Offer people
hospitality.

So the prayer here is, "Lord, give me a grateful spirit instead of a grumbling
spirit. Give me a grateful spirit for all that you've done in my life instead of
a grumbling spirit. Grateful for what you've done and that I can share it with
other people.

" And then he says, here's another practical way to love one another deeply.
Exercise your gifts. Verses 10 and 11, he says, "Each one of you should use
whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's
grace in its various forms.

If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If
anyone serves, he should do it with the strength that God provides so that in
all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the
power for ever and ever, amen.

" These few verses are one of the four great passages about spiritual gifts in
the entire New Testament. 1 Corinthians 12 has a lot to say about spiritual
gifts. You can also read in Romans 12 about spiritual gifts or in Ephesians 4
about spiritual gifts.

I like this passage because it's just a few verses. It condenses it down and you
see very quickly three simple life altering truths about the gifts that God
gives you as a follower of Christ. Truth one, you have received a gift.

You belong in the game. You belong serving. You are to do what you are best at
and one thing that we're all best at is the thing that we are gifted, we are
designed to do.

In the end, he says here, that is what brings honor and glory to God forever and
ever and ever. Everyone has a gift in the body of Christ. No one has all the
gifts so we all need each other in the body of Christ.

He talks very simple terms here about two divisions of gifts. He talks about
speaking gifts and serving gifts. If you speak, if you serve, he says, maybe
you're not even sure about which of those two you have.

I mean, in 1 Corinthians 12, you can read a list of several gifts and look
through that list and think, well, I don't know what you want to have. Here we
only have two divisions and you may still be unsure about which of them you
have. How do you be sure about what you're gifted in?

You start serving. That's how you be sure. That's how you find out what you're
good at.

You never find out what sport you're good at unless you played the sport. But
somehow with spiritual gifts, we get this crazy idea, I'm going to sit in a
chair, I'm going to pray about it, I'm going to figure out what I'm good at. The
only way to figure out what you're good at when it comes to serving other people
is to serve them in those ways.

And if it doesn't work, if you're not good at it, then move to something else.
Because you're obviously not gifted in that, you're gifted to do something else.
You are gifted.

And if you tried to serve in one way and it didn't work and you have allowed
that failure to keep you from serving maybe for months, maybe for years, serve
in a different way. Find the way that God has gifted you to serve. You are to
use that gift to serve others.

God didn't give you that gift to serve yourself. You're using that gift to serve
others. For all of us, we serve our way into significance.

We don't strive our way into significance. We serve our way into significance.
And to use your gift just for yourself, that's going to create constant doubt in
your life.

Is God really blessing me? What's God doing in my life? When you begin to use
that gift God's given you to serve others, that creates growing confidence in
your life because that's how he meant the gift to be used.

I've always said life is like a game of volleyball. As long as you're serving
you'll never lose. You just keep serving.

But recognize that to use your gifts, to keep serving, you're going to have to
face your doubts because you're not perfect, I'm not perfect, we're going to
have some wins and some losses. Sometimes it's going to go well, there's a
learning curve with our gifts. And when you face doubts when it comes to your
gifts, there are two great temptations during a season of self-doubt.

First the temptation to become an imitator. You think, well I've got to maybe
have her gifts or his gifts because it seems to be working for them but it's not
for me. You want to escape self-doubt in your life?

Start being you. The best recipe I can give you for doubting yourself the rest
of your life is try to be somebody else the rest of your life. Of course you
should doubt yourself then because you're not supposed to be that person, you're
supposed to be you.

So one of the things that can happen is you become an imitator. The other thing
that can happen is you become a spectator. Because you've had a failure, a
struggle, you start to believe that others can do a much better job.

So you withdraw into the stands, you get off of the field and maybe people look
at you and they say, oh isn't she humble? Isn't he humble? He never pushes
himself forward, she never pushes herself forward.

But you know the truth, you're afraid, you've had a failure, you don't want to
face it again. You know the truth, you look at your life and you see the
struggles even with sin in your life and you think, I don't have the right to be
on the field so I'll just watch. Well we all struggle with sin, we all need the
forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

But God has a place for you. Don't be a spectator, don't be an imitator. Notice
the phrase here, he says, when we use these gifts we are administering God's
grace.

That's an awesome phrase. Administering God's grace in its various forms. By
using God's gifts, you're helping people to picture God's grace and if you don't
use the gift that God has given you, somebody's missing out on a picture of
God's grace they need.

When you serve with the gifts that God has given you, you're expressing God's
grace to a hurting world. Third truth about you and these gifts and that is as
you serve others with the gift that God has given, God is glorified. We often
say here at Saddleback, every member is a minister and that we use our shape,
our spiritual gifts, our heart, abilities, personality, experiences, S-H-A-P-E.

We use our shape to serve God. You use your shape to do what God has called you
to do and then it all gets done. But what gets done is not just what happens
here on this earth.

As we use our gifts to serve God on this earth, Peter says here, that has an
impact on eternity. Through the church we are serving, we're using our gift and
through that the church is shown to be the body of Christ in this world and God
is glorified not just in this world but forever. He says forever and ever.

He wants us to not miss the point that when you use your gifts it shows God's
grace to a hurting world and it echoes God's grace. It expresses God's grace
into all eternity. That's the power of you using your gift, you serving with
your gift.

And so Jesus now as you pray, we pray that instead of being afraid, being filled
with self-doubt, you'd help us to have faith, to trust that you did give us a
gift, you have given us a gift and you do want us to serve. If we haven't found
it yet, help us to keep serving until we recognize where you want us to serve.
If we have found it, help us to be faithful in the place you've called us to
serve and remind us now Lord what that means.

Don't forget to see your grace. Eternity will echo with glory to you. Remind us
of what that means.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Tomorrow we're going to talk together about what
it means for suffering to be shared.