Hope Beyond Extremism: Marching Orders for Soldiers of the Cross, Part 2

In his first letter, Peter gave this admonition.

He said, The end of all things is at hand. Therefore be of sound judgment and sober spirit. Well, today on Insight for Living, we're looking at this passage in 1 Peter chapter 4, as we continue a study that Chuck Swindoll started last time. It's here that Peter gives what Chuck has called marching orders for soldiers of the cross.

Someone framed it this way. We are most like beasts when we kill. We are most like men when we judge. We are most like God when we forgive. If you will live in the light of Christ's return every day of your life, it will do wonders to your habit of judging.

It will silence your lip from gossip. If you realize that you must give account for every idle word and action when you stand before the Lord Jesus, it will do wonders to your conduct. Look at 1 Peter chapter 4 as we return to this wonderful study we're engaged in. First Peter chapter 4. Now remember, Peter has been dealing with the suffering saints.

Those who were being taken advantage of, those who could see no relief in sight. And when Peter came to the middle of this fourth chapter, he decided to remind them that this is all temporary. When there is brevity of time, things get urgent and things get simple. What I find in these verses are four commands and one goal. Command number one, verse seven. Be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. Let me paraphrase it this way.

Use good judgment, stay calm, in a spirit of prayer. Here's the second, verse eight. Stay fervent in love. And what is it that reveals true love? Look at the rest of the verse because love covers a multitude of sins. You know that Peter is quoting from the ancient Proverbs? He's quoting from Proverbs 10, verse 12.

Check it for yourself. It reads, hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all transgressions. Nothing is more disturbing to the unity of the body than Christians who stir up and disturb other Christians. Don't think the unsaved aren't watching when we bash one another.

They love it when we can't get along with each other in the family. It makes news. They love to quote one Christian who is after another Christian.

It's as if the journalist leans back from his typewriter and says, aha, gotcha. The pacifistic leader of India for many years, Mahatma Gandhi, once said, I like your Christ, but I don't like your Christians. He then gave his reason. They are so unlike your Christ. What a rebuke. I like your Christ, but I don't like your Christians.

They're so unlike their leader. I have never met a person who didn't have the ammunition to blame someone else. Every person I know can blame somebody for something, and you're not excluded.

I could blame several people for things that have happened in my life, and you could too. Don't waste your time, and I promise neither will I. Moffitt states that this is a warning against loving others by fits and starts. It is a plea, he writes, for steady affection, persisting through the irritations and the antagonisms of common life in a society recruited from various classes of people. Now before I move on, may I say one more word regarding this matter of fervency and love? Some people are so easy to love. You just naturally fall into their arms. Some people are so hard to love. You can love them, but you just don't like them very much, if you know what I'm saying. There's something about their nature that's just abrasive and irritating, and they are like opposite magnets. They repel, but even they need your love.

Perhaps they more than the others. Did you get it? Love one another.

It's very broad, no special classes, no special groups. There are two more commands. Verse 9, simple, be hospitable.

Are you with me so far? First of all, have sound judgment, stay calm in a spirit of prayer. Second, keep fervent in your love for one another. Third, be hospitable.

I notice this has the same object as the other. Love for one another, and now verse 9, be hospitable to one another, same open end, without complaint. Peter's a practical man.

After all, he's married, probably has kids, maybe by now a few teenagers. He knows what it's like to have a busy home. What do you complain about when it comes to hospitality?

When he says, be hospitable to one another without complaint. Well, you can complain about the trouble it is. It takes energy to have someone in. It takes effort. It takes planning.

They interrupt your privacy, but he says, be hospitable, nevertheless. What else do you complain about? Well, it takes money. It's a bit expensive. It's easier to fix a meal for one than to fix a meal for three or four. It's easy for just the two of you to do well and to get along, but when you add another two or three, it's expensive.

It also takes time, and it's easy to complain about the time it takes to have people in and to show them kindness. I like the words of John Henry Jowett. True love, however, is a splendid host. It's amazing what love does to hospitality. Speaking of Jowett, I have an old book called The Epistles of Peter by Jowett. He says some very quaint things, and he says them in such a way that I don't think any of us will forget them soon.

I quote from his work. There is love whose measure is that of an umbrella. There is love whose inclusiveness is that of a great marquee, and there is love whose comprehension is that of the immeasurable sky.

The aim of the New Testament is the conversion of the umbrella into a tent and the merging of the tent into the glorious canopy of the all-enfolding heavens. Push back the walls of family love until they include the neighbor. Again, push back the walls until they include the stranger. Again, push back the walls until they comprehend the foe.

When was the last time you entertained someone who was once your enemy? There is something about hospitality that disarms the enemy. The quality of our love, says Jowett, is determined by its inclusiveness. At the one extreme there is self-love, but at the other extreme there is philanthropy. What is the tense, the stretch of my love?

What is its covering power, he asks. I do not wonder that the apostle proceeds to indicate the magnificent cover afforded by a magnificent love. Love covers a multitude of sins.

Not the sins of the lover, but the sins of the loved. Love is willing to forget as well as to forgive. Love does not keep hinting at past failures and past revolts. Love is willing to hide them in a nameless grave. When a man whose life has been stained and blackened by a multitude of sins turns over a new leaf, I love this. Love will never hint at the old leaf, but will rather seek to cover it in deep and healing oblivion.

Love is so busy unveiling the promises and the lurements of the morrow that she has little time and still less desire to stir up the choking dust on the blasted and desolate fields of yesterday. I seldom address this, so that's why I'm camping here for a few extra moments. Are you really hospitable? Do you have room in your life to be interrupted? Can people come close? They often feel the magnet of your personal power because of Christ's presence.

So many are inquisitive as to the source of it. I don't know what it is, but there's something about a cup of coffee with someone or a sandwich for lunch. You eat all your meals alone.

I know some meals need to be and you need time alone, but all of them or even most of them? In the days of Peter, the itinerant evangelists couldn't stay at the inns. The inns were often brothels, places of ill repute. The only place that they could stay when they traveled and preached would be in the homes of fellow Christians. Your home really open to those in need? I have seldom had it fail when people have told me they've opened their homes. They've loved it after it was over.

Often they did it a little uneasy because you've got a stranger in there and for all you know they may snore or they may keep you up a little later. They never forget that evening in your home. Never.

I can remember homes I've stayed in in travels to this day and events and the things that happened and what people said. Think about it. In light of Christ's soon coming, be hospitable to one another without complaint. Now there's one more. Keep serving one another. Verses 10 and 11.

That's the fourth command. Keep on serving one another. As each one has received a special gift, I love this subject of spiritual gifts. Do you know fellow Christian that you have at least one and probably more than one spiritual gift?

Are you even aware of the possible gifts? Let me give you a list to put in the margin of your New Testament or of your Bible right here. These are the places in the New Testament where the spiritual gifts are listed. Ephesians 4, 11 and 12. Ephesians 4, 11 and 12. 1 Corinthians 12, 28 to 30. And Romans 12, 6 through 8.

It's a delightful study to take the Ephesians and Romans and Corinthians and 1 Peter 4, 10 and 11 passages and compare them and come up with a list of them and then to ask yourself, sort of like working through an application for a job, where would I best fit in this list? You're going to find a spot and if you don't find it right away, keep pursuing. Keep thinking. Ask fellow Christians.

Try them out. Put them into action as you serve one another. You'll discover what you do well. I will never forget the time and it finally dawned on me that I had a gift of teaching.

I mean you could have knocked me over with a feather if you had tried to convince me of that when I was younger. Me? A teacher?

Me? Somebody to instruct someone else? It came to my attention very slowly, very deliberately however. Here he mentions not the gift of, well let's start with the gifts he mentions. Verse 10, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God, whoever speaks. So there is one of the gifts mentioned here called speaking.

Perhaps it's the same one called elsewhere the word of knowledge or the word of wisdom or maybe it would be the same as the teaching gift. Now when you speak for Christ, you don't speak your own opinions, you speak his utterances. You represent the word of God. So be a teacher of the Bible. If that is your gift, make the scriptures the basis of your teaching.

You will be forever relevant if you do. Teach the utterances of God. Serve the body by teaching. Some of you may, maybe ought to be engaged in teaching the young. You can teach children. You can teach teenagers. You can teach adults. You might teach people that are working where you work.

There might be an opportunity at the lunch time to do that or a special Bible class you could be involved in. Keep serving one another, in this case through the gift of teaching. Here's another one, whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies. Now this might be called the gift of helping, the gift of assisting.

The teacher is up front but the one who serves behind the scenes is not. And the body would be crippled without many people who are able to serve, to help, to encourage. There's a gift of showing mercy. That goes along with ministering to the ill. Now it doesn't mean they're the only ones that ought to visit but they make the best visitors. They make the best people to go to the hospital and encourage those that are laid aside. Some don't have a gift of mercy and I tell them just visit rarely.

Just get in and out. Just leave that for those that have got it. But others have a gift of evangelism and it's the easiest thing in the world for them to lead people to Christ. And they just do it naturally.

It just flows. It's part of their lives. Others don't have that gift but we're ought to be engaged in the work of making Christ known. There's no week of my life I don't speak to someone about Christ. I don't announce that.

I don't broadcast it around the country. It's just afloat but I don't think I have the gift of evangelism. I don't see phenomenal results in evangelism occurring but you and I could name people that do. And they're not all the people that lead the crusades. They're individuals that have the most natural way of winning friends and before you know it they've turned the conversation to Christ and they've got that person panting to know more. And before they're through it seems like they've got a contact, if not at that moment later, to lead them to Christ. Serving other people. Get out of your own little tiny radius.

As Christ makes these final plans for return be involved in serving. It does wonders for your depression, for your pity parties, for those times when you sit alone and want to sing woe is me, woe is me. Woe is me. It's a very dull song. It can be sung over and over and over and over again. Let me give you the goal.

It's the end of verse 11. So that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. The goal is to glorify God.

You say that's so basic. Why even spend time on it? Because without that, listen to me, your teaching becomes a drudgery. Your helping leads to burnout.

Your evangelism is an intense thing that allows you to never rest or you try to get the glory for all the people you lead to Christ. No, when you have God or the glory of God is your goal, it is amazing what it does to your spiritual gift. It is amazing what it does to your hospitality. It's amazing what it does to your love life.

Amazing what it does to your balance. All for the glory, the glory of God. Since he gets the glory, we're more comfortable leaving the results with him. Since he gets the glory, our limited umbrella dimensions of love that Jowett described are expanded.

Since he's to be glorified, our interest isn't in ourselves. It's in showing courtesy and hospitality and warmth. It comes easier. Since he's to get the glory, our spiritual gifts are exercised not as a chore or a duty, but as a gift. It is my gift to you to teach. It is for God's glory, but it's my opportunity to give. And whatever gifts I may have. You want me to help you know what will make all of this happen? We read over it rather quickly on purpose. Go right back to verse 7.

Put quotes around it. The end of all things is at hand. I know it sounds like a broken record.

I talk about it rather often, but it's in the book and I can only speak the utterances of God. His coming isn't far away. As the gospel song says, Jesus may come today. Glad day.

Glad day. There's a song that I like even better. It's not a song. It's a hymn. There are, believe it or not, 17 to 25 verses or stanzas to this hymn.

We will limit it to two this evening. But take the time to look at the theology of this great hymn of Christ's coming. The sands of time are sinking. The dawn of heaven breaks. The summer morn I've sighed for, the fair, sweet morn awakes. Dark, dark has been the midnight, but day spring is at hand. And glory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land.

The bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegroom's face. I will not gaze at glory, but on my King of grace. Not at the crown he giveth, but on his pierced hand.

Don't you love it? The lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel's land. Our Father, we look so forward to that day when we shall see the lamb with pierced hands and pierced feet. And we shall worship him who alone is deserving of all the glory.

Worthy is the lamb who was slain. See in our lives and hear from our lips and know from our hearts as only you can know how deeply we love you, our Father. Keep us calm and cool in a spirit of prayer. Give us a fervency in our love for one another, for that covers a multitude of sins.

Find us to be hospitable people who take time, who are accessible, available, caring. Lord, as our gifts are exercised, may we do that for your glory. For the lamb is all the glory in Emmanuel's land. May these words we've heard make a difference in the way we live, and may the difference be so significant that it is noticed. And we have opportunity to give you the praise before others. We pray in Jesus' wonderful name.

Amen. Chuck Swindoll is presenting what he calls Hope Beyond Extremism. His subtitle is this, Marching Orders for Soldiers of the Cross. You're listening to Insight for Living. And if you'd like to learn more about this ministry, visit us online at insightworld.org. Well, here at Insight for Living, we're asking God to stir in the hearts of His people to replenish our reserves. Even though we've been broadcasting Chuck Swindoll's messages since 1979, we're still receiving a steady stream of feedback from our listening family. Every comment assures us that God's Word is active and alive, and it changes lives. In that respect, we believe our most impactful days are ahead. Let me encourage you with the kind of comments that fuel our enthusiasm.

This young person wrote to us to say, In fact, I may want to go into ministry one day. Thanks, Chuck. Well, this listener expressed his gratitude to Chuck, but it really belongs to those who partner with us.

Thanks so much for participating with your gift. Here's Chuck. Thanks, Bill. When Jesus warned us that life would bring trials and tribulations, He wasn't kidding, was He? Most of us have endured tough seasons that prove His assertion. When we ignore their gravity, tribulations can take us to desperate places. For instance, our doubts seem to escalate when our suffering is prolonged. Furthermore, an extended season of pain and suffering creates a pathway that leads to hopelessness. And nothing is more devastating than losing hope. You see, the human heart craves hope. In fact, frankly, we die without it. For these reasons and many more, we take great pleasure in sharing the life-giving hope of Jesus Christ. And friends like you proclaim that hope with us. Well, right now, we're coming near the conclusion of another ministry year.

We will close our financial books on June 30th. And so today, it's imperative that I communicate the critical importance of your role. Insightful living would not be heard beyond our own studios without friends like you. I'm the Bible teacher, but you're the one who gives flight to our daily program.

Financially speaking, Insightful Living Ministries has endured a rough year. So today, I'm asking all who rely on this ministry to go above and beyond so that we can keep sharing the hope of Jesus Christ to a world that's desperately in need of it. Your gift today will lead suffering people to realize that God has not abandoned them. In fact, your partnership may cause them to realize that truth, then look up and smile for the first time in a very long time. Please join me in telling the world those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary.

They will walk and not faint. Thanks so much for responding soon. And here's how to respond to Chuck Swindoll. If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888. That's 800-772-8888. You can also give a donation online at insight.org.

Are you going through a rough patch right now? I'm Bill Meyer. Join us when Chuck Swindoll offers wise biblical counsel next time on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Hope Beyond Extremism, Marching Orders for Soldiers of the Cross, was copyrighted in 1989, 1990, 1996, 2006, and 2011. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2011 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.