What If Loving People Is the Most Radical Thing You Can Do?

By Pastor John Erickson

Can I confess something? I have a terrible sense of direction.

I'm talking about needing directions to places I've already visited thirty times. If I have to drive more than five minutes, there is a good chance I'm opening a map on my phone. I know. It's impressive that I ever make it anywhere.

If someone dropped me in the wilderness and told me to navigate home using the position of the sun, I would probably become a permanent resident of that wilderness.

We all appreciate a field guide when the terrain is unfamiliar. And sometimes the world we live in feels pretty unfamiliar.

It's loud. It's angry. It's complicated. Even people who claim to follow Jesus can seem ready to tear one another apart. So what does faithfulness look like in that kind of environment?

Peter gives us a surprisingly practical field guide in 1 Peter 4:8-11. And it probably isn't the strategy most of us would write.

Above all, love

Peter writes to believers who know what it means to be outsiders. They aren't the people with cultural influence or the ability to control everything around them. They live amid suspicion, hardship and suffering.

You might expect him to say, Above all, win the argument. Above all, protect your reputation. Above all, make sure people know where you stand.

But Peter says, "Above all, love each other deeply."

Above all.

That's a pretty strong phrase, isn't it? Peter isn't saying truth doesn't matter, or that disagreement disappears. He's telling us what should govern the way we handle disagreement, hardship and people who are not easy to love.

Love is not the decorative addition to a Christian life. It's the operating system.

Think of how much energy we spend being right. We replay arguments in the car. We write imaginary speeches in the shower. We develop a stunning closing statement to a conversation that ended two days ago. And in our imaginary version we always win. It's remarkable.

But did we love the other person?

What does it mean that love covers sin?

Peter continues, "because love covers over a multitude of sins." That can sound dangerous if we misunderstand it. Is he saying we pretend harm never happened? Keep quiet about abuse? Protect people who hurt others?

No. Covering with love is not covering up wrongdoing. Accountability matters. Justice matters. Safety matters.

Peter echoes Proverbs 10:12, where hatred stirs up conflict but love covers wrongs. Hatred keeps a conflict alive. It takes an offense and feeds it, rehearses it, enlarges it. Love refuses to turn every injury into another battle.

Love can confront without humiliating. Love can tell the truth without trying to destroy. Love can forgive without claiming the wound was imaginary.

And love can make room for the uncomfortable realization that we have also disappointed people. I have. You've probably had your moments too. We all want enormous grace for our own mistakes and precise justice for everybody else's.

I am thankful Jesus does not choose to love me with the same limits I sometimes place on loving others. That realization is uncomfortable, but it is also freeing. I am being asked to pass along grace, not manufacture something I have never received.

Jesus gives us another way.

When he tells his disciples to love one another as he has loved them, he's asking them to give what they have already received. We were not loved because we finally became flawless. We were loved while we were still in need of grace.

Your gifts are not just for you

Peter then moves from love to service. He says each believer should use whatever gift they've received to serve others, as a steward of God's grace.

I love that word steward. It means you are taking care of something that belongs to someone else. You don't own God's grace. You administer it.

Maybe you teach. Maybe you lead. Maybe you have an eye for the person standing alone at an event. Maybe you can fix things, make meals, organize chaos, encourage a discouraged friend, or sit with someone who has no words left.

None of those gifts are small when they are placed in God's hands.

But notice what Peter doesn't say. He doesn't tell us to use our gifts to build our personal brand, to become indispensable, or to make sure people notice how spiritual we are.

Use them to serve others.

God's grace comes to us, and then God intends for that grace to move through us.

A strange survival strategy

If I were writing a survival manual for a hostile world, I'd probably include a chapter about keeping your defenses up. Keep people at arm's length. Protect yourself. Don't give away too much.

Peter gives a different set of instructions: love deeply, practice hospitality, use your gifts, serve in the strength God provides.

Verse 9 even adds that we should offer hospitality without grumbling. There goes the option of opening the door while making sure everybody knows how inconvenienced we are. The welcome matters, and so does the heart behind it.

That doesn't mean we abandon wisdom or healthy boundaries. It means fear does not get to write the whole story.

What if the way we stand out in a fractured world isn't by becoming better at fighting, but by becoming better at loving?

Think about one person who has been difficult for you. What would it look like to love that person without pretending your differences are gone? Or think of the gift you have mostly kept to yourself. Who might be blessed if you gave it away?

You don't need a stage or a title. You need a willing heart and someone to love.

And when people see that kind of love, Peter tells us the glory goes where it belongs: to Jesus.