1 Peter: Blessed Assurance (Enduring Hardship)

But be sure, get your Bibles, 1 Peter chapter 4.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

And while you're turning there, when you sit down, you may have seen a little card.

Looks much like this right there in your seat.

Here coming up in just a couple of weeks.

It is hard to believe, but we already have At the Movies coming up here at Real Life Church.

We love At the Movies.

Yeah, we we have some people excited.

At the Movies is an amazing time.

And so you may be wondering, what on earth is this thing of at the movies?

Well, at the movies is an opportunity for us to take a movie from today and use it as a modern day parable.

And Jesus spoke all through the Bible in the way of parables, which are stories.

And so what we do is we take some of those movies and we start to pull them apart and put scripture and kingdom principles to those movies.

So be sure, take those cards with you.

You can give these out to friends.

It's a great opportunity to invite somebody to church that maybe wouldn't come on a normal basis.

And they're going to hear the gospel.

It's going to be an amazing time as we get into at the movies in just a couple of weeks.

And this is not the last time you'll hear tons about it over the next several weeks.

All right.

So we're going to be in 1 Peter chapter 4.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

And if you were with us the past several weeks, we've been walking through very kind of systematically and strategically through the book of 1 Peter.

And if you were with us last week, you may be wondering, okay, why are we skipping a portion of the passage?

Well, Pastor Brandon next week is going to come back and he's going to fill those holes in because this is actually one of my all-time favorite passages in the Bible.

But we're going to fill that in.

So we're going to jump to 1 Peter chapter 4, and we are going to do our absolute best this morning to cover a full chapter.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

Now you may be wondering, Pastor Chris, covering 22 or so verses, how is this going to happen in 45 minutes?

Might not, but that's okay.

Let's jump into God's word.

All right, God's word says, so then, since Christ suffered pain, uh, excuse me, physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had and be ready to suffer too.

For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin.

You won't spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God.

You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy, their immorality and lust, their fasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols.

Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of the wild and destructive things they do, so they slander you.

But remember that they will have to face God, who stands ready to judge everyone, both the living and the dead.

That is why the good news was preached to those who are now dead.

So although they were destined to die like all people, they now live forever with God in the Spirit.

The end of the world is coming soon.

Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers.

Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sin.

Cheerfully share your home with those in need of a meal and a place to say.

God has given each of you a gift of his great variety of spiritual gifts.

Use them well to serve one another.

Do you have the gift of speaking?

Then speak as though God Himself were speaking through you.

Do you have the gift of helping others?

Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies.

Then everything you do will bring glory to God though through Jesus Christ.

All glory and power to him forever and ever.

Amen.

Dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through as if something strange were happening to you.

Instead, be very glad, for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all of the world.

If you are insulted because you bear the name of Christ, you will be blessed, for the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you.

If you suffer, however, it must not be for more murder, stealing, making trouble, or prying into other people's affairs.

But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian.

Praise God for the privilege of being called by his name.

For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin with God's household.

And if judgment begins with us, what terrible fate awaits those who have never obeyed God's good news?

And also, if the righteous are barely saved, what will happen to the godless sinners?

So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right and trust your lives to the Lord who created you, for he will never fail.

Let's pray.

Our Father God, again, we thank you.

We thank you for this place that we can come and worship you freely.

God, I ask that as you're in this place already and you're already speaking, that you will take any distraction that there could be, any selfish ambition that there could be, strip it away, and may all glory be given to you.

God, we love you, and we're so thankful for all that you're doing in your holy and powerful name of Jesus Christ.

Amen and amen.

So as we've been walking through the first uh the book of First Peter, we actually have kind of walked through the way that Peter is unpacking in our lives what it means to be a Christian, right?

So we started on that outer circle.

It started with the government, and then we got into our work life.

And then now we're sticking in that daily life.

We're getting a little bit closer and closer to that center.

And so we we hear about all these different things going on.

Okay, but what does this mean for us?

How do we live this out?

This this circle's getting smaller and smaller as we go.

And so if you've missed any of these previous sermons, uh it is very important to go back, listen to them.

They're on our podcast, they're on our YouTube pages, uh, they're on Facebook, I believe.

They're all over the place because these really build upon each other.

And so we want to look at, okay, then what as a Christian uh follower, as a as a follower of Christ, what does this mean for you and I?

And so what I want to do today is just look at what an evidential life, a life of evidential, uh that's not, that's not right, a life of evidence.

There we go.

A life of evidence of our blessed assurance.

And who is our blessed assurance?

Jesus.

Okay, here's here's a note.

Um, this is a little bit like a relationship.

So a little give and take this morning, okay?

So work with me.

And if you've never been to Sunday school, that's okay.

But there's a rule in Sunday school.

If a teacher or a pastor asks you a question, you don't know the answer, just shout out Jesus.

You're gonna be right like 90% of the time, okay?

So so who is our blessed assurance?

Hey, we are batting a thousand.

Good deal.

All right, so our blessed assurance is Jesus, and so we should be living a life that is evidence of our blessed assurance in Jesus Christ.

And we get a full chapter laid out of how do we do that?

Exactly, what is that going to look like?

And so before we completely jump in, we have to understand what a simple phrase is or a simple meaning to a word, and that is suffering.

As Christians, we are going to suffer, right?

It's it's very clear through the book of 1 Peter.

Let me remind you of what's happening in the book of 1 Peter here.

Peter is writing to Christ's followers in the 60s.

That is not the 1960s, that is the 60s without anything before it.

So 60 AD, it's in that time frame.

And there's a guy by the name of Nero, and he's he's the leader and he is persecuting Christians.

And so they understand what suffering is.

So it's important for us, we gotta step into those shoes a little bit and try to understand, okay, what kind of suffering is he talking about?

Because there's a lot of different types of suffering.

So we're gonna define suffering as enduring of hardship.

Enduring of hardship.

So so whenever we look at this passage, and this passage in particular, this is how we're going to define suffering.

Enduring of hardship.

So let's dig in.

The first thing we actually see is that suffering as Christ suffered is a part of that evidence of our blessed assurance, that we're living a life that is evidential of our blessed assurance.

We must first suffer just as Christ suffered.

Let's look at this.

Verses one through six.

God's word says, So then, since Christians suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had and be ready to suffer too.

For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin.

You won't spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God.

You've had enough in the past of evil things that godless people enjoy, their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness, and wild parties and their terrible worship of idols.

Of course, your former friends are suffer uh surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of the wild and destructive things they do, so they slander you.

But remember, they will have to face God who stands ready to judge everyone, both the living and the dead.

That is why the good news was preached to those who are now dead.

So although they were destined to die like all people, they now live forever with God in spirit.

So I love how Peter actually starts into this.

Now remember, this is written by Peter through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, right?

So so God Himself is inspiring through the power of the Holy Spirit, he's inspiring Peter to write these words.

But how does he start this off?

He says, So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves.

Arm yourselves.

Now, what does that mean?

It means be ready to take not just defense, but go on the offense of when suffering happens.

You think of arming, at least I think of arming, okay, you're you're carrying a firearm, a weapon of sorts, because you're going to war.

Right?

So so here in the Christian life, we are in war.

It's implied here.

Arm yourselves with the same attitude that he had talking about Christ, and be ready to suffer too.

So not just arm yourself, but have the same attitude that Christ had.

And then on top of that, hey, be ready because it's coming.

It's not if, it's when it's going to happen.

Around here, we we say often everybody has a private battle that nobody else knows about.

Yeah, but there's a there's an end to that, but God.

Right?

God knows, and he also can overcome it.

But what's our attitude when we're stepping into that?

How do we even get to that place that the God that we allow God to have the authority in our lives to then go and overcome this thing?

Well, let's look.

How did Christ actually do this?

Well, if you look back at Matthew chapter 4, and and a few, we went through the whole book of Matthew.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

So right at the beginning, we actually talk about this passage when Jesus is actually in the wilderness and he is being tempted by the devil or the tempter, depending on what version of the Bible you're looking at.

And not only is he being tempted, but Jesus has fasted for 40 days at this point.

How many here have ever fasted before?

And it can be from anything, right?

I I have tried fasting, do a full food fast.

And let me tell you, I got to day one, and I'm like, I'm dying.

Like, what are we doing here?

Jesus is on day 40.

Remember, Jesus is fully God and fully human.

So he's feeling that same pain that we feel while he's fasting.

And I don't know if you've ever been there when you start getting a little delirious.

I miss two meals, and I'm like, what's happening in my brain?

I'm foggy, I can't move, especially if you take my coffee away.

You don't want to see me with that.

But here's Jesus, and he he would think he's feeling in that he's in that same mood, right?

Fully God, fully human.

So he's feeling that.

But what does Jesus do?

Well, the devil comes to him and he starts tempting him, tempts him three times, each one kind of getting a little bit increasing, increasing, increasing.

Well, the way Jesus combats is through the word of God.

He actually then he spits out the Old Testament passages.

That's the attitude, the action step we should be taking when we come to this idea of sin or temptation and we're fighting because what we're talking about in this passage is actually not between you and other people.

It's between you and you.

It's an inner battle.

There's it there's the tempter, the the enemy coming in, the world, the flesh of the devil.

And you're fighting this battle.

And so when we have that temptation, we should actually use the word of God to then press in and not just be on the defense, not just putting our shield up, but actually taking our sword, which we'll talk about in a second, is the Bible, the word of God, and piercing the enemy.

Because when that pierces the enemy, guess what?

He cannot stand.

That's awesome.

Like God loves us enough that he didn't just give us a shield, rather, he gave us a sword to then get in the fight and push back the darkness.

I love in in Ephesians chapter six, there is a full portion of the armor of God, right?

And and a few years ago, about three years ago, we actually walked through each portion of the armor of God.

Pastor Brandon does an amazing job.

And I don't have time to sit there and just unpack the armor of God.

We're trying to cover a chapter, okay?

And so if you want to go back, there I think it's a series of eight sermons, maybe nine sermons, you can scan this QR code.

It'll take you straight to the YouTube because it does take a minute to find it if you're trying to search for it.

Uh, but it's about three years ago, and Pastor Brandon does an amazing job of just unpacking the armor of God.

God doesn't just say, hey, you're saved, great, now figure it out.

Rather, he gives us armor, ways to combat the enemy and defense against the enemy.

And so please be sure to check that out because it's incredible.

So then Christ suffered physical pain.

You must arm yourselves in the same attitude he had, be ready to suffer too.

For if he had suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin.

Now, does this mean once we give our lives to Christ, we no longer suffer with sin?

The answer is no.

We will always be tempted, we will always be fighting sin.

But here's the thing: what God's word's saying here is not the fact that, okay, you just get to laxadaisical coast through life.

Anybody who says that, that's called the prosperity gospel.

That is not the gospel.

That is a different thing.

Uh, the gospel is pretty clear that okay, when you give your life to Christ, the enemy is gonna come attack you.

And so when you give your life to Christ, in that moment, temptation, sin, and everything else is gonna be against you.

And so we we have to press into that.

It says, you won't spend the rest of your life chasing your own desires.

So here's what happens when we give our lives to Christ and we've suffered with that sin, we've suffered with that physical pain, and and I don't know if you've ever really suffered with temptation or with sin.

Man, it can be painful.

Especially those things that are deep down inside of us, to overcome those, it's hard, at least me personally.

And so, and here's the thing the enemy knows what makes us tick, right?

He he knows the enemy's not stupid, he's not all powerful, but he's not stupid.

He knows what each person struggles with.

So here's here's the thing.

If if there were a drug dealer outside and he comes to me and says, Hey, Chris, I'll give you a good deal on some methamphetamines, that's gonna be an easy no for me, right?

That's that's not a temptation for me.

Maybe that is for you, but that's not that's not a temptation for me.

And the enemy knows that.

So, what the enemy's gonna do with me is he's gonna put this like beautiful little uh woman walking across.

That's that temptation.

I'm a man, right?

I'm walking through the process of sanctification.

And so instead of that, it's okay, no, Holy Spirit, guide me, give me the words to say, so then I can combat the enemy with your word.

That's what that fight looks like.

But that's hard, that's painful even.

But when we suffer in that way, that's what the overcoming of sin looks like.

And then when we do that, when we start walking through that process, when we give our lives to Christ and we start walking through that process of sanctification, becoming more and more like Christ, then our desire inside of our heart shifts.

Our desire no longer is our own desire, but it's that of the will of God.

We actually even see Jesus do this.

Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane and he is uh getting ready to go to the cross.

And there is a time when Jesus is just praying to God the Father, which is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

And there's a portion in there that he says, Father, if if you if if you can take this cup from me, take it.

Meaning, if you can do anything else to save all of humanity, do it.

But your will is greater than mine.

Saying, I give my life and my own desire over to God rather than my own desires selfishly.

We arm ourselves, we have the same attitude as Christ.

That's what happens inside of us is we had this sometimes slow heart change, sometimes it's a quick heart change, depending on your type of personality and how God created you and wired you.

But over time, those desires shift from our own and they go towards God.

Then in verse 3 it says, You've had enough in the past of evil things that godless people enjoyed, their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols.

I love that God's word actually just calls out for what it is, right?

Maybe that's just me, maybe that's my personality.

I'm a pretty blunt guy.

And he he says right away, hey, here's the things that you're going to look different on.

You ready?

They're their immorality, so sexual immorality and lusts, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols.

Now, sometimes we we have this idea of worship of idols as like this physical creature or thing, creation that we're actually worshiping.

It's not always that.

Uh, sometimes that's the idol of money, sometimes that's the idol of success.

Maybe that's the idol of your job or your family or whatever it may be.

Idols can look differently.

But rather, when we give our life to Christ and our our our will changes from our own and it goes towards God's, that's when that idol shifts.

Okay, that idol gets put to death, and I worship God, and so everything gets funneled through that lens rather than this lens.

Does that make sense?

So we look differently.

And I love this.

Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood and wild and destructive things they do, so they slander you.

But remember, they will have to face God, who stands ready to judge everyone, both the living and the dead.

This is why the good news was preached to those who are now dead.

So although they were destined to die like people, they now live forever.

If if we're this is the New Living Translation, the NLT version of the Bible.

It's a beautiful, beautiful translation.

But there is a portion here back in verse, I believe it's two, and it says, You won't spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you'll be anxious to do the will of God.

You will have nothing in the past of evil things, and godless people enjoy their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible idols.

But then it gets to your friends, right?

I've walked through life long enough to at least have lived a specific way, and then there's a shift that happens, right?

You you go from your desires to your will to God's will.

And what happens, there are friendships in life that may look a little different, right?

We we start walking through life and we start living a little differently, and all of a sudden our friends are thinking, okay, what's going on with this guy?

What it is about get a load of this guy kind of thing.

We have any friends, fan fans in here, like Raw said, get a load of this guy, right?

That's what that happens in friendships.

And what happens is not just get a load of this guy and then they they ghost you, right?

It's not just that, but rather it's persecution comes through through words.

Sometimes it breaks up friend groups, sometimes it goes through those different ways of living.

Can I tell you that is hard?

That's hard to step into that.

Talk about suffering yet again.

But again, let me remind you what what Luke chapter 22 says, and Jesus is actually saying in the Garden uh Gethsemane, he said he walked a stone's uh walked away about a stone's throne and knelt down and he prayed, Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.

Jesus is about to walk into the most abandonment any of us could ever understand.

He has his closest friend deny him three times.

His name is Peter, I would argue he's his closest friend, unless you ask John.

He's humble.

He thinks he's God's most loved.

But you know, there's that.

Uh but he's about to have that abandonment from Peter.

So Jesus understands what it's about to look like.

But what's he do anyway?

Jesus steps into that.

He says, I will suffer not just physically, not just emotionally, not just spiritually, but I will take it all because I love you, God, and I love your creation.

That's an amazing thing.

That's that's what we get to press into.

Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do, so they slander you.

But remember, they will have to face God, who stands ready to judge everyone, both the living and the dead.

That is why the good news was preached to them, uh, to those who are now dead.

So, although they were destined to die like all people, they now live forever in the Spirit.

So, so how do we then get to this idea and this attitude that Jesus has uh of suffering?

How do we do that?

Well, it's very clear Jesus lays it out for us.

It's faith is greater than our pride.

You want to walk out of sin?

You want to walk out of temptation, you want to be able to step into the Holy Spirit, our faith must be greater than our pride.

I would argue that that pride is actually that kind of root of all sin.

If you really look at all sin and you boil it all the way down, eventually you're gonna get down to pride.

Right?

And so when when our faith in God is greater than our own pride, that's when we can step into that.

This is how we view success as Christians.

We view success as Christians as taking a faithful step to where God has called us.

That's what success looks like.

It's not the result, it's that simple step of faith.

God's calling you to go this direction.

Take that step of faith.

He's calling over here.

Hey, you're sitting at a coffee shop.

Guys, I'm an introvert.

Sitting at a coffee shop, God's telling me, hey, I need to go talk to that person.

Like, no, uh no, not doing that.

Uh then there's this conviction that comes over.

Lord, I don't even know what to say to this guy.

I don't know this guy.

Like, what do you want me to do with this?

Just want you to go talk to him.

And then I go over and talk to him, and dude just starts spilling his whole life.

He just needs somebody to talk to.

He's just struggling.

He's lost faith for whatever month for whatever season that is.

Okay, my faith has to be greater than my own pride of not wanting to do that.

I want to be my introverted self, enjoy my good cup of coffee, Jesus' nectar, and I want to study the Bible right here.

I don't want to go talk to that guy.

Okay, Chris, I'm calling you to take a step of faith.

Okay, then take another step.

And another step.

And three steps later, you're sitting at a table with somebody and they're giving their life to Christ.

Man, what?

All because of a single step of faith right here.

That first step.

Our faith must be greater than our pride.

So then what happens?

When our faith becomes greater than our pride, what then happens?

Well, we're gonna kind of run through these first things.

We must give up the things of this world.

Very clear in verse 3 there.

Give these things of the world up.

Then we actually get to look differently.

People start to view us differently.

Our friends abandon us.

So here's the thing when we give our life to Christ and we're ready to truly surrender to Him, you better be ready.

You better be ready because these things are coming.

That's hard on our own.

We're gonna look strange.

We're looking strange right now, even in the United States of America.

People are abandoning us.

But guess what?

God's got us.

Now I do want to hit something really quick.

I have about 10 seconds I can uh cover it.

Do we get a second chance?

I was talking to a buddy of mine this past week, and he's like, hey, you know, this uh verse six is interesting.

That is why the good news was preached to those who are now dead.

So although they were destined to die like all people, they live forever with God in spirit.

So here's the thing this is not saying, Peter is not saying here that we get a second chance.

Our chance to become Christians and to be in eternity with him stands right now.

Right?

While we're on this earth, the idea of purgatory, it is not a thing.

There's nothing biblical that would align with that.

He is not, Peter is not saying that we get a second chance, that when you die, you're gonna get another opportunity to give your life to Christ.

No, no, no.

There is a give your life to Christ.

You are living.

This is the opportunity.

And so I don't have too much time to cover that.

If you would like more on that, we can schedule some time, have a great conversation.

It's a lot of fun to talk about.

But our time is now.

God, uh Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

He didn't just get put up on the cross.

I did like a three-minute, last time I preached, I did like a three-minute kind of historical evidential thing on who Jesus is.

Go check that out.

But Jesus dies, he is risen again, and he has conquered death for you and I.

All we have to do is accept all and give your life.

Neither here nor there.

Right?

So here we go.

We have a life evidential of our blessed assurance.

We suffer as Christ suffered.

The second thing we see is that we serve God and others that is exemplary of Christ.

Starting verse 7.

It says, the end of the world is coming soon.

Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers.

Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sin.

Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or place to stay.

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts.

Use them well to serve one another.

Do you have the spirit gift of speaking?

Then speak as though God Himself were speaking through you.

Do you have the gift of helping others?

Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies.

Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ, all glory and power to him forever and ever.

Amen.

I love this.

Peter says, the end of the world is coming soon.

We all know this guy, right?

This guy is falling.

The end of the world's coming.

It's today.

It happened on October something.

We just didn't realize it.

Right?

Don't be this guy.

That's not what Peter's saying here.

What is Peter actually saying?

Peter understands that some of the main things in order for the end of time to come have now happened.

Jesus enters onto the uh onto the earth.

He dies on the cross, he's resurrected, he ascends into heaven, and then the Holy Spirit comes to us at Pentecost.

Right?

That's that's a key thing to understand.

Peter is not saying the end of the world is today.

No, he understands that the end of the world is coming.

Right?

Jesus will return.

But what we do in the meantime matters.

That's why we have to arm ourselves for suffering.

Because ever since Christ ascended into heaven, and now that we have this uh the church, the body of people, God's people, now that we have that under Christ, the end of time will come.

But is it today?

I don't know.

Is it next month?

I don't know.

Will I see it?

I don't know.

Will my kids see it?

I don't know.

But here's the thing we must be ready to serve well.

We must be ready to serve well in this time.

And so what does that look like?

Number one, be ready.

If you get nothing else from today, be ready, because suffering's coming.

And be ready to serve well.

I I love 1 Peter 4 7, and this is the ESV.

So, so so verse 7 here says the end of the world is coming soon, therefore be earnest and disciplined in your prayers.

Uh, this is the ESV version.

I love that it actually points out a couple of other things.

It says, the end of all things is at hand.

Therefore, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.

Here's a key component self-controlled and sober-minded.

Be self-controlled and sober-minded.

This is the part of be ready, right?

Self-controlled here is actually talking about being able to curb your passions.

Right?

So you don't give in to your own physical passions.

Rather, you have control of those passions.

You give them over to Christ, and you say, Okay, I'm gonna live as Christ.

I'm gonna be self-controlled in this.

I'm not gonna go buy that$12 of coffee.

I'm gonna be self controlled.

I'm not gonna give over to my own lusts and desires.

I'm gonna be self controlled.

I am not going to be a workaholic because my family needs me.

I'm gonna be self controlled, sober minded.

I I love this.

This is actually not talking about alcohol right here.

This is actually talking about being.

Calm and collected in your spirit.

Right?

Being calm.

So that way, whenever any of these things come in life, hey, we're steady.

Because you know what?

Our hopes and our blessed assurance that is Jesus Christ.

And so we're we're steady.

We're good.

We're not gonna be rattled when all these things in the world keep happening, as terrible as they are.

Brother, we're gonna be solid.

Steady.

Because that's what Christ called us to be.

Be self-controlled and sober-minded.

Now, now, verse two actually talks plenty clear.

Excuse me, verse three talks plenty plenty enough.

Yeah, enough.

There we go.

Speaks enough about drunkenness, right?

Don't be drunk.

That is not self-controlled or sober-minded.

Be ready.

That's what we're called to do.

The next thing of serving well is we love one another.

God's word says, uh, most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sin.

This is actually pulled straight out of Proverbs chapter 10, verse 12.

Proverbs 10:12

And so what's happening here, this is actually not speaking of the this scripture here, is not just talking about a love for God, but it's a love of people.

So that way when we have friction with other people, we have enough relational equity because we've truly loved each other.

We have enough relational equity.

Hey, a love that we sinned against somebody.

Okay, we can step into that, and there can be healing and forgiveness because we love.

That's what God's word's saying.

So do you love one another?

Here we go.

Let's keep going.

Be genuinely hospitable.

Very clear, right?

Do you have the gift of speaking?

Then speak as though God Himself were speaking through you.

Do you have the gift of helping others?

Do it with all the stuff, strength, and energy that God supplies.

Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ.

All glory and power to him forever and ever.

Amen.

And then verse 9 says, cheerfully share your home with those who are in need of a place to stay or are hungry.

God's word is telling us, hey, extend your tables, not your fences.

Right, guys, remind you, I'm an introvert.

I'm an introvert.

This one's hard.

But what happens is we step into that discipline and that self-control of being genuinely hospitable, not doing it begrudgingly, but genuinely hospitable with the right attitude that Christ has.

When that happens, there is freedom brought about because you know what that does?

That builds community.

There's no better way to build a community than doing it over food.

Right?

We had a memorial service here uh yesterday for for Opie Simmons.

And you know what I heard nonstop about that woman?

She loves people.

You know how she showed love?

Man, she'd cook and it was great.