This is Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. We're so glad you tuned in today. At Connect with Skip, we're passionate about helping you grow in your relationship with Jesus. That's why we share verse by verse Bible teaching that's both clear and practical, so you can live out God's truth wherever He's placed you, and you can stay connected beyond the broadcast when you sign up for Pastor Skip's free weekly devotional. You'll receive biblical encouragement, exclusive content, and helpful resources to guide you deeper into God's Word, delivered straight to your inbox.
Signing up is quick, easy, and completely free. Sign up today at connectwithskip.com. That's connectwithskip.com. Before today's teaching, stay with us for a special invitation from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Have you ever dreamed of visiting Israel?
Leni and I want to invite you to join us for a life-changing journey through the land of the Bible in April of 2027. You can walk where Jesus walked. You can worship on the Sea of Galilee. You can celebrate baptisms at the Jordan River, and we're going to share communion at the empty tomb. You'll also have the option to attend.
The Epicenter Summit in Jerusalem, where I'll be speaking alongside of Joel Rosenberg, Greg Laurie, and Graham Lotts, Jack Graham, and more.
So join us April 5th through April 16th. You can learn more today at ConnectWithSkip dot com slash Israel.
Now let's dive into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Isn't it interesting when when Jesus writes to them, he says, "You do a lot of things right. I know your works, I know your labor, I know your patience, I know your discernment.
So you're busy, you're active, you're going through the motions of devotions, but there's an erosion of devotion deep inside here." Now, what happens in our relationship with the Lord? Here's something you can relate to more easily. It happens in every relationship in life. Happens in marriage. Anybody who's been a counselor knows what it's like to have somebody sit on the other side of the desk and say something like, "We just don't love each other anymore." And especially if you know the couple and you've watched their journey, you look at them and you wonder what happened.
What happened to that young girl whose heart skipped a beat whenever she heard his voice? What happened to that young man who would drive across town just to deliver a bouquet of flowers? What happened to that couple who used to talk together about everything so much? You know, one of the things about a dating relationship is the couple—they just talk forever about everything. Two in the morning, they're talking.
What are you talking about? The carpet?
Now. I smile a little bit at that because, according to James Dobson, he says, "Go into a restaurant and watch couples, and you can tell in the restaurant who's married and who's not." He said, "I'll guarantee you this: the married ones are not talking much. The married ones aren't talking much. The ones dating, they're looking at each other's eyes. They're talking back and forth, back and forth." So.
Anyone in any relationship can leave their first love. Leaving your first love is not a blowout. It's a it's a gradual leak over time.
So pray harder. As your days get fewer, pray harder. That's the first one. Second one. Second way to live like there's no tomorrow.
Love deeper. Love deeper. Watch this, verse eight, and above all things, preeminently, more than anything else, have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another, without grumbling. Wouldn't you agree that love is the identification mark of the Christian?
It's our birthmark. It identifies that you belong to Christ. That's what Jesus said. They'll know you're my disciples because you love each other. But look at the word fervent.
Have fervent love.
Some translations just say love deeply.
So I've just said love deeper, deeper love, fervent love. The word fervent literally means strenuously. Strenuously, it's a word that in ancient times described a horse at full gallop. That horse was stretching and straining its muscles. That's the word for fervent.
It also described an athlete who would stretch or strain his or her muscles to win the race, give it all that he has or she has.
So now let me retranslate it. When you love people, give it all you've got. When you love people, hold nothing back in your love for them. Love people like you're trying to win the love Olympics. When you love people, do your love like you're trying to win a gold medal in loveology.
That's loving fervently, strenuously.
Now you'll notice in our text, there's two aspects of this love that Peter talks about. First is the love that covers. Then there's the love that recovers. There's covering love and recovering love. Covering love is in verse eight.
Above all things, have fervent love for one another.
Now watch that he's quoting a text. For love will cover a multitude of sins. He's quoting Proverbs ten. Which says hatred stirs up strife, but love will cover all sins. When somebody wrongs you, and right now you're thinking of somebody, perhaps who has.
When somebody wrongs you, you have you have two choices that you can make. Number one, you can cover it up and forgive. Or number two, you can expose what that person has done. This kind of love will not air dirty laundry. This kind of love does not want to expose weaknesses or cause humiliation.
This kind of love seeks to handle things privately, discreetly. Before it ever goes public, and there is a time to go public. Jesus said in Matthew eighteen, "You go to that person one on one, and you tell that person his sin or her sin privately. If they don't listen, you bring somebody else with you, just another person. If you don't listen to that person, then you widen the circle." There is a time to go public, but.
This kind of love is protective. It stretches itself out in order to cover. I know some people that take pride in uncovering, not covering. Oh, they feel so righteous that they're the whistle blower. They're uncovering sin.
I'm the gospel Gestapo. It's my calling in life. I'm the great. Sin sniffer, and I smell it around here, and I'm going to find it eventually. You know the type.
This is covering love, seeks to cover. The second type of love is recovering love. Verse nine: Be hospitable, hospitality. Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. Hospitality is a New Testament word that literally means loving the stranger.
Hospital comes from that, where you'd set up a system to treat people you may or may not know them, but you're hospitable to them. Means to love the stranger.
Now, here's why this was vital for the early church. In the early church, they met in homes. They didn't have church buildings. They met in homes, and The believers who had their homes were also confronted with a particular situation where there were preachers or evangelists who would travel from place to place and needed a place to stay. There were no Sheraton hotels or Hilton hotels or Hyatt hotels or any of that, and and inns back in those days were anything but a holiday.
So, because of that, you'd open up your home to them. You let them stay with you. You may not know them, but you are kind to them. That's hospitality. That's that's what it meant in its original context.
Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. Show love to the stranger. Go out of your way to help them recover. These servants of God that are traveling through, bring them in and refresh them. Let them recover.
This is recovering love. I read a little article about Albania, the country of Albania. That hospitality is so part of their culture, they actually love the idea that no matter how poor they are, they have stashed some special provisions and food in case a stranger comes through. And here's why. Here's their motto: An Albanian's house belongs to God and his guests.
So go out of your way to show kindness to God and his guests. Hospitality.
So two types of love. The first love covers. The second love recovers. The first type of love is protective. The second type of love is proactive.
Okay.
Now I want you to take a test in your mind, just in your little head, right now. No elbows, please. How fervent is your love? Remember the word stretches out, strains. Give it all you've got.
You're trying to win a gold medal. How fervent is your love? Begin in your marriage. Widen the circle out to your family, your parents, your children, your friends, your church. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition.
Want to understand your Bible better without getting lost in all the details? Pastor Skip Heitzig's new devotional, Soaring Above It All, takes you through the entire Bible in one year, giving you the big picture perspective you need to see how God's story fits together. Each day offers biblical truth, practical application, and encouragement to help you grow in your knowledge of Scripture and deepen your walk with the Lord. Request soaring above it all is our thanks when you give fifty dollars or more today to help more people know God deeply through His Word. Give at connectwithSkip dot com slash offer or call eight hundred nine two two eighteen eighty eight.
Now let's return to today's teaching. Maybe you're the type of person who loves to leave notes in the agape boxes stating what you don't like. I'm not going to pick at that scab. But I will have you notice the word you are to show hospitality without grumbling. You know, grumbling means it's the Greek word gungusmon.
Sounds like grumbling, gungusmon. It's an onomatopoeic word that sounds like what it means. It means to mumble under your breath.
So you can have the right action but the wrong attitude. You can do all the right stuff but the heart isn't in it. Honestly, I I believe the biggest disease today is not cancer, nor AIDS, nor tuberculosis, or I could name diseases. The biggest disease today is lovelessness. It's the incredible amount of people, maybe scores here right now, who feel unloved and uncared for.
And that just should never be, when there are Christians around. And here's why: Romans chapter five says that God has poured out His love into our hearts. God has poured out His love into our hearts.
Now, if God is pouring out His love into our hearts, that means there's an unlimited capacity. Does that make sense? If He's doing the pouring and He has the love and He's pouring it into our hearts, picture God with a big love bucket pouring love into your life. Is God ever going to go? I'm out.
There's no more love.
So you're down here going. I just can't love Him anymore. I just don't have any more love. Wait a minute. You have an unlimited capacity, because the love of God is poured out in your heart.
And if the love of God is poured out in your heart, that means no one in your circle should ever be love starved, because He's pouring it, and He keeps on pouring it.
So pray harder, love deeper. Here's the third: serve smarter. The last two verses, as each one has received a gift, minister it or serve one another with it, as stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. Or if you're a speaker of God called you to that, speak as though God is speaking through you.
If anyone ministers or serves or helps, could be translated, let him do it with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Two verses that have five truths. Allow me. Number one.
Every Christian has a spiritual gift. Everyone has some gift, spiritual gift, some spiritual enabling capacity to help somebody else. Every believer has one. That's number one. Number two, your gift may be different than somebody else's gift.
Number three, whatever gift you have, you should use it to help other people. Number four.
Some gifts are noticeable; others are unnoticeable. All of them are helpful. Truth number five: the reason we share our gifts with other people is to glorify God. Please notice that. That in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.
The reason we serve is to give God glory, which seems to me to infer that if you are not involved in sharing the gift God has given to you, God is not getting as much glory as He could. Isn't that a thought? That you could actually be hindering the display of God's glory. By not getting involved in sharing yourself with somebody else.
Something else I'd like you to notice in our text in verse ten. Notice what the grace of God is called. Notice the adjective. What kind of grace is it? What does it say?
Manifold. It's the manifold grace of God.
Now I don't know if you're like me, but when I read words like that, I go, "What?" When was the last time you used manifold? Unless you work on cars, maybe exhaust manifold, intake manifold. Manifold is a word that means many colored.
Now listen to Peter's description here. He's painting a picture: many colored grace of God. It was used to describe a garment that had many colors, beautiful, flowery, gorgeous, bright colored garment. The grace of God. It's like this: if you shine the grace of God through one person, you get blue.
You shine the same grace of God through another person, you get green, or yellow, or purple, or with someone polka dots. They got flair. It's who they are. It's the manifold grace of God.
God's grace is not monotone. It's not monochromatic. Has different displays.
So. Everyone has a gift. Everyone should share that gift, so that God's manifold, many-colored grace shines through, and we go, "Wow, what a beautiful array!" Now, that's Peter's description. Paul's description, as you know, is the body of Christ. You know, Peter looks at it like light.
Paul looks at it like a human body. Jesus is the head. You and I are the different parts. And the head, the brain, communicates to the parts what to do, where to go, and everything operates smoothly together. But here's the grand point of both of those analogies: every single spiritual gift, including the one or ones that you have.
Are all needed. The church needs every gift you have. No gift is too small. No person is too insignificant. I give you an example.
Three decades ago, for some of you, that's you don't even remember it. That's okay. I'm dating myself. I don't mind. Three decades ago, I remember when Ronald Reagan, who was president, was shot and put in the hospital for two, three weeks.
What I remember about the incident is that though the chief executive officer of the United States of America was incapacitated for three weeks, the country didn't stop. It kept running. The most arguably, the most powerful man on earth is in the hospital. Kept going, didn't shut down. Just a couple years afterwards, in Philadelphia, the garbage collectors.
Protested and stopped working. The city almost shut down. In fact, the newspaper said, "If the strike continues, the city will be shut down." Now, I step back from both of those news stories, and I have this question: So, who's more important—the president of the United States of America, or the trash collectors in Philadelphia? You know what the answer is? All the above, both, all of them are.
One is no more important than anyone else. They just have a different function. But every single gift is needed.
So here's the progression. This is how it works. The gift comes from God to you, and then comes from you to somebody else. Is that flow being stopped? Has God given you a gift, and you never have taken the time to discover what that giftiness is—that place of serving in the church, the body of Christ—is.
So you've got this gift, but you're not giving it to anybody else. When you serve God's people today, you're helping them tomorrow. When you serve God's people today, you're making sure that Jesus Christ is being represented tomorrow. And I just want you to walk away with that concept freshly put in your heart of the body of Christ. In World War II, there was a French village that was bombed.
This French village had a very important statue known all over the countryside. It was a statue of Jesus Christ. The statue was. Broken to pieces, the townspeople collected the pieces and stored it till after the war was over. When the war was over, they rebuilt the statue.
They found all the pieces, glued it back together, and put the statue in the town square. Only one problem. They couldn't find the hands.
So it was a statue of Christ without hands.
Now the hands were very important to them. They bore the marks of the crucifixion. Very, very significant to those Christians there. They couldn't find the hands.
They looked high and low, couldn't find the hands.
So one day, somebody in that town put a plaque underneath that said, "He has no hands but ours." That's the concept I want you to get. He has no hands but yours. He has no feet but yours. He has no mouth but yours. We're the body of Christ.
We're the expression of Jesus Christ by what we do, and if we don't do it, that part of the glory of God is diminished. Do you know that we belong to the greatest outfit in the world? We belong to the greatest organization in the world, the church. I don't know how you think about the church, but a lot of people don't think very highly about the church. I don't like organized religion.
You've heard it. They like disorganized religion, I guess, but. We belong to the greatest outfit in the world. Allow me to tell you why. Number one, we have a product that works universally.
You can take the gospel to any country, any language, and unleash it, and it will change lives. Our product works universally. Number two, we have offices worldwide. Every country, every culture has some expression of the local church. Number three.
We have a pretty good benefits package right now. We have peace. We have meaning. We have cause. Number four, we have a retirement package that's off the charts.
So we belong to the greatest organization in the world, the Body of Christ. The problem is we're running out of tomorrows. All we have is today.
So today, what will your anthem be? Will it be less for Christ? Less for Christ—that's our anthem. Less for Christ. Let's make a song out of it, or more for Christ.
Will you get to a place where yes, now that I'm an older, more mature Christian, I've put in my duty in my years of serving?
So less for Christ. It can never be that. Must always be more. That's living like there's no tomorrow. I'll sum it all up in this statement: When prayer is fervent, when love is preeminent, and when serving is prominent, then God is glorified, the church is edified, and the world is notified that God is real.
And not until then. We're so glad you joined us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before you go, don't forget about Pastor Skip's brand new devotional, Soaring Above It All. This one-year devotional gives you a panoramic view of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, helping you better understand God's Word and stay engaged with it every day. Request your copy as our thanks when you give fifty dollars or more to help bring clear Bible teaching to people around the world.
Give today at connectwithSkip dot com slash offer or call eight hundred nine two two eighteen eighty eight. We'll see you next time for more verse by verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. Make a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
