The End is at Hand
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Introduction
Introduction
As we began looking at chapter 4 last week we saw this call to live for God’s Kingdom, to live for God’s glory, to live to do the will of the Father, not to live for this world.
We talked about last week that this is the same way of thinking that Peter is calling us to.
Again we saw last week that when we live this way the world will not like it.
The more you live for God’s will and and the less you live for the world the more the world will hate you.
See what they did to our Lord.
But their judgement is coming
And we are reminded that though we may suffer for righteousness sake we have life that can never be taken from us.
So at the end of this section Peter reminds us of the end time hope that we have as followers of Christ.
And that leads us into the next set of verses.
I. The imminent return of Christ.
I. The imminent return of Christ.
We can trace Peter’s thought as he is lead by the Holy Spirit here.
We are to live for God’s Kingdom, live to do God’s will living righteous and holy lives and not worldly lives marked by sin. Brothers and sisters we have been set free from death and judgement and have been given life in Christ.
And then there is the encouragement with this truth, the consummation of God’s Kingdom, the consummation of the life that we have been given in Christ and the judgement of the wicked (the end of all things) is near, that is it is at hand.
The reason the end is near is because the ministry, death, and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ inaugurated that last days.
Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.
Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.
As we read the NT we see this theme that the end of history is imminent often
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand;
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.
All of the following exhortations in the following verses flow from this truth, that the end is near. Because the end is near Christians should live in the following way.
This is typical to what we see in the rest of the NT when the end is discussed.
The NT does not discuss the end of times to help us set dates or charts or things like this, instead these truths are set before us to encourage us to live in a godly way.
through the end of chapter 25
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
The imminence of the end is not used to call us to withdraw from the world but to live as salt and light in the world, it is a call to action, a call to faithfulness.
Knowing that time is short we are called to make the best use of the time.
Knowing that Lord could return at any time one may think well what are the big things that I must do?
Well if we notice Peter calls us to faithfulness in the everyday things of life.
II. Living in light of the imminent return of Christ.
II. Living in light of the imminent return of Christ.
Pray
Be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers or so that you can pray.
Sober-minded is to be able to see clearly, to see things as they really are
This word is used
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Peter is saying that there is a way of living where one can become drunk by the attractions of this world. When one is intoxicated by the the entertainment and the flash of the world then they will not be able to set their hope on the grace to come.
When one is drunk by the world then they will not hope in Christ.
Church if we are going to hope in the second coming of Christ then we have to stop drinking the intoxicating lies of the world and of sin.
We have to think soberly about reality.
We have to think soberly about sin and the world, (we cannot dismiss the sinfulness of sin)
we have to think soberly about our own lives,
we have to think soberly about the brevity of life,
we have to think soberly about the emptiness that is there even when we have everything that the world tells us that we are to live for.
We have to think soberly about God's coming wrath,
We have to think soberly about the reality there is nothing more satisfying than Christ and that if we have Christ and if Christ has us then nothing can undo that union.
You will not pray as you should if you are not sober-minded so for the sake of your prayers be sober-minded
He also mentions being self-controlled, if we are going to be sober-minded we must be self controlled, right?
So this is a call for us to pray
We will not pray as we ought, we will not pray in a way that is pleasing to God is we are not self controlled and sober minded.
We will not know how to pray, we will not know what to pray for if we are not self controlled and sober minded.
2. Love one another
Love
Notice the next command is modified.
Before all things, above all things
Serve
We are called to love one another and the significance of this is seen with this phrase “above all”
More than anything else make sure that you love one another.
We are called to love one another earnestly.
The idea here is that of persevering love.
Maybe we could say it this way: More important than anything else make sure that you persevere in loving one another.
That you continue loving one another
Do not waver in your love for one another.
Loving others can be hard, it can be taxing, it can be costly but even though all of that is true we are called to love one another.
Notice the text says that we are love one another and that love covers a multitude of sins.
In other words, our love for one another will cause us to forgive one another.
We will not separate, go our own way, get mad and go home if someone does something against us, no true love perseveres, true love forgives.
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
This is a theme that Peter has already visited.
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
1 Peter 1:22
Paul tells us in that the greatest of the Christian virtues is love.
And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
The kind of love that we are called to is the kind that gives of itself for the good of the other.
I think of
For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
1 John
Brothers and sisters our Lord warned us that at the end of the age love is apt to grow cold
And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
Matthew
I think we see this in our day.
Relationships are so self centered, i think technology, cell phones, television, and so many other creature comforts have caused us to turn more and more inward.
Brothers and sisters we must fight to stoke the fires of love so that we display our love for one another.
In light of the imminence of our Lord’s return brothers and sisters we need to be reminded of the centrality of love for one another.
3. Be hospitable to one another
Here Peter shifts to a very particular command in v.9
Hospitality is a form of love
Indeed the greek word philoxenoi comes from the compound of philos (love) and xenos (stranger).
Hospitality is a specific form of love: caring for strangers.
This is one of the marks of the Christian community
Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
Hospitality was particularly crucial for the Chritian mission in a day when lodging could not be afforded and hece the advance of the mission depended on the willingness of believers to provide bed and board for those visiting.
And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart.
Matth. 10
“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.
I think of Chris Teel though they are not strangers, her opening her house to the Ketchens when they were passing through town.
I think of Chris Teel though they are not strangers, her opening her house to the Ketchens when they were passing through town.
Without gru
Having brothers and sisters in Christ in our home is a way that we can show our love to other Christians, to brothers and sisters in Christ.
I think of hospitality in having others over into your home, hospitality was necessary for the early church to meet in homes.
And we see the words without grumbling, acknowledging that opening one’s home to others can be hard and one can easily grow tired of the service.
But we are called to a joyful hospitality.
4. Serve one another
This theme of ministering to one another comes up again here in v.10.
The emphasis shifts to the gifts believers have recieved by God’s grace.
The word gift “charisma” implies the fits believers have are the result of God’s grace
This word is often used to refer to spiritual gifts.
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.
1 Cor. 12.
These gifts are given to believers, not so that they can be puffed up by their abilities or not to serve themselves, not for their own good but that they might be sacrificially used for the good of others.
Notice in the text with these gifts we have a responsibility, we are to be good stewards of God’s varied grace.
There are a variety of gifts that God graciously gives and we are to use those gifts for the good of others, use those gifts as a means of grace in the lives of others.
He continues in v.11
whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God. That is you are to recognize in your teaching, in your preaching that your wisdom, your words is not what people need to hear, people need God’s Words, they need to hear from God.
God gives these gifts not to be used by individuals to make themselves look good but so that they may point individuals to God and to His wisdom, to His Word.
When one serves, they serve by the strength God supplies.
What does that look like?
Serving with a prayerful attitude. Looking to God to act and to move in the lives of others through your service, knowing that you are only an instrument in the Redeemer’s Hands. Unless God works through you in the lives of others it will be of no eternal value.
Whether we are speaking or serving we are to do so in such a way where God would be glorified through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The One who provides the strength is to be praised, the One whose words are the words of life is to be praised and not us.
If it ultimately comes from the Lord, then the Lord is the One who is to be praised.
Peter concludes this section with a doxology maybe marking the end of the main section of the letter.
May we live, may we love, may we serve in such a way that the glory and the dominion of our Lord Jesus Christ would be advanced because He is soon to come again and when He comes again His glory and His dominion will fill the earth.
May we labor to that end!!!