End-Times Living

I remember when I was a young teen, walking through a park in a big city and seeing a guy standing on a box holding up a sign that said something like, “the end is near.” And I was pretty sure that this guy was crazy.

No doubt the fact that he looked like he hadn’t showered in a couple of decades helped me form that conclusion, not to mention the fact that he was just standing on a box holding up a sign. But what was on the sign was perhaps the craziest part to a lot of people.

This was pre-Y2K, pre-9/11. Here we were, on a sunny day, with normal people walking around going about their normal lives, and this guy thinks the end is near. What could be more crazy?

But this week, I thought about that guy, and wondered, “What if he’d just been reading 1 Peter?” I’m sure Peter would have a thing or two to say about this guy’s methods and presentation, but Peter sure seems to agree with the message on the sign. “The end of all things is at hand.”

If that’s true, we want to know what that means. And then we want to know what we’re supposed to do about it. Thankfully, Peter is very clear on that second part. But before we get there, we want to back up, looking at the whole Bible, to try and understand what Peter means by “the end of all things is at hand.”

The end is near! So… (v. 7a)

The Old Testament Scriptures paint a picture of history with two major eras or ages in it. There is this present age, and there is the age to come. At some point, the Jews understood that this age was going to be completed, and the age to come would arrive and go on forever.

One of the markers of this present evil age is death. And so one of the great events that would mark the end of this age and the beginning of the to come was a great resurrection of the dead, like we read about in Daniel 12:2-4. Resurrection = end of the age.

So when Peter and the other apostles went that first Sunday to the tomb of Jesus and found it empty, and slowly came to terms with the fact that Jesus is alive, what was one of the realizations that he and the other apostles were dealing with? They were dealing with the reality that the age to come had already dawned and was breaking in this present age. The end-times resurrection had already started. They were living in the last days.

That’s the perspective of the whole New Testament. Since the resurrection of Jesus, we’ve been living in the end times, already beginning to taste the first-fruits of the age to come.

Peter said this on Pentecost, when he explained to the crowd what was happening. “But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh’” (Acts 2:16-17). We saw this perspective in 1 Peter, back in 1:20, which told us that Jesus was “manifest in the last times.”

The last days are upon us, because we’ve been living in the end times since the resurrection of Jesus. He is ready to judge the living and the dead, like we saw last week. All we’re waiting is for the gospel to go everywhere it needs to go. All we’re waiting is for the full number of the people of God, chosen before the foundation of the earth, to be gathered into the fold. And when the work is done, then the end will come, when Christ returns and judges his enemies and reigns forever.

When you really get that, it makes a difference. When you understand that history is not just endlessly meandering on, but is headed somewhere, when you understand that we are all hurtling at a rate of 24 hours a day towards an eternal appointment with the Lord Jesus Christ, when you understand that this might all happen a lot sooner than any of us think—that makes a difference in how you look at your life and how you evaluate your priorities.

The question is, how should we look at our life and evaluate our priorities? If you really believed that Jesus could come back within the next 24 hours, what would you do?

History is full of examples of people who have become convinced that Jesus was returning soon and went off acting like fools. Running to the hills. Starting cults. Standing on a box with a sign. And sadly, that foolishness has made some of us roll our eyes at any suggestion that the end is near.

But that’s not Peter’s approach. Peter really believes that the end is at hand. And after telling us this, he instructs us how to live in light of the end. This is what end-times living looks like. And it comes to us in four parts.

1. Be clear headed for the sake of prayer (v. 7b)

First, Peter tells us to be clear-headed. That’s there in verse 7: “The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded.” The word for self-controlled here has to do with being in one’s right mind, thinking clearly without being under the sway of dominating passions. Together with “sober-minded,” we shouldn’t take these words to be talking about two different things, but rather we should see that Peter is piling up language to make a point. It’s like he’s saying, “be exceptionally clear-headed.”

Once again, this isn’t a new idea for Peter. 1:13 said, “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.”

In light of the nearness of the return of Jesus, we need to think, and think clearly. Now, we could supply all kinds of reasons for why we need to think clearly, but Peter tells us specifically what this is for in the last part of verse 7: “for the sake of your prayers.”

The word “your” isn’t actually there in the original language. Peter more basically saying, “be very clear-headed for the sake of prayer.” As we live in the shadow of the end of all things, a great priority for us needs to be prayer. And so, in order to pray properly, we need to think clearly.

Jesus connected His return to our praying more than once. Luke 18:7-8 says, “And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:7–8). Just a few chapters later, in Luke 21, Jesus is instructing His disciples on His return, and he says this to them:

“‘But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man’” (Luke 21:34–36).

The end of all things, and the soon return of Jesus, should prompt us to wakeful, clear-minded prayer. Prayer for His return. Prayer for God’s justice. Prayer for strength given the hardship that will come on us in that time. Prayer that we would stay alert and watchful, depending on the Lord. And this calls for us to be exceedingly clear-headed, avoiding anything that will make us spiritually drowsy and prayer-less and not watchful and not ready for our master’s return.

Maybe that includes actual drunkenness, like we heard last week. Christians must avoid any substance that makes us less than clear-headed. Maybe there are other things in your life that are intoxicating your thinking, like excessive media consumption, or a phone addiction, or some other hobby or habit that makes prayer harder than it needs to be.

The end of all things is at hand. We must make it a priority to think clearly for the sake of prayer.

2. Keep your love for each other earnest (v. 8a)

The next instruction from Peter, in verse 8, is that we would keep on loving one another earnestly. This is not the first time we’ve heard something similar to this from Peter. Back in chapter 1, we heard him tell to “love one another earnestly from a pure heart” (1 Pet 1:22b). And here, Peter tells us that as we live in the light of the nearness of the end, we need to keep on doing this. To keep our love constant, which is another way of giving the sense of these words.

Being ready for the end is not a solo project. We need each other. And this love needs to be a priority. “Above all,” verse 8 says. Above our own personal priorities. Above our preferences and wants. Loving one another earnestly, constantly, needs to be a key priority in our life.

Since love covers many sins (v. 8b)

Now love is so important, and so often spoken of in Scripture, that we scarcely need to ask “why.” But Peter gives us a reason. Here is why we need to keep loving one another earnestly: “since love covers a multitude of sins.”

This is an idea we see several other places in Scripture: that love covers over the sins of others. Think of 1 Corinthians 13:4: “Love is patient.” What kind of things make us need patience? Isn’t it often the sins of others? And in response to the sins of others, love is patient. The next verse says that love ice not “irritable or resentful.” Love is not easily provoked by others. And it doesn’t hold grudges when it is sinned against.

Proverbs 10:12, which Peter is probably alluding to here, says “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.” Love does not delight to point out others’ wrongs as soon as they’ve happened, as if we’re a referee just watching everyone and waiting to blow that whistle as soon as someone does something wrong.

Proverbs 19:11 points to this same ida when it says, “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense” (Proverbs 19:11).

And consider how Paul expands on these ideas in Colossians 3:12-14 when he writes, “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” (Colossians 3:12–14).

Now let’s make a very important clarification here. We know that because Jesus said, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone” (Matthew 18:15). Loving our brothers and sisters often means talking to them when they’ve sinned against us. But notice what love does: it goes to them, and gives them a chance to deal with it between the two of you alone.

This is the opposite of gossip and slander, where someone who has been offended delights to broadcast that offence to anybody who wants to listen. It’s literally the opposite of love.

Love is not afraid of confrontation. James ends his letter by saying, “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19–20).

“Covering a multitude of sins” sometimes means going to someone and having that hard conversation with them. But it also means that we don’t pounce on everybody who ever does anything that offends us as soon as they do it. It means we’re okay to overlook offences. It means that, if we do need to talk to someone who has offended us, we treat them with respect and deal with it between just the two of us. We want to cover sins, not expose them for everybody to see.

And it often means that we apply wisdom in knowing when to have those conversations. Timing matters. We talked about this at the parenting workshop this past Sunday: particularly as our children grow older, loving them will often mean not pouncing on them like judge, jury and executioner the second they do something wrong. We need to treat them with the same respect that we’d want someone to show to us—giving us time to cool down if we’re upset, asking questions, seeking to understand their heart—all of that becomes really crucial as our children move in and through the teenage years.

And all of that is really crucial with each other as we keep on loving each other earnestly in light of the nearness of the end. “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

3. Be hospitable to one another (v. 9a)

Peter’s third instruction here in verse 9 is that we would “show hospitality to one another.” Hospitality is a big theme in the Bible, and no doubt this is connected to love—one of the ways we love is to show hospitality.

But there’s a few things in verse 9 we want to pay attention to. First, while the ESV text says “show hospitality,” the sense of the original language is a little less clear than that. The original language doesn’t have a verb here. It just says “hospitable towards one another.” That’s why different translations render this different ways. The NIV says “offer hospitality.” The KJV says “Use hospitality.” The NASB is probably the closest, in my opinion, when it says “be hospitable,” because that’s closest to the word that Peter uses here.

He does not use “hospitality” as a noun, saying “show that.” He uses hospitality as an adjective, a describing word, with the implication that we should be that. Not just do hospitality once in a while, but be hospitable. When people think of us, “hospitable” is one of the words they would use to describe us.

It’s also important here to note that Peter is telling us to be hospitable towards each other.  There is a biblical place for showing hospitality to strangers, but the emphasis here is on God’s people being hospitable with each other. Opening up our homes, our tables, and our lives to each other.

Now when we talk about hospitality in this setting some people struggle because maybe their life circumstances or their living situation makes it hard for them to show hospitality. But I still think it’s possible for all of us tot be hospitable with one another. Young adults, being hospitable might mean not breaking off into cliques, but being welcoming and open to the people that you don’t know very well. Bible college students, maybe you’re just living in a dorm, but you can take the new guy out for coffee and offer to pay. Maybe you don’t have a nice home, but you can make meals for those who are sick or struggling.

Or maybe, if you can, the call to be hospitable means making it a priority to have your home be a hospitable place. Maybe if you have no time for hospitality, you need to reevaluate your schedule and your priorities. Maybe you share a home with others who aren’t as committed to hospitality, but you can partner with another Christian friend to help them show hospitality in another location.

There’s all kinds of ways we can be creative as we work within our limitations to be hospitable.

Without grumbling (v. 9b)

Let’s not move on before we notice these final two words in verse 9—“without grumbling.” Peter gets that hospitality is hard. It’s easy to grumble about it.

I grew up hearing people talk about “the gift of hospitality,” and how some people just had it, while others didn’t. And apparently, the way you knew whether you had it or now was whether it came easy to you or not.

But there is no indication in the Bible that hospitality is a gift. Hospitality is something we are all called to show to each other. And Peter assumes it’s going to be challenging. It’s going to be easy to grumble. “Give that person another meal? Have them over again? Give another missionary another place to stay?”

But he calls us to be hospitable without grumbling. We live in God’s world, and God has invited us into His kingdom and His family with incredible hospitality. And soon we will be welcomed into His house which has many rooms. Knowing that helps us continue to show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

4. Steward your gifts to serve each other (v. 10)

Peter’s fourth and final instruction is that we would steward our gifts to serve one another. Verse 10: “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”

Peter assumes that each one of God’s children has received a gift. This gift is a gift of His grace. And we are to be good stewards of that grace by using our gifts to serve one another.

Question: What are “gifts”?

Now before we go too much further here, we need to ask the question, “What are ‘gifts’?” People these days have a lot of assumptions about “spiritual gifts” that they read into a passage like this. They assume that when Peter speaks of “gift” he means a “spiritual gift,” which is to say, a special ability given by the Holy Spirit, which makes you really good at something, which you discover by filling out a “spiritual gifts assessment” sheet.

Without getting into all of the details behind this, and all of the scholarship and so on, we can just say that it is far from certain that Peter or Paul had this very developed definition of “spiritual gifts” that we’re supposed to read into every time they use this word. The fact of the matter is that the word for “gift” is used in all kinds of ways in the New Testament, and we need to look at each passage to understand how the word is being used and what it means.

Peter here says, “as each has received a gift.” You know what I think the word “gift” means in that passage? It means gift. Something God gave us, graciously. I think we should be very careful about defining it more specifically than that, especially because Peter goes on to say that these “gifts” are examples of “God’s varied” grace. His diverse grace.

God has given all of us all kinds of gifts. These gifts include might include special abilities, but they also might include opportunities, ministries, relationships. Some interpreters of the Bible have read this verse in connection to verse 9 and understood the financial ability to show hospitality as being one of God’s gifts. Marriage is a gift, according to 1 Corinthians 7. So is singleness.

What we can see here is that there’s all kinds of gifts, each of them examples of God’s varied grace. And whatever we’ve received by God’s grace is a gift. And what are we to do with them? We’re to serve one another with them. Because whatever gifts we’ve received, they don’t belong to us. We are just stewards of God’s varied grace.

Peter had heard Jesus, in a a similar context, speak about the master of the house who entrusted a steward to distribute food to the household (Luke 12:42). That’s the picture here: whatever God has given us, He has given us for the sake of serving others.

And in verse 11, Peter gives two examples of what it looks like to serve one another as a steward of God’s grace. In these two examples, he refers to speaking and serving. One way of seeing these two examples is that he just picked them out of a hat. I think a better way is understanding them as summaries.

If you think of all of the ways we can serve one another, you can group them together as either saying something or doing something. It’s like Colossians 3:17 says: “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” In a similar way, I think it might be better to see “speaking” and “serving” here as summaries of all the ways we can steward God’s grace to each other.

Example 1: Speaking (v. 11a)

And so the first example is speaking. “Whoever speaks.” I understand this to mean, “whoever serves others by speaking.” And when we serve others by speaking, doing that as a steward of God’s grace means the we’ll seek to speak “as one who speaks oracles of God.”

“Oracles of God” is a phrase from the Old Testament that refers to God’s words, God’s sayings, God’s speech. And so Peter is saying that when we serve one another through speaking, we don’t just broadcast our own opinions. We serve others when we speak God’s words to them.

Whether we’re directly quoting Scripture, or speaking words informed by Scripture that help explain and apply Scripture, speaking God’s truth to each other is one of the great ways that we serve each other.

Ephesians 4:15 says that by speaking the truth in love to one another, we grow up into Christ. And so Peter tells us that when we serve one another by speaking, we’re to do that as a steward of God’s grace by speaking His words, His message.

Example 2: Serving (v. 11b)

The second big category here is “serving.” How are we to steward God’s grace as we serve each other? It’s a little more clear-cut with speaking. I can speak my words, or I can speak God’s words. But when it comes to serving, how do we do that in a way that stewards God’s grace? I mean, if I make someone a meal, or cut someone’s grass, how does God’s grace play into that kind of service?

And the answer, in the middle part of verse 11, is this: “whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies.” We steward God’s grace by serving in His strength.

How many times have you found yourself about to serve in some way, and have thought “I don’t have what it takes. I’m not up for this. God, please help me. Please give me strength”? For me, that’s every morning. I pray for God’s help and strength more than anything else I pray for myself. And according to Peter, that’s a great spot to be in. That’s the spot we want to be in.

If we’re just serving in our own natural abilities, if we’re just doing what comes easy to us, if ministry is just about strong people doing what comes naturally to them, then where’s God’s grace in that? Where’s Gods gifts in that?

God’s gracious gifts are highlighted when weak people serve one another in conscious dependence upon God’s strength. When we, and the people we’re serving, know that we’re serving in God’s strength, He gets the attention. He gets the glory.

Purpose: God’s Glory (v. 11c)

And according to Peter, that’s the goal here. We are to speak God’s words and serve in God’s strength “in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”

That’s the goal. Not our glory. Not our fame. Not our reputation. Not our platform. The goal is the fame of God’s name, through Jesus. And when we speak God’s words and serve in God’s strength, that brings Him glory, not us. That puts Him in the spotlight, not us.

And that’s the way it should be, because, as Peter goes on to say, “to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” All the glory belongs to God. He’s the one who made everything, He made you, He planned this whole plan of redemption. It’s all about Him. To him belongs all of the dominion, or power. It’s all his, whether we know it or not. Even that supposedly strong person serving in their strength—that’s actually from God. “He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything…’in him we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:25-28).

But God wants this to be plain, and clear. He wants us to know that the glory and the power is His. And we know that when this happens, when God through Christ is at the centre of attention, that’s actually when we are the most happy and joyful because that’s what we were made for. We were made to behold glory.

And so we bring glory to God as we serve one another as stewards of His grace, speaking His words, and serving in His strength.

Conclusion

And we do this because the end of all things is at hand. We live in the last days, we have no idea how long we have before Christ is revealed, and knowing that should not make us get obsessed with the news or sidetracked by trying to solve the end-times as if it was a giant crossword puzzle.

No, knowing the end is at hand, we devote our selves to clear-headed prayer, earnest love, hospitality, and serving one another in word and deed. This is end-times living. This is the kind of thing we want to do, as stewards of God’s grace, so that when the master returns He will find us faithfully doing the work He’s given us to do. And we won’t be caught sleeping and ashamed. And we’ll get to hear His words, “well done.”

So, what should we do with this passage? I hope you know the answer is that we do this passage. We put it into practice. And for many of us, that is going to mean we keep on doing the kinds of things that we’re already doing, with fresh perspective and motivation.

For some of us, we may beed to re-evaluate: why am I not doing these things? Do I really believe what God has told me? Do I believe the master is returning? What else in my life is getting in the way of prayer, love, hospitality, and service? Have I prioritized my hobbies, my interests, my possessions, anything else above these last-days priorities? Are there changes I need to make?

Even if we need to ask some hard questions, even make some hard decisions, let’s not loose sight of the big picture. Because Jesus lived and died and rose again, the end of all things is not the end of the world for us. There is grace coming when Jesus is revealed (1 Peter 1:13). We can look forward to that day with joy. And we can gladly shape our lives around that day not to earn God’s grace, but in response to the grace we’ve already been given and have been promised.

Let’s ask for His help to do that together.