Peter Barnes | 1 Peter 4:10-11
SERMON NOTES
USING OUR GIFTS
1 Peter 4:10-11
– there are longer sections on the same subject in 1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4:7-16; and Romans 12:3-8.
1. All Christians have a gift.
– 4:10. No one is useless, and no one is self-sufficient.
(a) Gifts are to serve one another. See 1 Cor.12:7. The gifts are not designed to help us but to help others.
(b) Gifts are to be used faithfully. Peter says that all Christians are to be good stewards of God’s varied grace – Matt.24:45-46.
(c) Gifts are to glorify Christ. Read 4:11b. See 2 Peter 3:18.
2. Speak the oracles of God.
– 4:11. The first task of the speaker is not to be clever or entertaining – Ezek.3:17-19; 1 Cor.4:1-2. Dr Samuel Johnson: ‘I know not any crime so great that a man could contrive to commit, as poisoning the sources of eternal truth.’
– Rom.3:2; Num.24:5-6, 15-17. Speak what God says.
3. Serving in God’s strength.
– 4:11; this is the verb form of the word ‘deacon’. Peter is probably not referring specifically to the deacons, but to Christians in general.
– Ex.36:1-2. Serving is to feed the hungry, to visit the sick, to look after the prisoner – Matt.5:16. Robert Leighton: ‘Faith’s great work is, to renounce self-power and to bring in the power of God to be ours.’