I invite you to take your Bibles and turn back to 1 Peter. 1 Peter 4, continuing this New Testament epistle as we've been doing in the evenings here. And tonight we are in 1 Peter 4, verses 7 through 11. And I would ask you please to stand for the reading of God's holy word. 1 Peter 4, beginning in verse 7. The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies. in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To Him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come again into your presence and come again to your word, thankful for the gift of your word, thankful for the blessing that it is to us. And we pray that again tonight as we Open it, and as it is preached, that you would bless this time by the work of your Holy Spirit. We are utterly and completely dependent upon you for this. Otherwise, it would be a vain exercise, the empty words of man. But Father, we know these are your words, and so we pray that you would take them and you would make them effective for the hearts of your people, to mold and shape us, to draw us near to you, and to bring glory to your name. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Now please be seated. This is a time of year when school is either ending or has ended for students and colleges and really every level. School year tends to wrap up about this time. And I was reminded in a conversation recently with someone who had kids that were in school and were just coming to the last week or two that it can be very hard to keep students motivated in that last week or so to actually get any work done. And so what ends up happening a lot of times is just videos get put on and sort of busy where it gets assigned, because the end is near. You know the end is coming, and so the idea becomes, well, what's the point? Why am I studying so hard? Why am I working so hard? We're gonna be out in a week or a week and a half, whatever it happens to be. Of course, seniors in high school or even in college get this strange malady they call senioritis, that it's my final year, I'm pretty much done with all the hard stuff, so the end is in sight and therefore I'm just gonna kind of back off a little bit, take it a little bit easy, sleep a little longer, skip a few classes, that sort of thing. And the reason that that happens is because of the reality of the end. It's almost over, and therefore, since it's almost over, my mindset is changing. Well, Peter has a spiritual version of this that he is putting before us tonight, and instead of being something that maybe would frustrate teachers, it's actually a good thing to keep in mind the implications of the fact that eternity is near at hand. that the end of all things, as he says, is at hand, that the end is coming, it is near upon you. And what we saw last week is that he's mentioned judgment and the readiness of God to judge, the living and the dead, and the idea being there that it could come at any time, but now he takes that and he is switching it over to implications for believers, not so much in the sense of judgment necessarily, but just in the reality of what God has done, is doing, and will do, and the timing of all of that. And so tonight, as we get into our text, what I would like us to see is that Peter is commanding Christians, Christians of his day and Christians in our day, to live in light of eternity. To live in light of the fact that this life is short, it's sort of a blip on the radar, and then it's gone. Because at any moment now, the Lord Jesus could return. And you live in light of eternity by having a particular mindset. and also a particular habit in your life of love and service for one another. So first of all, I want to look at the mindset that he gives us, and I will just put that under the heading of having a sober mindset. a sober mindset, and then secondly, to look at the ideas of love and service that he puts before us. So, eternity is at hand. The end of all things is at near. Therefore, live with this mindset, this sober mindset, and with acts of love and service. And that's what we want to unpack tonight. So first of all, the sober mindset. Verse seven, look there again. He says, the end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Having just mentioned a couple of verses ago about the judgments coming on the living and the dead, or the fact that that could come any day now, Peter's talking about the implications of this coming judgment, or rather, the coming finality for Christians. And the language that he's using here, he's not focusing on, in this, particular verse. He's not focusing on Christians thinking about judgment. Instead, he's encouraging Christians to think about the reality of God's redemptive work being essentially accomplished. putting the words together that he does here of the end of all things and the idea of those being at hand. That's familiar language in the New Testament. And it's the idea that God has been working redemptively. that he has from the beginning of time, and the beginning of the world, and all through the Old Testament, and all through the covenants, and the Exodus, and the building of the kingdom, and then the prophets, and the exiles, and then finally the coming of Christ. Through all of this, God has been working redemption. He's been accomplishing something. And now that Christ has come, it is almost done. There's only one thing left, and that is for the end, the final end to arrive, and that is when the Lord Jesus comes back. The word that he's using here, you may be familiar with in a scientific or academic context, it's the word telos. The telos is a hand. You might be familiar with the teleology, the goal of something. Peter's saying the goal is here, that which was the goal of God has come, or at least it is here any moment now. And that's what he's telling Christians to remember, is that the return of Christ, which is the cherry on top, or the final act of redemption, that is at hand. Now he's not saying, look, it's gonna be here in 20 minutes, or two hours, or two years, or anything like that. We know from Jesus himself and all through the New Testament that the actual return of Christ is a mystery. We don't know exactly when it will be, but we know that it could happen at any moment. There's nothing left for God to do to prepare for that other than for Christ himself to come. So really, you should be on the edge of your seats. You're in the theater and the curtain is about to rise at any second, the lights have been dimmed, and it's almost here, so have that mindset. That's what Peter is telling us. And so there are implications for that. There are implications for the reality of Christ's imminent return, and it could be at any moment. The first of those implications that he wants us to see is this mindset that he tells us to have in verse seven. He tells us to be self-controlled and sober-minded. The idea with these two terms that he's bringing together here is that we need to have a mindset, an outlook on life that is full of prudence, that is full of sobriety in the sense of a seriousness, and really is the opposite of all the things that he just mentioned in verse three, which we considered last week. All these vices, these things that the Gentiles do, the way that they live, that your mindset, your approach to life is to be the opposite of these things. You are to live with the idea not of, as verse three tells of the Gentiles, not of gratifying every lust that you have, not of fulfilling all of your desires, not of running into this wild intoxication of life. Instead, you are to live in a manner that is opposite that, that is controlled, that is sober in the sense of realistic. So you have this mindset that he's giving us, this reality of Christ's return gives us a sobriety, it gives us a seriousness, it gives us a certain kind of self-control in the way that we act, and that has implications for our prayer life. That's what he says at the end of your verse, that you have these things for the sake of your prayers. Now, why would that be? Why would this sort of sober look at life, this self-controlled prudence in the way that we live, in the way that we evaluate the reality of life, why would that impact our prayers? Why would it be for the sake of our prayers? Well, first of all, having a realistic outlook on life, on eternity, on the nature of this world, it encourages us to pray because we remember how much we need the Lord. gives us to prayer, it encourages to actually be in prayer because we see that this life and the difficulties of it and the reality of its shortness and its intensity and its danger, it reminds us that we are dependent upon the Lord, that we need to pray, that we must pray. Additionally, however, this sober-minded outlook, which comes from seeing eternity, our being catapulted into eternity coming at any moment, it helps us from getting our hearts and minds wrapped up on the wrong things. It keeps us, as John Calvin says, from being dazzled by this world, dazzled by something less grand than Christ. And by the way, just as a side here, I promise you I read other commentators besides John Calvin. I know I quoted him twice this morning and I'll be quoting him in just a moment, but I do read other commentaries, I promise. He just happens to be quite often the best and the one who is quote worthy. But that as a side, Calvin is pointing out that having a sober outlook on life, a realistic outlook, it keeps us from having our hearts wrapped up in the wrong things. He says, it is then no wonder that the cares of this world overwhelm us and make us drowsy if the view of present things dazzles our eyes. For we promise, almost all of us, an eternity to ourselves in this world. At least the end never comes to our mind. Calvin is saying that it's so easy for us to be living in a way that this life is all we think about. It's all we see. It's all we live for. It dazzles us. We run after those things that we can have, and sometimes the things themselves are not bad, but we run after them as if they are the end of all things, as if they are what we need the most, as if they are what will complete us, as if they, in this world and this life, are what matter most. We get dazzled by something other than the Lord Jesus. And so, as Calvin points out, it makes us have this anxiety. It makes us feel overwhelmed. It brings us to a place, on the one hand, where we're desperate to hold on to whatever we can, and we are panicking when we feel like we cannot hold on to it, that being the one hand, or as he says, on the other hand, it leaves us drowsy, this idea of being sort of lukewarm spiritually, that we're so involved in this world and in what we, in our daily life, almost just feel is eternity, is all that there is for us, and so we become very complacent, very sort of ho-hum about the Lord and about the things of the Lord. And so what Peter is exhorting us to here to have in mind eternity and therefore to be sobered by that, it's to have the attitude of our heart toward this life, to hold this life with an open hand, not to be grasping tightly to it, not to be holding our possessions or our activities, those things which we love, not to be holding on to those things, but to be holding on to Christ. Not to be dazzled by what is temporary, what is fleeting, what will ultimately be gone in what seems like the blink of an eye. Not to hold on to those things. Hold on to what is eternal. So brothers and sisters, this is a good time for us to pause and ask, where is our heart? Where's my heart? In the day-to-day, week-to-week sort of life that I'm living, have I become one of these people that has sort of stopped thinking about the fact that I'm temporary in this world, that this world itself is temporary? Is my heart getting caught up on things that do not last? Things that, while they may be fine and good for something that God gives us to use, that is not fine and good when it becomes an ultimate thing. Am I holding tightly onto, so tightly that I question God or that I forget Him, that I become lukewarm towards Him, to pleasure, to comfort, to ease, even to something like our health or our loved ones, towards our jobs and our bank accounts and all of these things. Are these the things that have captivated us? that we get all wrapped up in, that we get anxious about, and therefore become less passionate or less captivated by the things of the Lord. So are you living in light of eternity in this way? Is your heart living in light of eternity? There's a question that we do well to ask ourself on a regular basis. So that's the first thing, that we have this mindset that is sober about this life, realizes its brevity, and lives in light of the second coming of Christ. But additionally, Peter also commands us not just to have a certain mindset, but to act in a certain way, to have love and service towards those around us. And we see that first of all in verses eight and nine. He says, above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. So we see here, he's commanding us to love. He's commanding us to love those around us as a consequence of seeing eternity knocking at the door. seeing the end of all things being at hand is a time to have right priorities. If you know that, unlike our attitudes usually when we're in school, that the end is coming and you only have a certain amount of time to accomplish certain things, sometimes you double down on those things, and you work that much harder, and you put that much more energy and effort into it, and that's the sort of idea that he's giving us here. So he's saying, above all, with the end of all things being an end, above all, continue, keep loving one another earnestly. And he's putting this at the top of the priority list. What do you do with your life? How do you live your life? Well, love one another earnestly. The idea that ESV is bringing out here, the keep loving one another earnestly, it's something that should remind us that, what Peter is saying, that this isn't necessarily something that is easy, something that just sort of happens, something that is natural to us necessarily. It takes work. It takes effort. It takes perseverance. And why is that? You can see the one another language here. So he's talking about the church, he's talking about believers. I mean, I love Jesus, you love Jesus, shouldn't we just get along? Shouldn't we love one another, no problem? Well, of course we know it's not quite that simple. I may love Jesus, but I'm also a sinner. And you may love Jesus, but you're also a sinner. And sinners, when they come into close contact with one another, tend to have problems. That's why there's problems in the world. And that's why there's problems in the church too, because even though we love Jesus and we've been redeemed, we are still sinners. And so loving one another can oftentimes take a great amount of effort. It can take a great amount of perseverance. It doesn't happen automatically. There needs to be intention and intentionality and forbearance and these things because it is not something that we just do naturally and gladly. One of the reasons for this is because we do sin against each other. And Peter is pointing out that The reason, one of the reasons this is so important is because when you do love one another earnestly, then those sins aren't such a big deal. Notice what he says here, that you love one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. This is one of the most important parts about love, is that those sins which will inevitably be committed against you, and that you will inevitably commit against others, in your sphere of the local church, that when you love one another earnestly, those things are able to be covered. Now, Peter here likely is drawing off of his knowledge of Proverbs chapter 10 and verse 12, where he says, hatred stirs up strife. This is the Proverbs saying, hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. So you can see the, The contrast that the writer of the proverb is getting at there, that hatred acts in one way and love acts in the opposite way. And so, the opposite of what Peter is telling us to do is when you stir up strife. When you make a big deal out of something that should not be made a big deal out of. You don't pass over it. Instead of covering a sin, you magnify it. And so Peter is saying that you should not be stirring up problems like this, but that is indeed what will happen if there is not this sort of love, but you cover it. And I was thinking about what's an appropriate sort of illustration or word picture for this. And I thought, well, what if you consider sin like a spark? A spark that could be around something else flammable. So when I sin against you or you sin against me, there's this spark that has come out. What Peter wants us to do is to take water or dirt and throw it on that spark and to cover it and to make it a non-issue. It is no longer flammable. It is no longer something which is going to affect the environment around it. Whereas the opposite of that, without love, is taking that spark and blowing on it and adding fuel to it so that it turns into a flame. What Peter wants us to do in loving one another is to try to have sanctified skin, thick skin, so that when a brother or sister sins against us, it's not something which goes down deeply and which then creates large problems. Yes, there are times in the church when sin needs to be confronted. There are things that you cannot just cover over because of their nature and the consequences of them, that sort of thing. And we've been given provisions in God's word of how to deal with those things. But for all of the other petty things, a word that was spoken that perhaps shouldn't have been spoken, treating someone with an unkind attitude, perhaps being condescending or impatient, not listening to someone and being patient with them and the struggles that they're having. And we could go on and on. But for all of those sorts of things, Peter is saying, let love cover those. Let love put out those sparks. Let love be something which lets you pass right on by them and keep going. And so again, it's a good opportunity to ask ourselves, is this the way that we're treating one another? Is this what is in our hearts towards one another? Certainly one another in this room and in this body of Christ, sometimes we're a little better at putting on nice faces with one another, but this also goes to the Christians that are living in our own household, our spouses, our children, our siblings, our parents. We tend to see their sins, their sparks, a lot more than we see other people's. And so do we magnify those? Do we make big deals out of them? Or do we try to cover them? And Peter would have us cover them. Whenever possible, that you treat sin in a way, sin against you, in a way that says, you know what, this offense, I can get past. This is something that I don't have to take and let dwell deep within me and create a fire." That is what we would have. And I encourage all of us to take Peter's exhortation to heart that this is something we are to do above all, to love one another in this way, to cover offenses. Well, in addition to that, he also has us proactively seeking one another out, loving one another with hospitality. Verse nine, and you can see how all of this is part of the same mindset here. It's part of the same thought process of Peter that you love one another, therefore you're forgiving and covering sin, and also you're pursuing hospitality. Verse nine, show hospitality to one another without grumbling. Here, we might ask, well, what is the connection to earnestly loving each other? Why hospitality? Isn't hospitality really something where you're just kind of throwing a dinner party? Isn't that hospitality? Well, no, I would say hospitality is not that. You can do that, that's wonderful, but that is probably more entertaining. Hospitality is letting people into your lives. Hospitality is bringing people, yes, certainly into your home, sharing a meal together, that sort of thing. But the point of hospitality is to love others, to bring them in, to give of yourself. And that is why it is loving others earnestly, because it's not easy to do. You're bringing someone into the inner circle of your life. You're bringing them often into your home. You're providing for them of your own resources. You're giving your time, your energy, your effort. You're cleaning up after them. You're cleaning up before and after them, really, especially if you have kids. And you spend all of this effort for the sake of someone else. And that is not easy to do. but it is essential to do for the body of Christ. We talk about hospitality a fair amount here because, one, it's commanded in the scripture, as we see here, but two, practically, we will not grow with one another. We will not know one another and therefore not grow in love for one another if we aren't together outside of 20 minutes before and after the service once a week. We need to intentionally be together and we need to intentionally be serving one another in perhaps one of the most intimate ways that we can. Now, if you're thinking that hospitality means you do have to clean your home within an inch of its life and you have to make sure it's immaculate and perfect and that you have to have the perfect three-course meal and really, You're comparing yourself or setting the standard of something that you might see in Southern Living or one of those other magazines where people's houses just look perfect. You're missing the point. You can do hospitality by making PB&J and putting it on paper plates. Or opening a can of soup. The point is to have folks into your life and into your home. And that's when you're giving of yourself. And that's when you're earnestly loving. Because it's hard. And it's difficult, but it is also a blessing. You will bless others and you will yourself be blessed. So Peter commands this for us. We need to see that it's really, it's not optional. Now your hospitality and your particular circumstances may look very different from others, but the heart of hospitality, and he gets to that by saying that this needs to be without grumbling. In other words, we can't just put it on outwardly, but we can't have people into our home, but not our hearts. That it's a heart attitude that goes with this. And so he's commanding, I would say, first and foremost, the attitude, the heart of hospitality, and then how that plays itself out in your life, again, may look very different from those around you. But again, it's not optional. It's something that we should be doing The circumstances, the resources, the time that God has given us, we need to at least make a start. Well, that is where Peter has gone thus far, but he continues, and he shows us that love Now with hospitality, where our focus is on one another with our time and our resources, our focus likewise should be on one another with the other gifts that God has given us. And that he brings out in verses 10 and 11. He says, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, Whoever serves is one who serves by the strength that God supplies, in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To Him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. So our love for one another should not stop with hospitality, should it? It should not stop with just covering offenses. But we should see ourselves, whatever the gifts God has given us, and here Peter is referencing spiritual gifts, the varied grace of God through his Holy Spirit, which gives every believer spiritual gifts. And there are a few lists in the Bible that mention some of those. Those are not exhaustive. But if you are a Christian, you have been given certain gifts by God spiritually. And you are to use those for the love of others. for the benefit of others. We are to understand the idea that Peter is getting at here of stewardship. Notice the term that he uses, that we are to do this as good stewards of God's very grace. And that's an extremely important concept for the Christian life, the concept of stewardship. It's the idea that we are using something that we have been given that really does not belong to us. A steward in ancient times would be the one who's sort of managing things. There's an owner who has all of the resources and the finances and the agricultural work, and the steward is the one working for that and managing it. And he's been given certain tools and certain resources in his own hands, but they don't belong to him. And the gifts that God gives us are the same. They don't belong to us, they belong to him. And we are to use them, we are to steward them for the love of others. And ultimately, yes, he gets that for the glory of God. And really, we should see everything in our life as that which God has given us to steward. We should see our finances that way, certainly. We should see our spiritual gifts that way, as he's getting at here. As parents, we should see our children that way. We don't own our children. They don't belong to us. They belong to God. And as a parent, that's a hard concept sometimes because I want to have that ownership. I want to have control. But they're not mine. And your kids aren't yours. It's like your money ultimately isn't yours. Your health isn't yours. Nothing that we have is ultimately ours. We are stewards of it. Peter's bringing that out here. And with stewardship, the idea is that we then get our eyes off of ourself and onto others. Your talents, your gifts, your strengths, your abilities, they're not primarily for you, they're for your neighbor. therefore the glory of God. That's what Peter, that's where he's going with here. And so all of this, the goal with all of it is to be a blessing in God's kingdom, to be a blessing to believers and to be an instrument of God's glory. That's where he goes with the end of this. He says that in everything, this is verse 11, the middle to end of part of verse 11, he says, in order that in everything God may be glorified. And what he's, the sentence or the phrasing that he's coming off there is reminding us that as a steward, what you do, you are doing from God and through God and for the glory of God, because he's saying that if you've, and he's just using these as examples here, if your gift is one that is speaking, then you need to do that as one who speaks the oracles of God, as one who is speaking the truths of God. You're not speaking your own words. You're not speaking your own ideas. You're speaking the words of God. And then if you're serving, you're not serving by your own strength. He says you're doing it as one who serves by the strength that God supplies. And so what you've been given and then how you use it is all to be in the mindset that it is from God and it is for God. And it is for God, not because He needs it, but because He's using it to build His kingdom and to bless His people. And so, of course, we see here the interplay between the two greatest commandments, to love God and to love neighbor. Our neighbor, as one of my professors would say, God doesn't need our good works, our neighbor does. But God gives us the gifts to be able to do those good works so that our neighbor might be blessed. That's the point that Peter is driving at here. And so with all of it, with all of it, we are to have the idea that everything we've been given, our health, our time in this life, however long or short it may be, our finances, our relationships, our spiritual gifts, our homes. Everything that we have has been given to us by the Lord. We are recipients of it all. And you see the logic of the text. Peter here is exhorting us to remember that Christ is coming soon, and therefore to think in a certain way and to love in a certain way. But we love in that way because first we've been given love. We have been loved. We read that this morning in our assurance of pardon. This is love. This is what the truth of redemption is. Not that we have first loved God, but that he has loved us. So we have been loved, and now we, as God's people, are to love. We have been forgiven much, and now we, as God's people, are to forgive much. We have been gifted with homes and resources, and now we are to use them to give to others. We have been gifted with spiritual gifts and now we are to use those for the benefit of our brothers and sisters in Christ. And all of it, all of it, we pray and we hope and we work and we steward that it would be for the glory of God. And that is where Peter ends here with this exaltation. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever, amen. He's wrapping up his thoughts here. And we can see that the big picture is that God is bringing glory to himself. And he's exercising his dominion through the things that Peter has just mentioned. How does God exercise dominion in the world? He uses means to do it. And some of those means are his people exercising their gifts for the blessings of others. How does God receive glory? Well, in part through his kingdom being built and his people living and working as he would have them. That is to the glory of God. And so brothers and sisters tonight, may we be encouraged to remember that we have been given much. And so we are to give back much. Not because we earned something with God, but because by his grace, it brings him glory and it is a blessing for his kingdom. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and a reminder to us that your kingdom is near at hand, that at any moment, whether we realize it or not, any moment now, you could send our Savior to return to consummate all things. We pray that we would live in light of eternity. We pray that we would live with a deep love for one another, sober-minded, servant-hearted, stewarding what you have given us for the sake of your kingdom and your glory. We pray all of this in Jesus' name, amen.