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Introduction
Thank you, Jesse. Turn to 1 Peter; we’re going to look at a passage this morning related to the series we’re briefly walking through—short as it is—looking at places where the Scriptures tell us where to find God’s grace. This week, as I meditate on these things each week, it strikes me as odd. It’s like trying to tell toddlers where their socks are. They never know where they are, and as soon as you go into the bedroom, they’re right there. Or like trying to tell your husband where the leftover chicken is. “It’s right there!” “I can’t find it.” “It’s right there. I put it in there, I marked it, it’s on the shelf, it’s right behind the milk.” “Yeah, I looked behind the milk.” Then you go in, look behind the milk, and there it is. “Oh, okay, I didn’t see it”.
How broken are we that we have to be reminded again that God’s grace is everywhere? You can’t not see it. Our eyes are God’s grace; the creative world is God’s grace. But specifically, the way that God, in determinative ways, has not left us without knowing where He can be found—where His grace can be experienced. He’s told us that in various places so that He’s not trying to play hide-and-seek. When we live in our world and we go, “Where is God? Where is His grace? How do I know where He is?”—well, He tells us.
We’ve looked at a number of those:
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Prayer: The connectivity of prayer is a tangible interaction.
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The Scriptures: His tangible, living, and breathing words—the Bible—says to us every day.
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Worship: This experience we’re doing now collectively; God is present, and He’s even more present in this moment, in a sense, than when you have private worship.
It’s like when I met Lamar Jackson, the quarterback for the Ravens. I didn’t know I was meeting him. I just saw these two guys come into the Apple Store where I was getting my phone fixed. The guy working on my stuff said, “Oh, that’s Lamar Jackson.” I went over to meet him and I said, “Mr. Jackson, I’m just grateful to meet you, thank you for all you’re doing and hanging in there.” We took a picture. As exciting as that was—it was a great, private moment—it’s way different than when I watch them on television or when I’m at the stadium with everybody else.
Worship is a place where God says, “I can be found there.” He also tells us in the Supper, He’s there. Today, we’re going to look at another place where He says, “I’m found there; you can find my grace there.” The stuff we’re going to look at coming forward is a little different than the stuff we’ve looked at in the past. The stuff we’ve looked at previously are kind of the things that flow in our direction—where God tells us grace can be found in the experience coming towards you. The word of God coming at me, prayer coming at me (it’s my experience), worship is sort of “I’m here and I’m receiving,” and the Supper, I receive and it comes at me. Now we’re going to look at some stuff where God says, “Not only do you find grace when it comes at you, you can find my grace in the stuff that goes away from you.” That’s important stuff.
1 Peter 4:7-11
Look, if you will, at 1 Peter 4, verses 7 and 8:
“The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful servants of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength 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”.
This is God’s word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever. Let’s pray.
Father, thank you for your goodness to us and thank you that your grace can be found and experienced—that we trip upon it day by day. Lord, you give us regular conduits, regular avenues, concrete places where you tell us that you can be found and that your grace can be experienced, enjoyed, and will lead to our nurture and love. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
The Importance of Balance
When I go to the gym, I don’t like to go after 3:00, and I don’t like to go on Saturdays. It’s more crowded, but it isn’t really the crowd I’m worried about; it’s the people. All of the really “good” exercisers go then. The body types are all different then, and I just get real jealous of the men and the body types that I see. It’s all an internal struggle, but when I do go, the thing that gets me is there are patterns. People let you see a part of themselves that they don’t realize they’re letting you see. I see who likes each other, where friendships flourish, and I know, “Oh goodness, so-and-so is here, I’m never going to get a chance to work on that piece of equipment because he’s always on it”.
One thing I notice is that hardly any of the men are working on the leg stuff. These big guys come in—massive shoulders rolling, arms rippling, chest bulging—and tiny little legs. Fine, I still covet everything they have that I don’t have, but it proves you can work on a lot of different things and you can get built up and have that sense of vitality from any piece of equipment in there. Every piece of equipment. But if you don’t use every piece the right way, you’re going to look funny. It’s going to be out of balance. It might be functional, but it’s not beautiful in the way that we want it to be beautiful. When we have contests where we exalt the body, it’s about balance.
My dad had a potassium deficiency a bunch of years ago. The doctor said, “I need you to up your potassium, but I don’t want to do pills yet. Let’s try to change your diet.” My dad is kind of a meat-and-potatoes type guy. He said, “What do I have to do?” Well, everybody knows: eat some bananas. My dad doesn’t like bananas. He asked about potatoes, corn, or rice. Well, yeah, they have potassium, but you’d have to eat a thousand cobs of corn to get the potassium you need out of one banana. One banana provides you with the nutrient you need.
These conduits of grace that God gives us—these means of grace—are different venues. The kind of grace that He wants to give you that you can get out of Bible reading versus, in this passage, serving others—He says you can get God’s grace from both. But how much Bible reading do I have to do to get the same grace I get out of one act of service? It’s like potassium: one banana versus a thousand Bible verses. Yes, there’s grace; yes, that’s valuable and vital. But we have to be balanced in our diet, balanced in our exercises. You’ve got to work the legs sometimes. You can’t just look good coming at me; you want to look good going away from me.
Grace in Giving Away
There’s beauty in the whole process, and that’s why God gives us not just the stuff when it’s “coming at me” grace, but the stuff where it’s “going away from me” grace. This is the grace God says comes in the “going away from you.”
Verse 10 is the central verse I want to focus on here: “Each one of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms”. Do you see the beauty of that verse? God has given you a gift. The very word “gifts” is the same word He uses elsewhere for “grace.” God gives you grace, and that grace—that gift, that ability, that skill, that natural affinity, that sense of joy that you get out of serving—now give it away. You don’t get the grace until you give it away.
A year ago, my daughter moved into their house. My daughter and son-in-law love plants; my son-in-law even does a part-time job as a plant servicer in businesses and knows a ton about them. They love to fill their home with plants. This was their first spring, and she’s out there growing some peonies. We were down there not too long ago and we saw the sprouts of the peonies coming up and she’s like, “Look at them, they’re growing!” It was fantastic. Then, like two days later, I see her post on her Instagram a vase of peonies on her table. I made fun of her later: “You just grew them, and now you’ve killed them!”.
But not really. Because the very essence of what we know through planting and nurturing is that plants grow to be harvested. In the harvesting is where the nurture occurs. Otherwise, they just go to seed; otherwise, they just die in that state. A plant—especially vegetables and flowers—blooms in order to be harvested, and then new growth occurs in the harvesting. If you let your tomatoes go and you never harvest them, it’s going to be bad for the plant. The harvesting, the giving it away, the serving, the providing life for the next person, the next opportunity—that’s what we are.
Our lives? God made us to be harvested. That’s what redemption is about—getting back to the Garden of Eden, back to how it all was supposed to be. He made us to be givers and harvesters. “Take dominion and now go live. I’ve given you life, now let the life come out of you and keep the life going.” Service. He gives us gifts when He redeems His children. He gives His children abilities, opportunities, and skills to serve others as faithful stewards of God’s grace. So, not only is He giving you grace, but He wants you to be the steward of His grace—the giver-away of His grace.
Ponds vs. Rivers
We are not ponds in the hands of God; we are rivers. Do you know the difference between a pond and a river? One is where algae grows, where stagnation occurs, where spoiling happens, where flies and mosquitoes harvest. A river runs fresh, rambling, providing life all along its path. That’s the life that God wants to give His children. We aren’t just supposed to be a dead end of the waters. In a pond, all the water runs down into it and then it sits there and does nothing. It’s beautiful in and of itself, but ultimately if it sits there long enough, it’s going to spoil. God gives us His grace in order to be given away, and in the giving away is where the life occurs. Where the wonder happens. Where the beauty manifests. That’s what He made us to become. He gives us these means as a conduit of His grace, but in order to turn us into conduits of grace.
You can’t experience His grace in these ways until you’ve flowed out, until it’s been flowing out of you. And here’s the wonderful joy of it: He says He’s given us each gifts. What kinds of gifts? We don’t have time to talk about all the kinds of gifts He’s given His kids—all kinds of stuff. When we give gifts to my grandchildren, we don’t give them the same gifts. If I gave Jack a ream of construction paper, glue, and markers, he would not have a clue what to do with that; he wouldn’t care. If I give it to my younger one, Liam, he would spend hours making cards and little punch-out hearts. They’re different people; they’re made differently and wired in a different fashion. That’s why he says, “in the various ways, serve,” so that you become the ambassador, the manifestor of God’s grace in its various forms. It takes everybody to give away God’s grace because everybody doesn’t have the same.
Word Gifts and Deed Gifts
Then He says in verse 11: “If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God.” Peter goes into two large categories of gifts: speaking gifts (word gifts) and serving gifts (doing gifts, or deed gifts). Speech gifts and serving gifts. We can’t get into all the details under those, but for the sake of example, since I’m the center of attention at this moment, what category do you imagine my gifts fall into? You don’t need to know me long before you realize I generally fall into one category: the speech ones, the word ones. Not all the time, not everywhere, but yeah, that’s what I do. And so, God says, “Give it away.” And I do. Sometimes that’s too much, and then sometimes it’s not enough, but when I do it—I can talk, I can preach, I can tell you—I’m a steward of God’s grace. When you serve, when you do the thing that God’s gifted you to do, it’s like you’re giving God away. You become a mini-transporter of God to the people in those lives. You’re giving away God’s strength through serving, or you’re giving away God’s words through speech. What a great job! What an amazing thing you get to do! I think that every Sunday.
The key is: what is your thing? Being a steward of God’s grace doesn’t just mean you say “spiritual” things or that you do “churchy” God things. Every tree that grows leaves and produces the fruit that God’s given them doesn’t have a Bible verse on every leaf, right? They’re just green. And that’s glorifying to God. That’s beautiful in God’s economy. So, everything you and I speak and everything that you and I do—the way we serve—doesn’t have to have a Bible verse or have a religious purpose to it. It can simply be “green” in His world, because we need green. God needs more color. He needs more brushstrokes on the canvas. He needs more love injected into the atmosphere. He needs more grace in motion. He needs more beauty and expression, regardless of what the service is, because He’s trying to overcome hunger, He’s trying to overcome fear, He’s trying to overcome anxiety, racism, and hatred. Yes, that’s why at the beginning of the chapter He says, “Hey, be hospitable. Don’t grumble about it either. Love!” Let your love out in speech, let your love out in service, because when you do that, it’s covering the mess. It’s covering the sin. It’s overcoming the struggle that our world is in.
Finding the “Light”
How do you know whether you’re a word person or a service person? Well, the predominant way you know is when the “light” comes on. You can tell I’m a word person because when I speak, the light goes on. But there are also people who the light doesn’t go on when they speak. “Don’t tell me to say anything; I don’t have to be up front as long as I don’t have to talk about it.” Yeah! But those people love projects, they love serving, giving, demonstrating, active involvement.
Years and years ago when we first started the church, we were renting in various places. When you rent a place, you have to turn it into the place you want for worship and then you have to “un-turn” it to get back to the place it was. Some of the things we had to do to convert it were hanging things, moving things, changing chairs, putting out songbooks. It can be a lot of work to start a church. What we did was have small groups, and each small group would take a month of doing those “menial” tasks so that everyone else could welcome, care, love, and relate to each other. Genius, right?.
Until one Sunday, a gentleman came up to me—about the third Sunday of the month—and he said, “I’ve got to stop. Take me off the list.” I normally try to be curious. “What’s going on? How you feeling? You traveling?” It wasn’t that he wanted off the list for now; it was off the list. He said, “I’m so frustrated. All I do is this work and everybody else is standing around doing nothing!” I said, “That’s kind of the point,” but I got where he was feeling. He wasn’t grumbling, really—I mean, his human heart needs redemption as much as anybody else’s—but what he was telling me was, “I’m not shining.” Not about the center of attention, but the light’s not going on for me in these “duty” things. He was a word guy. He loved to talk and share, and if I’d asked him to do any of those, he probably would have. But he was discovering, “I don’t find the shine; I don’t find the light coming on; I don’t find the grace when I serve in that capacity”.
But in the other, you do. Now, that doesn’t mean you get to pick and choose. I’m a word guy, but I’m setting up chairs and breaking down chairs. I’m not naturally a prayer person—prayer is also another word gift—but I work on it and I grow in that aspect. But there are others of you who prayer is like this beautiful moment and the light is on and you are energized by more prayer. Others love mercy work—caring for the people who are in the most difficult shape. It takes a lot of effort to be there. God’s telling us that He’s given us these gifts to find and then to use, and in the using, we get Him more. We get to experience Him in a greater fashion. Not by simply doing nothing, because to simply do nothing, we get stagnant, we rot, we get into an “algae” situation. But when we become the ambassadors of His various grace flowing through us to the rest of the world, we manifest Him to the glory and power of His name.
Conclusion
What Peter is describing is only what Jesus told him. Jesus said this, and Paul referenced it: “Let your attitude be the same as that of Jesus Christ, who being in the very nature of God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, made himself a servant of all, sacrificed all”. Even here in verse 1 of Peter’s chapter: “Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin”—meaning that our attitude is the same as that of Jesus. What we’re reflecting in our serving is me bearing the brunt for you. Me lifting the load for you. Me giving of my abilities and sacrificing what I have for you. That is the shift in the human heart that occurs. Because until Jesus comes in, I live my life with the mentality of “What do you have that can aid me? What position, what options, what can you provide for my benefit?” I go through life looking and networking to find the best place to climb up on your stuff to get higher on the ladder for my own ability. But when Jesus comes in and tells me I can get to the top of the ladder—I can have His favor, be free from my own sin, have His righteousness, have a relationship with Him—now I don’t have to use you, I can simply give.
Now it’s “What do I have that can benefit you?” That’s what service is. And the grace is graceful—it’s a means of grace—because it’s the very nature of what Jesus was about. He gave up everything of Himself for you and me. The cross is the very symbol of service, of sacrifice, of “full of grace and truth.” Jesus came speaking words of truth—the very words of God—and healing the sick with the strength of God. We become the “little Christs” as He gives us the gift of His grace to change the world through the power of the cross.
It doesn’t happen instantaneously. When you go to the gym, you don’t immediately come home that next day or that afternoon and go, “Yeah, look at that!” You don’t see it for weeks. I had a trainer say once, “Don’t look on the internet and don’t look in the mirror for a month.” She knew you can’t make visual fitness changes until you give it time. The same thing is for us. We step into this direction, but it sometimes takes a little energy, a little work. You’ve got to start small. Start with something regular, start with something that fits your “light coming on,” your brightness pattern. Maybe you need to experiment with some of that; maybe you haven’t found that place where God provides you with grace through service. Experiment, explore. There’s plenty of place to do that around the church, plenty of ways to do that in life. Only when you do will you ever be able to experience the immensity of the infusion of God’s love for you—that He would let you take part in this massive work.
Tyler, for several short months of his life, loved cutting the grass with me. He was five. He got to push the lower bar of the lawnmower while I pushed the bigger bar. His face lit up because he was cutting the lawn. My face lit up because my son was cutting the lawn with me. That’s you and Jesus when you serve—not just the first time, but every single time. Because He’s giving you the grace; it is His strength that’s pushing the mower. You’re holding onto the middle bar, and your face is glorious, and He is glorious in that transaction with you.
Let’s pray.
Thank you, Father. Thank you that you love to serve us, but you love when we serve you because it’s with you. We’re serving with you, not just for you. Our service doesn’t earn us anything; it’s simply a way to give away what we’ve received, because there’s no need to hoard it. I pray that you would work in our hearts to trust that and to step towards that trust by activity. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.