The question of where you see yourself in ten years sounds entirely different once a doctor tells you that you have one year left, because the list of goals suddenly grows short and sorts itself out. The preacher offers one goal meant to filter all the others: serve one another, with the assurance of your salvation as the motivation. Along the way Peter’s letter (1 Peter 4) inverts how we read suffering, because it is no proof of disobedience but of growing like Christ. Listen and ask whose goal could become yours as well this year.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- Peter is writing to Christians who are suffering and wondering whether God is angry with them. According to 1 Peter 4:1-6, how should they view their suffering, and why does he start with the example of Christ?
- The speaker explained that Jesus proclaimed victory to the dead and led the faithful out of death's grip. What confidence does it give you that the God who rescued His people from death will also keep you through suffering?
- When life goes well, it is easy to think God is pleased with you, and when it goes badly, that something went wrong. How does that belief shape your relationship with God, and how does this passage answer it?
- The sermon opened by asking what you would do with only one year left to live. How do the words "the end of all things is at hand" in verse 7 reshape your goals and priorities?
- According to the speaker, being convinced of your salvation is the motivation to serve one another with ferocity. How does what God has done for you move you to serve others, and what holds you back?
- The speaker encouraged us to learn the goals and desires of the people close to us and help them achieve them. Whose goal or need in your family or church could you concretely support with your gift this week?
