Idle Living - 1 Peter 4
July 20, 2008
Turn with me this morning to the end of your Bibles, to the book of 1 Peter, chapter 4. We want to continue on in our study of the book of 1 Peter. Remember that Peter is writing to give practical help to Christians dealing with daily problems. He starts by reminding us that we all face trials. They come in all shapes and sizes of trial. Peter says we can expect them to come; so don’t be surprised when they do come. They can be very hard to deal with, but with God’s help, we can make it through. Peter says in spite of the trials in our lives, we are to Live in Hope. Hope is not a futile wishing for a good future, rather hope is the confident expectation that God will work, based upon his character. I can have hope in the midst of trials, Peter tells me, because I am chosen of God - God loved me and elected ME! I am born of God - God not only loved me, but he made me his child. I am destined for good - I have an incorruptible inheritance waiting for me. I am shielded by God’s power - I am completely protected as I face these various trials. Therefore, I can have JOY in the midst of the trials, and I can GROW spiritually.
Because we have hope, we are called to Live in Holiness. To do that, Peter calls us to
control our minds, imitate our master, inquire of scripture, anticipate judgment, and confirm our faith. In living holy lives, we are to Live in Harmony with one another. Peter calls us to holiness - remember this word holiness is really the idea of being “different” than the world - and then he calls us to live in harmony in response to the holy life we live. We have a fond affection, a brotherly love for one another, but we go on to extend ourselves to sacrificial love, and seek to live in unity, because we are children in the same family, stones in the same building, priests in the same temple, and citizens of the same nation.
The we saw we are to Live as a Herald - to live advertising Jesus, wherever we are. And we saw that to do a good job of advertising Jesus, we need to Live Humbly - to live a life of submission. Today, we are going to look at the idea of wasting our time, wasting our lives, idle living.
Let’s see what Peter has to say. READ 1 Peter 4:1-11. Pray.
How do you spend your time? Think about the impact you make with your life. The reality is that each one of us here today has the same amount of time to spend - 24 hours a day. Some accomplish much and some accomplish little. What makes the difference? Priorities! What is really important to you?
Rick Warren says “show me your checkbook and show me your daytimer and I can tell you what is important to you.” The things we spend our time and money on are the real priorities in our lives.
A lot of people say “I want to spend time with my kids, my wife, my church” - and it just doesn’t happen. The reality is that they really DON’T want to. They just think it would be a nice idea if they ever did. Let’s be honest. The things that really matter to us, the things that are priorities in our lives, we make time for.
So, think about how you spent your time this past week. What does that say about what is really important to you? Take a moment to consider that.
We live in a culture that is spoiled, we have easy lives, and many workers just live for the weekend. If you’ve ever been near a lake, they call them “weekend warriors” - the lake is peaceful all week long, and then on the weekend, everyone comes to get away and “live it up.”
And as Christians, sometimes we fall into the trap of following the pattern of the world. We just “put in” our time at work so we can live it up on the weekend and do all the things we want to do. But often we end up wasting our time and our lives in things that really don’t matter much in light of eternity. We follow the pattern of the world around us, and waste our time and our money foolishly.
We give the excuse, “there’s nothing wrong with having a little fun!” But Peter warns us not to waste our lives. Here in verse 2, Peter reminds us that a Christian is not to live his life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. We have a different reason for living: not to get a lot of money; not to have a lot of fun; not to make a lot of people like us; we live to do the will of God. And in verse 3 Peter reminds us, For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do--living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. The truth is that each one of us here have wasted so much of our lives that we don’t need to spend another minute of our life living frivolously - living to fill our passions and desires.
In one Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, Calvin says to Hobbes, "God put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind I will never die." Sometimes we all feel like that. One thing we understand about our lives from the scriptures is that
• Life is Short - In Psalm 39 it reminds us: Show me, O LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath. James reminds us, What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Just like the fog that rises off a lake in the morning -- it’s there for a second and then gone. Just like the steam coming off your coffee cup. Just like seeing your breath in the winter - it’s there and then it’s gone forever. It’s the same with your life.
Think back to the summer when you were 8 -- every day and every week seemed so long. By July you were bored. You didn’t know what to do with yourself. But as we get older, it seems the years fly by like a day. Life is short, and we need to make the most of it. That’s why it tells us in Psalm 90 - Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Those who are truly wise have learned to value every day. Anne Wells writes,
My brother-in-law opened the bottom drawer of my sister’s bureau and lifted out a tissue-wrapped package. “This,” he said, “is not a slip. This is lingerie.” He discarded the tissue and handed me the slip. It was exquisite; silk, handmade, and trimmed with a cobweb of lace. The price tag with an astronomical figure on it was still attached. “Pam bought this the first time we went to New York, at least 8 or 9 years ago. She never wore it. She was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is the occasion.”
He took the slip from me and put it on the bed with the other clothes we were taking to the mortician. His hands lingered on the soft material for a moment, then he slammed the drawer shut and turned to me. “Don’t ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you’re alive is a special occasion.” I remembered those words through the funeral and the days that followed when I helped him and my niece attend to all the sad chores that follow an unexpected death. I’m still thinking about his words, and they’ve changed my life. I’m reading more and dusting less. I’m sitting on the deck and admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden. I’m spending more time with my family and friends and less time in meetings.
I’m not “saving” anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event-such as losing a pound, or getting the sink unstopped. I’m not saving my good perfume for special parties; clerks in hardware stores and tellers in banks have noses that function as well as my party-going friends’.
It’s those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew that my hours were limited. Angry because I put off seeing good Friends whom I was going to get in touch with-someday. Angry because I hadn’t written certain letters that I intended to write-one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn’t tell my husband and daughter often enough how much I truly love them.
And every morning when I open my eyes, I tell myself that it is special. Every day, every minute, every breath truly is . . . a gift from God.
We remember that life is short. But we also know that
• Life can be wasted - In the book of Ecclesiastes, we find the record of King Solomon, one of the richest and wisest kings who ever lived. Solomon spared no expense in trying to find happiness and meaning in life. And he records for us in this book that the two do not necessarily go together. He records in chapter 2 - I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly . . . I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well--the delights of the heart of man. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. . . . I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.
Solomon buys and gets and does everything that he can possibly think of to find pleasure, but in the end he realizes that this is all meaningless. It doesn’t fulfill us. It doesn’t bring a life of meaning and purpose.
It’s sort of like the pilot who announced over the intercom, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we’re making excellent time. The bad news is that our navigational systems are malfunctioning and we have no idea where we’re going." Sometimes our lives are like that -- the days are going quickly by, but we don’t really know what we’re trying to do with our lives.
Life is short, and life can be wasted. As you think about your own life today, maybe you realize that it is going far quicker than you want it to, and as you think about your life, you realize that your life is not really what you want it to be. We need to take careful inventory of how we spend our days. Paul writes to the church at Ephesus and says this: Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
So this takes us back to what Peter is telling us here in chapter 4: we have spend enough time wasting our lives like the world. A Christian knows he is to consume his life with doing the will of God. In verse 1, it reminds us that when we suffer, we are reminded that we endure suffering faithfully not because we like it, but because we are willing to face suffering if it is in the will of God. Verse 4 - the unsaved people you work with, you live next to, in your family even, will think you are strange when you don’t get excited about wasting your life in beer parties, and they will even make fun of you and mock you and call you “preacher”. But Peter reminds us that we have to give an account of how we lived our life to our master.
So, if we want to make a difference for God with our lives, how will we live? Peter tells us how to live. He tells us four things that we need to focus on spending the rest of our lives doing. Write these down. There are many more things that could be added to the list - time with family, going to church, giving - but these are the four that Peter gives us. What do we spend our lives doing?
1. Praying - verse 7 - The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. Peter didn’t know how long he would live. He knew that Jesus had indicated that he would face a difficult death. But he also knew Jesus promised he would return for his church. And if Peter thought the end was near 2000 years ago, how much closer it must be today.
People say there are two sure things: death and taxes. But death is not certain. Our hope should not be in dying to go be with Jesus -- it should be in meeting Jesus when he comes back in the clouds to take us to be with him forever. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord for ever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. We want to say like John, even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.
And because we are looking forward to being with our Lord forever, we spend our days on this earth in prayer. It should be a priority for us. Think back over this past week. How much time did you spend in prayer? The Psalmist writes in Psalm 116 - I love the LORD because he hears and answers my prayers. Because he bends down and listens, I will pray as long as I have breath! Hebrews 4 tells us, Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. When we really believe that God hears and answers us, it will drive us to pray more and more. Do you believe in prayer? Don’t answer with your head. Answer with your time. If you believe in prayer, you will pray! It makes no sense to say you believe in prayer but to not pray.
Peter gives a condition to our praying: Be clear-minded and self-controlled. Really the idea is to stay balanced: don’t give in to any wild thinking. There are a lot of unbiblical ideas about prayer. This whole “name it, claim it” philosophy of prayer states you can have anything you want if you pray for it and believe it. But that’s not what Jesus promised. Rather scripture says that when we pray for the things that God wants for us, God will give us His will. Peter reminds us to be in our right minds as we pray.
So, if you don’t want to waste your life, if you want to make a difference in this world, what can you do? PRAY! The old saying is true: Prayer changes things! That’s the first thing, praying. Here’s the 2nd in verse 8 2. Loving - Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. The verse starts out, above all - really this means, before everything else in order of importance is this: love each other deeply. If there was one thing you could work on to improve the value of your life it would be this: do a better job of loving, of loving God and loving people. You might say, well loving God is much, much more important than loving people. But the two go hand in hand. 1 John 4 - If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we have not seen? So, we need to love people, to love each other, so that we can truly love God.
It says we are to love “deeply” or in some translations “fervently” - it is the word used in Acts 16 for the church praying continually, without ceasing, when Peter is in jail. It is the idea of an athlete stretching himself constantly pursuing the goal. The word literally means “to extend” - we are to stretch ourselves, to extend ourselves in love for others.
We don’t just show love when it is convenient. Some husbands want to be all nice and kind when they want a sexual encounter with their wife, but then they want to step all over them the rest of the day. That’s a sinful, ungodly man who does that! We don’t show love to manipulate or to get anything out of anyone. We show love because it is how we show Christ to the world, it’s how we advertise Jesus to our world.
Peter tells us loving others will cover a multitude of sins. There is a lot that you can overlook when you love someone. If we focus more on loving than judging, we will find that we grow a whole lot closer to others.
If you want to spend your life wisely, spend it praying more, loving more, and third,
3. Sharing - spend it sharing more. And this idea of sharing with others is the word “hospitality”. Verse 9 - Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Really the word hospitality means a “love of strangers.” Showing love to others in practical ways. Opening up your homes and your hearts. The semitic culture was one of hospitality, where a guest was always welcomed. The host sought to refresh the guest.
If you want to make a difference with your life, use your hospitality as a way to bless and refresh others. Invite others to spend time with you, to be with you, to see you in all situations, and to be blessed by your encouragement.
We are not having Sunday night services the next few weeks, and I hope you will take the suggestion of the bulletin to invite someone else over to share the night with. We will be having a focus on friendship starting in September, and we are going to give each of you a chance to share a time of hospitality with someone else. I’d like you each to start planning now for September 7th, to share lunch with someone else. We’ll share more details about that in the next few weeks.
But when you share hospitality, notice the warning of Peter - do it without grumbling. Did you ever have a host who let you know how much he paid for the steaks, how long she had to spend cleaning the kitchen. Instead of an honored guest, you feel like an unwanted intruder. Proverbs 23 tells us what it’s like: Do not eat the food of a stingy man, do not crave his delicacies; for he is the kind of man who is always thinking about the cost. “Eat and drink,” he says to you, but his heart is not with you. You will vomit up the little you have eaten and will have wasted your compliments.
When you share hospitality, don’t even think about doing it unless you can do it cheerfully. It is better to eat alone than to grumble and complain as you have someone over. The whole purpose of hospitality is to show love and offer a blessing on the other person. So to make the most of our lives, we spend our days
praying, loving, sharing, and fourth,
4. Serving - look in verse 10 - Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. Not only do we seek to bless and refresh others, but we seek to serve one another. We use the gifts God has given us for the good of the whole body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 12 we are reminded that we are all one body and our gifts are not given to us for our benefit, but for the common good, for the good of the whole church. We often think about finding a good teacher to learn the bible from - but we don’t often think about seeking out others to give us training in handling our finances, or praying more, or in having more faith. Yet we are to seek to serve each other by using our gifts. And when we do that, Peter says we will be giving God’s grace to others.
So, in evaluating your life, as we seek to make an impact for Christ, ask yourself these questions:
How much have I prayed? How have I shown love? How have I offered hospitality? How have I served others? And as you do a little evaluation, you may realize you didn’t do the best you could, so a better question to ask in evaluation is this: What will you do intentionally this week to do better at praying? Loving? Sharing? and Serving?
Let’s pray that God would show us what we should do. PRAY.
