This is my second thought regarding the Sunday sermon from Calvary Fellowship Church (first thought here) regarding 1 Peter 4:7-11

7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 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.

The second thought that I want to point out is that God provides us the strength to serve!!  Just as the grace given to us upholds us in faith and gives us the faith to see God’s truth–God’s grace gives us strength to serve!  Whatever our gift is that God has given us, we must use it to serve.  This service is God using us to show grace to those in the church and out of the church (depending on our gift) but above all we are to glorify God through Jesus Christ!!  Our service is to bring the one who Created all glory and honor forever.

Praise God!!

This week’s Sunday sermon at Calvary Fellowship Church, titled Serve–apart of the series Mindshift, was taken from 1 Peter 4:7-11

7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 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.

The main point was that we need to serve, that each of the spiritual gifts that are given us are to be made use of to uplift and build the church.  However, I want to point out two things that I see from this passage.

First, 1 Pet 4:8 tells us to keep loving “since love covers a multitude of sins.”  The key work I would like to focus in on is “since.”  This isn’t tell us that if we love we can keep on sinning, as Paul said “so that grace may increase.”  In fact the “since” here is a modifier that is hinging the phrase prior to the “since” to the phase after.  We, as Christians, are to love one another earnestly.  Why?  Because love covers a multitude of sins.  What love is being talked about here?  It isn’t an effect of our loving, it is the cause.  Jesus’ death on the cross paid the ultimate penalty for our sins.  Paul tells us that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” and in Rom 5:5 we see that God is the one who poured His love into us, through the Holy Spirit and because of Jesus Christ.  1 John 4:7-12 tells us

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

We “love earnestly” because God first loved us!!  Amen!!

This Sunday PM Beth and I went to Christ Church’s Sunday PM service.  It was AWESOME!!  The message was great, the worship was amazing, God was there, and He was moving.  Pastor Dan Scott, the preaching pastor of Christ Church, was beginning a 9-week series on the book of James.  Tonight’s text was from James 1:1-16.

The book of James rebukes the church and rebukes us [Christians] but does so with love to woe us to Godly living.  James is hard for reformed Christians to relate to because it seems to contradict what Paul and John emphasize so clearly with Jesus being our righteousness because of our faith and it is through that faith in Jesus’ finished work on the cross that we are declared just and righteous before and just and holy God.  However, James is written, in the tradition of Matthew and Hebrews, to explain Jesus and Christianity to a large Jewish community, a community that was so wrapped in laws, that James’ telling them what to do, would make sense to the Jewish mind.

Paul, in his writings, emphasizes the grace of God because of the multitude of rules and forgetting God at the center.  James emphasizes practical living and quotes Jesus where Paul simply writes about Him.

James 1:13-16 makes clear that there is something with in all of us that causes us to be tempted.  It is not God doing the tempting but us [sinful humaness] giving in and satisfying his/her own internal desires (James 1:14) and then when a person gives in to his/her desire, that is sin (James 1:15) and sinning causes death (James 1:15).  Going back to the scene in the Garden (Genesis 3:1-13, specifically Gen 3:13), James warns his readers to not be decieved by the Enemy, the Temptor, as Eve was decieved, and give in to one’s own desire and sin.

James also makes a distinction between trials and temptation.  While God cannot tempt (James 1:13) but He can and does allow trials.  Why?  James tells us in vs. 3 and 12 that trials are given to the Christian to test ones faith (as Abraham was tested) and that through the testing one can produce steadfastness and that this steadfastness will prepare the Christian (James 1:4).

How encouraging!!  Remain steadfast through the trials.  The ups and the downs.

Before I begin the synopsis of the sermon from yesterday and how it impact my life, I have to joy and privilege of saying that service on Sunday was attended by the couple that we had met and influenced from Ruby Tuesday and had the excitement to witness their reaction and committment to begin and develop a relationship with Christ!!  (More on that here.)

Yesterday’s sermon from Christ Church Nashville was, to sum it up in one word, AWESOME!!  The text was from Isaiah 6:1-8:

1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”

4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

The main point of the sermon was that we can only hear the voice of God (v. when we have the clear vision of His infinite holiness and majesty and power and might.  The we, in our current society, with the stock market ups-and-downs and unstability have the ONLY stability that we need to look to–the stability of eternity.  That God is ruling and reigning and the throne of eternity will never be empty (Isa 6:3-5).  Amidst the majesty and praises of the Angels of Heaven that shake the foundations of the temple (Isa 6:4), God hears our cry for help (Isa 6:5-6) and we only cry for help when we realize–when confronted with the holiness of God that He reveals to us–our utter unworthyness and sinfullness, but God, who hears our cry, sends help (Isa 6:6-7).  Ultimately, that help is Jesus who atoned and paid the price for our sin (Acts 2:22-33; Romans 5:18-21; Isa 52:13-53:12).

Praise God for His sovreignty!  That when we think we are alone.  He is there.  He ALWAYS hears us and ALWAYS has the BEST plan for us!!