The following sermon is by Jim Briggs of Capitol Community Church located in Raleigh, North Carolina. Capitol Community Church is a people awakened to a holy God. If you are searching for a new church home or from out of town looking for a church to worship with, or simply seeking for answers. Please join us for worship at 9 o'clock a.m. every Sunday morning. If you have any questions, please email us at info at CapitalCommunityChurch.com. We pray this sermon will help you grow deeper in your walk with Jesus Christ. Well, good morning. It's great to see everybody here this morning on this sunny, cool Father's Day. We are, as we think about fathers, as Kenny was talking about, there's all kinds of mixed emotions. I think for many of us they are very happy ones, very positive ones. We think of Father's Day as an opportunity to get together and honor our parents or honor those that served as parents in our lives. Many may not have had a father, but they had a significant man in their life that served in that role. We see in the Bible, we see Paul who served in that role as a spiritual father for Timothy and for Titus and so to all those men We we give them honor and today what I wanted to do was really kind of think about how we as a church body how each of us Can serve no matter what your experience with a father on earth has been We have as Kenny said this good and kind and perfect heavenly father And to Him we owe honor and glory, and so I want to read a passage today and try and walk through that passage with you as we think about how we might glorify our Heavenly Father. So I'm going to read 1 Peter 4, if you'll turn to 1 Peter 4, towards the back of the book, almost to the end. 1 Peter 4. And I'm going to read verses 7 through 11 if you'll read those along with me. And then we'll come back and take a look at this great passage. The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self-controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling as each has received a gift. Use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to him belong glory and dominion. forever and ever. Amen. Well, this is written by Peter, as you see in the name of the book, Peter. It's his first letter. And Peter is writing to a group of Christians dispersed throughout all of Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey. And so he is writing to these folks that are living in a Roman province. The date is about 64 A.D. Nero is the emperor of Rome. And these Christians are beginning to feel the heat. They're beginning to feel the pressure from Nero as he persecutes, begins persecuting Christians. And Peter is writing this letter to both encourage them and also to prepare them for the trials that they're eventually going to face. And who better to write a letter to encourage those that are suffering for the sake of the gospel than Peter? The Apostle Peter understood suffering, so he had been beaten, he had been jailed, he had been punished for preaching the gospel. And in verses 1 through 6, he points out to his readers that were being maligned, perhaps worse, for turning from the debauched and wicked ways of the world. So they were turning their lives around and those they used to be friends with, those that they used to pal around with, were now maligning them. They were They were becoming very hateful towards them because of their newfound holiness. Well, as part of Jesus' inner circle of disciples, Peter was an eyewitness to Jesus' life, not just his life and ministry, but his suffering, his suffering even on a cross. And now he seeks to encourage his fellow believers. to continue in the way that Jesus has laid out for his disciples. And he explains that this, the kind of suffering they saw in Jesus, is the kind of perseverance that God demands of all followers of Christ. Now, traumatic events very often have a very significant effect on the life of a family. Traumatic events can either draw a family closer together or it can drive them apart. Misunderstandings, arguments, withdrawal from one another in the heat of suffering can have a significant impact on relationships. Well, Peter was writing to encourage these churches that are all starting to feel this suffering, this persecution, that they need to stick together and remain strong as their suffering intensified in the days to come and as the day of the Lord drew near. And through his letter, Peter reassures believers that Christ will, in fact, return. He's going to come again to judge all people and reminds them that they are living in the last days. In our text this morning, he tells them how they should relate to one another during their present suffering and in light of the future judgment. If you look at verse seven, you see that he begins with a very startling statement. The end of all things is at hand. Then he continues, therefore, therefore serves kind of as a hinge between the first statement and what he's about to say. And then he exhorts them with several verses that give specific instructions to the church. And then in verse 11b, he provides the overall purpose that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. Well, because the end of all things is at hand, Peter implores his reading, his readers rather, and us this morning to carefully consider then how to conduct ourselves. Specifically, he says to the church, the church should glorify God. And the Bible tells us in Isaiah 43, 7 that we were created for that purpose, to glorify God. But the question is, how? What does that mean? What does it mean to give glory to God? Well, in the passage this morning, Peter shares with each of us a way that we can all glorify God. But before we consider the instructions that he has this morning, I think it's probably wise to take a look at this startling introductory statement. The perspective of New Testament authors, as inspired by the Spirit of God, is that Lord Jesus Christ will return one day in glory. and he will set up his kingdom, he will judge his enemies, and he will reward his faithful. In verse 5 of chapter 4, Peter asserts that Jesus is waiting, he's ready to judge both the living and the dead. In the meantime, though, these believers were suffering great hardship. They were being ridiculed, they were even being put to death. And unbelievers were quick to point out to these Christians, hey, what's it all about? What's the point of being a Christian? You've given up all the fun things in life in exchange for persecution and hardship. To those believers waiting for the blessed hope, the appearing of our the glory of our great and Savior Jesus, God and Savior Jesus Christ. Peter wrote the end of all things is at hand. Well, that was written back in 64 A.D., so what happened? Was Peter mistaken? I mean, after all, since he wrote that statement, nothing has really happened. And many people today mock Christians, saying, how can you believe that the end is near? I mean, come on. Life continues to go on and on, just as it always has. The so-called final judgment that you talk about, it's never going to happen. Why not eat and drink and be merry? Well, according to 2 Peter, Peter's second letter, chapter 3, verses 3 through 10, what they fail to understand is that God's view of time is significantly different from our view of time. He says, with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day. any delay in the coming judgment of God is due really because God is patient, and He's merciful, and He doesn't wish that any should perish. Just because judgment is delayed doesn't mean that it's not coming. The Lord will return. There will be a final judgment. There will be an end to all of history. And Jesus said in Revelation 22 verse 12, Behold, I am coming soon. And that promise, that soonness, has hung over every generation since. Everything necessary for history to come to an end has already happened. In chapter 3, Peter explained that the Messiah has come. He's lived. He's died. He was resurrected. He's ascended to the Father and sits on a throne. He reigns over all of creation. And now He's ready and He's waiting to return to judge the living and the dead. Jesus is ready and waiting. And He can break into history at any moment. And even if he doesn't return soon, well, my end and your end is drawing closer. Each of us one day will leave this earth, and none of us is guaranteed another day. All of us could be before the Lord by tomorrow morning. Well, knowing the time of history's end, or even our own end, gives great relevance then to the question, what should we be doing? And Peter's answer is very straightforward. He says, whatever we do, we must glorify God. God's glory is the overarching principle of this passage. So what does it mean to glorify God? First, glorifying God means recognizing His supremacy, that we find Him greater and more valuable and more beautiful than any other thing. As such, we find peace and satisfaction only in Him. And after recognizing who God is and his infinite value, we must live in a way that brings him honor and demonstrates our steadfast belief in the things that we are saying. What we believe should be reflected in how we behave. John Piper writes this, he says, we glorify God when we feel, think, and act in ways that reflect his greatness, that make much of him. We glorify God when we do what we were created to do. Ephesians 2 10 says we are his workmanship. created in Jesus Christ for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So we were created to glorify Him. We were also created in Jesus Christ to do good works. What Peter has in mind here and what he's urging his church, his people, and us this morning is to display God's glory in three ways as a church. Through prayer, through love, and through service. We glorify God through prayer. As we wait for the Lord's return, the question is, how do we minister to those that are suffering as we ourselves are perhaps enduring hardship? Peter's answer, in the face of uncertainty, we must pray. God is glorified through prayer as it shows our utter dependence on Him for everything. You know, it's tempting to believe that somehow we can somehow accomplish great things for God through ministry using our own talents, our own efforts, our own energy. But Jesus says in John 15, 5, apart from me, you can do nothing. He goes on to say in John 15, 7, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. We must ask God to do for us through Christ what we can't do for ourselves, and that is produce fruit. Prayer then is foundational to any ministry. And we should be praying people, people praying unceasingly, right? And praying for everything and in everything because it acknowledges our needs and also acknowledges God's ability to meet those needs. In verse 7b, Peter gives two qualities that will help us to become people of prayer. He says we are to be self-controlled and sober-minded. To be self-controlled is to be serious. It's to have sound judgment. He means that we're not to be swept away by our emotions or by our passions. Instead, we need to remain level-headed. We maintain an eternal perspective on the world around us. To be sober-minded, really the words mean don't be drunk. But in this case, it means to be clear-minded. I think Peter means here to stay alert, to stay vigilant. So to be drunk is to have all of your senses numbed and dimmed, to be sleepy. So the opposite of this is what he's talking about. Remain alert The meaning, I think, is best captured in chapter 5, verse 8, when Peter writes, ìBe sober-minded, watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls like a lion seeking someone to devour.î And the devil is always looking for an opportunity to harm believers. He wants to cause fear and anxiety to shake our submission to the Father's will. And he also wants to lie to distort our very understanding of God's goodness and grace. Peter urges us to have an eternal perspective of the world and all that's happening in it, not panicking but remaining level-headed. clear-minded and alert so that we can pray. We can't pray effectively if we're confused or panicked. Peter allows us to look at the world and he says watch, understand, and then bring those concerns before the Lord in prayer. So one way that we honor our Heavenly Father is by displaying His glory through prayer. Prayer should really be the heart and the soul of a church because it acknowledges our dependence on the Lord for everything that we do. I'm so happy that Capitol is a church where prayer is so pivotal. Prayer is so crucial. We have our monthly elder-led prayer services. On Wednesdays, we have a regular prayer with our prayer teams. Elders and deacons are always praying for you as you write prayer requests on the slips on your bulletin. This is part of our church, and I pray that it always will be. Now, Peter isn't suggesting that we withdraw from the world and pray only. He doesn't want us to sequester ourselves on a hilltop or in a closet and just spend time praying. He says we're also to use our emotional and material resources within the Christian community. So the church glorifies the Father also through love. When undergoing trials, very often we lash out at the people that we love the most. We take out our frustrations on others. And Peter is saying here to the believers that we should love one another earnestly. In verse 8, and in verse 9, show hospitality to one another. Jesus Himself said that loving one another is the true mark of a believer. And Peter's readers were enduring great suffering, great suffering. And he says, keep on, that keep loving means to keep on loving earnestly and fervently. The original word there for earnest or fervent is to stretch out. The picture here is of an athlete as he is reaching the finish line, straining and stretching out his muscles to win, to cross the finish line first. And Christians are to exercise this kind of love, a muscular and active love towards one another. This kind of love puts the interests of others before our own, before our own comfort, before our own desires, even while we're experiencing hardship or even hostility. Biblical love involves effort and action on our part. The idea is implicit in our text when Peter says that love covers a multitude of sins. You know, it's easy to love someone if they're not sinning against us. If we're all just getting along, it's very easy to love someone. But when someone offends me or when someone sins against me, it makes it very hard to love them. But God says to love them, and so therefore I need to obey. Peter is actually quoting Proverbs 10, 12, which says, ìHatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. Love should be quick to forgive and not hold a grudge.î Now Peter does not deny, and I want to be clear about this, Peter is not denying that love sometimes confronts sin. In fact, the very loving thing to do, according to the Bible, is to confront someone in their sin. Sometimes we...in our love we don't cover sins, but we expose sins. I think James quotes the same proverb in James 5.20 when he says, ìWhoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.î Now that sounds like love to me, to turn someone away from the error of their way, to save them from death. Peter calls attention to the relational aspect of sin and wrongdoing in the community of faith. He says love will cover personal offenses and unkindness of others, making it less likely for us to fall into disunity or hatred. So within the church, we are to spend our emotional resources. We're to love one another. But love is not just using our emotional resources. We are also to use our material resources, as we see in verse 9. Peter says, show hospitality to one another without grumbling. The Greek word for hospitality is actually love of strangers. To offer love of strangers to brothers and sisters within the church sounds a bit odd, but it's not a contradiction. You see, in the early church, Christian travelers had no hotels, no Airbnbs. The accommodations in Rome and throughout the Roman provinces were often very dangerous and even immoral. and Christians tended to avoid them. Therefore, traveling as a missionary or as an itinerant preacher, you often had to rely on someone to provide housing, food, and perhaps even cover costs as you continued on your journey. Peter says, show love for one another when you use your material resources for the gospel's sake. And so this is a very active love. It's a costly love. We offer hospitality to one another without grumbling, he says. I heard as I was preparing for this, it's been said that hospitality is making people feel at home when you'd rather they just stay home. You know, two weeks into our summer Bible study, I went and had breakfast with one of the men. And I asked him what he thought about the study as we were studying Titus. And he reluctantly told me that he said, well, I was invited to the study by a friend of mine. And with the exception of my friend and you, nobody has welcomed me. Nobody's even tried to get to know me while I've been here. His honesty deeply convicted me. And I think it should convict all of us as Christians in terms of how we treat people when we come here each day. We may have been sitting with the same people for weeks and weeks. We just don't know their name. We haven't welcomed them. And so I would encourage you, as Peter has encouraged, to show hospitality, show the love for strangers to your brothers and sisters here in this church. It will make a world of difference. In fact, one of the reasons that my family came to Capitol in the first place was because we felt this tremendous warmth, this love for strangers. And I pray that as capital grows, as it is growing, that this strong sense of hospitality, this palpable love for strangers will always be a distinguishing characteristic. Peter says because of our eternal perspective, we should use our emotional and our material resources for the sake of the Christian community. We are to be glorifying God as a body. But the church also glorifies God through service. Finally, Peter concludes his message in verses 10 and 11 saying something about using our spiritual gifts. He says, ìAs each has received a gift, use it to serve one another.î It is through these spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit actually ministers to the church. Peter doesn't list all of the varied gifts that are mentioned in the New Testament, but he does assert that every believer has received at least one spiritual gift. If you here are today a believer, you can be assured that you have a spiritual gift. But here's the kicker. You also must be using your spiritual gift. because that spiritual gift is what is used by the Holy Spirit to build up the body of Christ. Peter says whatever gift you've received is to be used for others. He goes on to say that while God is the one who dispenses the gifts, it's really up to you and me to faithfully administer God's grace. responsibly, as he says, a good steward. Now a steward was a slave in Rome who was given the responsibility, entrusted by the master to care for his property. So it wasn't the steward's property that he cared for, but he cared for it, he managed it, and God has entrusted us with unique gifts to use appropriately. They're not our gifts. You know, they're not to be used for self-gain, to puff us up. They're God's gifts, and we're simply managing those gifts appropriately. Verse 11, Peter highlights two specific examples of spiritual gifts, speaking gifts and serving gifts. Those that are gifted to speak, that's preaching and teaching and sharing the gospel and a whole range of other gifts, other ways that might be included as a speaking gift. They do so, it says, as they are delivering the very words of God, the oracles of God. Whenever we speak in the name of the Lord, we need to be careful to take responsibility for how we speak. We must constantly remind ourselves that we're handling and that we're sharing God's very word. God has given us the great privilege of speaking his authoritative truth. And Peter next writes about those who serve, those who serve must do so with the strength of God. Now, as Kenny already mentioned, this whole week we've had Vacation Bible School here at Capitol, 120 some odd kids. It was amazing. The energy level and the enthusiasm was just phenomenal. But you know, one of the other things that was phenomenal was looking out at this group and seeing all the blue shirts, all the leaders, all the volunteers, all the people that had come to spend a week with us to help minister to these children. That is the picture of the church. If we could all wear shirts according to the time that we're giving, and it shows that we've all given up our time sacrificially to serve one another, every one of us would have those blue shirts on. We'd all be part of the team. And that's the picture of the church. That is what it means to be a member of the body of Christ. That when one of us who has a gift doesn't show up, it hurts all of us. So all of you put on your blue shirts, all of you as you recognize your gift, think about how you might serve in a ministry here. Everyone who has serving gifts should exercise them. Peter goes on to say they should exercise them with the strength that God supplies. God is the source He is the source of our strength and our resources. It was evident after the first day, it was exhausting. And yet the next day when we showed up, there were smiles, there was energy, there was excitement, there were snacks. God had supplied everything that was needed to make last week a fantastic success. Hudson Taylor said it well, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply. Peter concludes by saying our motive in service, as in prayer and in love, always must be to glorify God. And if we should ever start to believe that our good works somehow add to God's glory, Peter then reminds us that God's glory, God is glorified through Jesus Christ. We must remember always that we cannot in ourselves glorify God. It is because Jesus lives in us. It is because we have the power of the Holy Spirit in us that we can glorify God in the first place. When the entire church family, when all of us are using our gifts enabled by the Holy Spirit as gifted by God the Father, then we actually get to see what the church is all about. God has given us these gifts. He's distributed them to show His grace, not just to the rest of the body, but to the world. Well, there's a question that I have for all of us here today. If you are visiting, if you have not accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, If you're here to find out more, if you've got questions about Jesus, first of all, thank you for being here. It is great to have you. And we'd love to get you involved in ministries here, in Bible studies, in life groups when they start back up. As we finish today, we'll have our fellowship where we'll be learning about the Holy Spirit. Come along and find out more about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. That Jesus came, He lived a life that we were meant to live, and He died the death that we deserve to die. And He was resurrected. He was accepted by His Father as a perfect sacrifice on our behalf. And because of that, we have access to the Father. Because of that, we have new life. We've been given a new family and God gives us good works to do. So the questions for those of us that are believers is the desire to glorify God what drives you to your knees every morning in prayer and keeps you praying throughout the day. When we love are we reflecting our father's character and when we exercise the gifts that he's given. Do we exercise them by serving in a ministry? Each one of us has a gift. Each one of us should be, as God commanded, part of the body in some form of ministry to help build up the body. Brothers and sisters, the end is near. Therefore, let us glorify God through prayer, through love, and through service. Let's pray. Father God, we are amazed here this morning by your love and your kindness towards us. Thank you that when we believe that Jesus died for our sins and that you raised him from the dead that you've given us new life and a new family and good work to do. Lord, help us to love and to serve others in the strength that you supply so that they may come to a saving faith themselves. To you be all the glory and dominion now and forevermore. Amen. Thanks for listening. For more sermons, information, and events, check out our website at CapitalCommunityChurch.com.