Living Living in Communityin Community

Lesson Passage:Lesson Passage:

1 Peter 4:1-111 Peter 4:1-11

Background:Background:

1 Peter 4:1-111 Peter 4:1-11

1.1. Support One Another Support One Another

(1 Pet. 4:1-6)(1 Pet. 4:1-6)

2.2. Love One Another Love One Another

(1 Pet. 4:7-9)(1 Pet. 4:7-9)

3.3. Serve One Another Serve One Another

(1 Pet. 4:10-11)(1 Pet. 4:10-11)

14 …if you might suffer for …righteousness, you’re blessed… do not be …disturbed, 15 but set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts, always ready to make a defense to anyone who asks …an accounting [for] the hope that is in you. 16 …with courtesy & respect, with a clear conscience, unslanderable [“teflon”], so that the ones who malign .. are put to shame. 17 …it is better to suffer for doing good, if God wills…. 18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, in order that he could bring you to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which also He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 who were formerly disobedient, when the patience of God waited in the days of Noah, while an ark was being constructed, in which a few—that is, eight souls—were rescued through water. 21 And also, corresponding to this, baptism now saves you, not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, with angels and authorities and powers having been subjected to him.

Review of 1 Peter 3(b):

1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, equip yourselves also with the same resolve —because the one who suffered in the flesh has finished with sin — 2 in order to live the remaining time in the flesh, no longer for human desires, but for God’s will.

3 For there has already been enough time spent in doing what the pagans choose to do: carrying on in unrestrained behavior, evil desires, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and lawless idolatry. 4 So they are surprised that you don’t plunge with them into the same flood of wild living—and they slander you.5 They will give an account to the One who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this reason the gospel was also preached to those who are now dead, so that, although they might be judged by men in the fleshly realm, they might live by God in the spiritual realm.

:1-3 Jesus died with Sin, SO you can die to it & be free to live for God

Circumcision prefigures Christ's crucifying sin nature, we must follow

Blinded in sin, people follow the false god of their belly (Php. 3:18-20)

:6 Some Christians were already persecuted, died, are now in heaven

:5-6 Hate sin? Then reprove as Jesus did, by your Walk (Acts17:31)

1. Support One Another (1 Pet. 4:1-6) [HCSB]

7 Now the end of all things is near; therefore, be serious and disciplined for prayer. 8 Above all, maintain an intense love for each other, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Be hospitable to one another without complaining.

:7 In God’s accounting, no time left for sin: “the end of all things is near”

1 Cor. 7:26-32 “..the appointed time has grown very short” (Paul)

People’s lives are ticking away… Vapors in the wind (Jam. 4:14)Why does distress cause us to pray? Should it?

Lk. 18:1-8 pray-er Men ought to ALWAYS pray and NEVER give up.

The parable of the persistent pray-er, a widow who had an unfair adversary, but kept on ‘taking it to the judge’. He answered speedily!

Why did Jesus say “But when the Son of Man returns, will He find faith?”

:8 Why is Love “above all”? God’s Love JOINS us as a ‘Body’ in Jesus

A testimony of Unselfishness: “By this all men will know.. My disciples”

What does it mean, “Love ‘covers’ many sins”? Can you cover for others

:9 What is hospitality? Why is it important?

Why does being hospitable challenge us, so that we balk and complain?

2. Love One Another (1 Pet. 4:7-9) [HCSB]

10 Based on the gift each one has received, use it to serve others, as good managers of the varied grace of God:11 If anyone speaks, it should be as one who speaks God’s words; if anyone serves, it should be from the strength God provides, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything.

To Him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.

:11 Eph. 3:8-11 PRAISES God for the infinite wonders He has built into His church!

One day all creation should, must, will praise Him! (Php. 2:10, Rom. 14:11, Col. 1:20)

Your works (Eph. 2:11), the gifts He gives & you use in Him, WILL lead others to be praise Him (saved!) (Mt. 5:16,1 Pet.2:12, Jn. 15:5)

To be fruitful, we must use our gifts with His Love, in His will, agreeing as Body in everything (Matt. 18:18-19)

Jesus the Lord is here. His Church is to become His pride & joy!

3. Serve One Another (1 Pet. 4:10-11) [HCSB]

(Backups)

• Luke 9: 23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.

• Deuteronomy 10: 16 Therefore, circumcise your hearts and don’t be stiff-necked any longer.

• Galatians 5: 24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

• Romans 2: 28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and true circumcision is not something visible in the flesh. 29 On the contrary, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart—by the Spirit, not the letter. That man’s praiseis not from men but from God.

• Colossians 2: 11 You were also circumcised in Him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of the Messiah.

• 1 Peter 4: 4 Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, equip yourselves also with the same resolve—because the one who suffered in the flesh has finished with sin—

• Hebrews 12: 12 Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us,

Put to death your old nature

We are “Gifted” – How are we using them?

• 8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was granted and graciously entrusted: to proclaim to the Gentiles the unending (boundless) riches of Christ,

• 9 Also to enlighten all men and make plain to them what is the plan of the mystery kept hidden through the ages and concealed until now in God Who created all things by Christ Jesus

• 10 that through the church the complicated, many-sided wisdom of God in all its infinite variety and innumerable aspects might now be made known to the angelic rulers and authorities in the heavenly sphere.

Ephesians 3: 8–10 (AMP)

Paul prayed for light to flood the hearts of the Ephesians (1:18):

•18 By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints (His set-apart ones),

When walking like Jesus, you are ‘shining light’ when you reprove others by your true behavior, just as Jesus shined on you.

•11 Take no part in and have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds and enterprises of darkness, but instead expose and reprove and convict them. 12 For it is a shame even to speak of or mention the things that [such people] practice in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed and reproved by the light, it is made visible and clear; and where everything is visible and clear there is light. 14Therefore He says,

Light from Ephesians (AMP)

Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine (make day dawn) upon you and give you light. – Eph. 5:11–14 (AMP)