Love Covers a Multitude of Sins (1 Peter 4:8)

with me. Record. Here we go. We're recording. And then let me pin me so it records me. There we go. All right. Okay. So, um, today we're, as I said, today we're going to be in First Peter and we're going to be in chapter 4 and verse 8. And as I said, my brother was kind of the genesis for for the scripture today. He he brought it up to me yesterday and it was Uh but let me read the verse. And so it's again 1 Peter 4:8 and it says, "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins." So so this is uh so in context, this is us loving someone else.

This is what Peter is referring to. He's talking to the church. This is not Peter writing that God is covering our sins. We we already know that that's happened when we're we're saved. We already know that that he died on the cross for all of our sins. So that's not that's not God looking at us and going, "Well, love covers a multitude of sins, so I'm going to turn a blind eye to that." That's not the context in this verse. The context in this verse is is I've done something to offend Tony. And Tony has made a a conscious decision that he's going to honor God by walking out this verse, which is above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins.

So what does that mean? Above all, Peter is saying that this isn't like one of the things to do. He's he's saying like this isn't next in line. He's saying this is the most important part. So, above all, the most important part of your Christian walk, above all is to keep loving one another earnestly. And uh if you've got a Strong's concordance and you go in and you look at what the real meaning of the word earnestly is, it's it's like a muscle being stretched to its maximum. And so when we read that, maybe that word doesn't really, you know, conjure up, you know, sweating and and all of this effort, but that's what it is in the text as they write this word.

That's what it's meant to be. And so it it means an active uh an active love, a a groaning love, a stretching love. You you're you're doing everything you can inside your will and your power to love that person. Um it it says and then some people kind of can can misinterpret this next part where it says since love covers a multitude of sins. It's not saying that you hide it uh necessarily in a term that you could think about like we're going to just sweep this under the rug. That's not what it's saying. What it's saying is that if my brother has done something wrong to me, I'm not going to broadcast it to the office.

I'm not going to broadcast it to the family. I'm not going to broadcast it to my fellow church members. I'm going to cover him with a blanket of love. And and that's what this is for. It's not to sweep it under the rug. There's nothing wrong with loving that person. And what does that mean? That means correcting them. That means going to them and saying, "Hey, I think what you're doing is not right. I think you've missed the mark." That's love. It doesn't mean sweep it under the rug. It doesn't mean put it throw it in a closet. Doesn't mean ignore it, but it but it does mean to cover it up.

We don't have to broadcast that that mistake or that error to our family, our friends, our co-workers, our bo church body, our men's group, our ladies group. We don't have to do that. That's what it talks about when he when Peter is saying since love covers a multitude of sins. And and let's not skip over the multitude part because that's also very important. Uh uh Christ was asked, "How many times should I forgive my brother?" And his response was seven times 70. So, he wasn't really saying 490 times. You're not keeping a tally or a check mark.

All right, I All right, my brother 10's at 484. He's only got a couple more and I'm all done forgiving him. That's that's not what it means. Christ was giving an analogy of you. You always forgive your brother. If you want you're gonna each one of us messes up daily. And if we want God to forgive us, then we have to be able to forgive others as well, too. And if we want God to forgive us for every single wrong we're going to commit today and tomorrow and the next day, then we have to be able to do the same thing for our brother and sister in Christ.

And so Peter writes this in here. Love covers a multitude of sins. It's not just one. It's not just two. It's not five. It's whatever we have to do. Again, if someone continues to harm you, we have to be smart about it. Right? I'm not suggesting that ladies, if you're in an abusive relationship, well, you're supposed to continue to love and and and cover over this multitude of sin. You can still love that man and you can still pray for that man, but you don't need to be in that house. You can do that from a distance, right? So, it's not the scripture is not saying that, but it does say that if that person has a sinful nature that we're supposed to cover them with love over and over and over again.

So above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. All right, thoughts, comments? All right. Somebody else. Anybody else? Uh, actually Dwayne, I just wanted to say really quick, good morning everyone, but I want to apologize to everyone up rather late. Um, for my own valition, I guess later for my own education. Could you tell me please what verse what scripture we went over today? I could do that. Sure. First Peter 4:8. Thank you so much. I'll go over there. Thank you. No worries. Yep. Anybody else? Yes. Christ died for us.

We are commanded to love one another as Christ loved us. And what he do for us, he died for us. So the greatest love we can show is to lay down our lives for our brother. He set the example. He forgave us. His death set us free. So we can give others the same grace. Amen. Amen. Anybody else? 30 seconds. All right. Well, let's bow our heads and pray. Today is Wednesday, right? For the rest of the day. For the rest of the day. The entire day. Right. All right. Well, good. Well, let's Well, then we will be here tomorrow. All right. Let's God willing, let's pray out.

Father, thank you for today. Uh thank you for for the participation in the group, Lord. Thank you that um that we have some this body of believers that shows up to just talk about the word, Father, to to to show you that that we are giving you the first part of our day that that that you mean everything to us and that we want to we want to we want to we want to show that, Father. We want to uh we want you to know that we love you and that we appreciate everything every good and perfect gift that you give to us. Lord, I pray that that this this verse sometimes can be difficult to play out.

Why? because uh sometimes it's it's easier to walk away. Not not sometimes, most times it's easier to walk away and and then sometimes it's easier to to throw it out into the light and maybe it maybe it makes us feel better in some way, Lord, if we've been wronged in an offense, but but that's not what you have. That's not what you ask us to do. You ask us to stretch ourselves uh to continue to love one another earnestly and to and to allow that to cover the offense, Father. not forget it, not sweep it under the rug, Lord, but uh but to love that person uh in spite of what they've done.

And so, Lord, give us the the courage and the strength to be able to just walk that part out. I know that that's probably difficult for everybody here, at least in some seasons of their lives. And so, uh give us just give us discernment, give us wisdom, give us guidance. Um walk with us today. Allow us an opportunity to show love to our neighbor. Um, again, that's that's that's what this is all about. Father, we thank you. We love you. We praise you. And as always, in your son's name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right, all see you guys tomorrow. No family church or Bible study tonight.

Oh, no Bible study tonight. Everybody know that if you go to our church, it's the the whole church took the week off. So, no Bible study tonight. All right. Bye, guys. Thank you. See you. Okay. So, we're going to your house. We'll see you later. That's right. Yes. Yeah. Burgers. Jimmy. Jimmy's bringing the food. Yep. All right. I mean, bring the bring the burgers and I'll cook them for you. Have a good day, guys. Byebye. Wow.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability.