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A number of years ago, I wrote an article in our newsletter explaining the importance of every Christian belonging to a local church. This article needed to be written because we live in an age when commitment to a local church is on the decline.
Historically in America, church attendance was high. The most dominant force upon American society historically was Christianity, and this showed on Sundays. It used to be that on Sundays, businesses, convenience stores, and restaurants were closed.
And they were closed because of how Sunday was viewed. Sunday was viewed as a Sabbath rest. It is the day of the week when people stop their busy schedules and spend time with their church families and biological with a special focus on worshiping the Lord.
Having one day off a week to spend this way was seen as a gift from God, just as Israel rested on the seventh day Saturday before the church began 2 ,000 years ago. But those days when most Americans viewed Sunday in this way are long gone.
As our country has become more secularized, Sundays have become just another day. It is not only just another day to non-religious people, but even to some who identify as Christians. It is common for cultural Christians to only attend church a few days a year, and even genuine Christians have been influenced by the surrounding culture by not prioritizing Sundays.
Even worse, there are some Christians who don't belong to a local church at all. What we must understand is that the disregard for Sunday worship and viewing it as a day of rest, like generations past have viewed it, is not just a pagan problem.
It is a problem within the broader church. Sundays are intended to be a blessing for God's people, just as Saturdays were for the nation of Israel in the days of old. Not only is Sunday designed to be a day of rest where you stop your normal activities, but it is also the time when the Lord designs it for your spiritual tank to be filled.
Every Sunday when we gather, you are facing all sorts of things in your life. You have joys, yes, but you also have difficulties. And you have spiritual dryness. You need encouragement, and Sunday is intended to encourage you.
We also come in with sins that we need to address. Sunday is intended to exhort you to turn from your sins. Sunday morning is intended to inspire you to be more like Jesus. It is a time to be hearers of the word, taking it into your hearts as you hear preaching and teaching so that we will be doers of the word.
Sunday morning is also a time where we sing together. Singing the truth of God's word is intended to fill our souls with joy and hope. Another way we get filled is by being around the people of God. Some of the richest fellowship you will ever experience is intended by God to be found in a local church, and this fellowship is to come Sundays and other gatherings during the week.
So as you can see, being a part of a local church and being committed to that fellowship is very important. The Apostle Peter, like other New Testament writers, understood the importance of these local body of believers that are found all over the world.
This morning as we continue our sermon series through 1 Peter, Peter describes what a local church is supposed to look like as people carry out what the Lord calls each to carry out. And Christians are to do these things understanding that Christ's return is on the horizon.
This is the great hope of the church, the return of Christ. So at this time, I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to 1 Peter chapter 4. We'll be looking at verses 7 through 11. And if you do not have a Bible, we do have the red Bibles.
The sermon is titled The Vibrant Church in the Last Days. And here's our big idea. What the sermon is calling you to do. Fulfill your Christian responsibilities as the end nears. And as I say the big idea, I also want to read the text.
1 Peter chapter 4 verses 7 through 11. 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 is 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 once again, the big idea. Fulfill your Christian responsibilities as the end nears. And we're going to see four practices how in this text. But before we jump in, let me give you a little recap of where we were one Sunday ago.
We looked at the first six verses of 1 Peter 4. And in these verses, Peter described how Christians must live their lives differently from the way they once lived. The call was to live your life to save it, not destroy it.
As Christians, we are to look different from the world. The world lives for their own selfish pursuits. But believers are to live for the glory of God as they carry out the will of God. Now this leads us to our text this morning that we've already read, but now we will zero in on.
And we're going to begin by zeroing in on verse 7, where Peter once again writes, the end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self-controlled and sober -minded for the sake of your prayers. Peter starts off this section with this big statement, this apocalyptic statement.
The end of all things is at hand. This is a statement concerning the end times. In Greek, the word last means eschaton. So in theology, this is called eschatology. What the Bible teaches is that this world will not go on forever.
We live in a disposable world. A day will come when Christ will split the sky and He will gather His people. As I and other teachers in this church have shown, the end of the story of Scripture, of this world, is very detailed.
In the spring and summer of 2020, I did a sermon series on the end times where I followed the chronology of when every event will take place. You can go back and listen to any of those on our church website.
But as we think about the end times, we might think that we have not quite entered that time, but truthfully, the end, the eschaton, started 2 ,000 years ago when the Messiah Jesus came to the earth. Hebrews 1, verses 1 and 2 describes this.
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.
In the Old Testament, there was no understanding of true comings of the Messiah. We learn that there are two comings through the new revelation that was given, what we call the New Testament. So the last days started when Jesus came on the scene 2 ,000 years ago, and we await His second coming, which starts with the rapture, and that can take place at any time.
At any moment, the church, the Christians, the people who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, can be taken to meet Jesus in the air as 1 Thessalonians 4 says. So when Peter says the end of all things is at hand, we need to keep this in mind.
There is this clear theme throughout the New Testament that the time is short, that this earth is on borrowed time, and Christ is going to come, defeat evil, and take His throne. The imminence of Christ's return, the nearness of His return, means that believers need to live godly lives.
This is the call Peter is making in these verses. We need to understand everything in context. In the previous verses that we saw one week ago, Peter is telling his readers, don't live for human passions.
Don't live like the world, but rather live for the will of God. Building off of this, in verse 7 he writes, because the end is near, don't live like the world. Don't live to live it up. Don't live for today and not think about tomorrow.
Don't live to get highs from alcohol, drugs, and sexual relations outside of marriage. Don't live where your whole goal in life is self-gratification, but rather live for the will of God. And those who live for the will of God are self-controlled and sober-minded, as Peter writes in the middle of verse 7.
What does it mean to be self-controlled and sober-minded? It means that you don't give in to every sinful desire that you have. You have control over your desires. And it starts with our minds being in the right place.
One thing I was telling in the Wednesday night Bible study a few weeks back is that we shouldn't do things based on our emotions. In our sinfulness, we really want to do certain things. But our mind is the captain.
What Romans 12, verse 1 says is that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Your mind is the captain and your mind is to be full of the Word of God. When you are tempted to sin, your mind should run to the Word of God and then we live according to biblical thinking.
Someone who is not sober doesn't have the right thinking. We describe people who are intoxicated with alcohol in this way. Their minds have been influenced by alcohol and therefore their minds are not rational.
But if we are thinking biblically as we go through our lives, then we are sober-minded. What Peter does at the end of verse 7 is that he makes a connection between being self-controlled and sober-minded in our prayer life.
One thing that we must understand is that those who are self-controlled and sober-minded are men and women of prayer. Every godly person has this in common. Each prays. If prayer is not a regular part of your life, you need to make it a regular part of your life.
Prayer is this constant communication between you and God. We fill our minds with God's Word as we read the Word and listen to preaching and hear teaching from the Word. And then as we go through our day, we pray.
We pray, Lord, help me not to live for my sinful passions, but for Your will. Help me to honor You in thought, word, and deed. Help me to glorify You in my life. Help me to be a blessing to others. Godly people are constantly in communication with God as we live out His Word.
And one aspect of living out His Word is praying that He would strengthen us, that we would be used as a vessel for Him in this world. So in this first point, fulfill your Christian responsibilities as the end nears.
And the first practice how is by living for the will of God, not sinful passions. The second practice how you are to fulfill your Christian responsibilities as the end nears is by overlooking the sins of others.
Now in the introduction, I talked about the local church and what Peter is about to describe is how we are to live in this world where Christ is awaiting the Word of His Father to come back to this earth.
So let's zero in on verse 8 where Peter writes, Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Now as Peter is describing the end of the world, basic instructions concerning how we are to behave toward one another in the local church seems kind of odd.
Shouldn't Peter be giving us a how-to guide about how to prepare for the apocalypse? The New Testament writers, including people, are not survivalists. A full-blown survivalist is one who cuts himself off from society, gathering every resource so that he can survive what is coming.
Now let me say this, I'm not saying don't prep for what may come. If you were to go in Brianna and my basement, what you would see is that we do have things stored up. There are some common sense things we should do in case the power grid goes down or whatever happens in this crazy world we live in.
Being a prepper is different than being a survivalist. A survivalist goes overboard, even to the point of cutting oneself off from community. But what Peter is saying is that as the end nears, we need to be in community.
The people of God need each other. It is not a time to disperse, but a time to come together. So as we live in these days when Christ's return is on the horizon, these are the instructions that Peter gives.
In the previous point, Peter said be self-controlled, sober-minded, and a man or woman of prayer. You are not living to do what you want when you want, but your focus is on what God wants. Now Peter writes in verse 8, to above all keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins.
Peter says to love, and he highlights something specifically about love, and that is forgiveness. Now before we get into the forgiveness part, let's talk briefly about biblical love. The word love is thrown around very loosely in our culture.
In our culture, love is a feeling. It is having affection for someone else. This can be romantic affection, family affection, or affection for a friend. Love is pretty much, I like this person or I like this thing.
Some in this room will say I love the Green Bay Packers. Others of you in this room who are more sober-minded will say I love the Minnesota Vikings. I'm sorry about that for those Packers fans out there.
But all joking aside, our culture's understanding of what love is is very shallow. It is reduced merely to liking someone or something. But this is not biblical love. True love does have an affection component to it, so there is an aspect to love where we like someone, whether it's a spouse, a family member, a friend.
But true love doesn't stop there. True love always involves action. Jesus is the ultimate example of this. In John 15, verse 13, Jesus said, This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.
Greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends. Jesus showed his love for you and I as he went to the cross and died for our sins. He acted and the Lord always shows his love for his people.
He's always doing good to those who belong to him. He calls his people to reflect the love that he shows for us. In John 14, verse 15, Jesus told this to his disciples and he tells us, He says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
So those who treasure him, those who have true affection for him, obey him. This is how you know you truly belong to Jesus. Do you obey him? One thing we can all admit is that we should love him and obey him more.
So love is always acting. Love is always giving of ourselves to God and others. One of the ways that we show our love to God and others is by forgiving, as I mentioned at the beginning of this point. This is what Peter means when he writes, Love covers a multitude of sins.
One of the ways we love someone is by overlooking their sins. Now you might say, Don't sins need to be addressed? If someone sins against us, Matthew 18 says we are to go to that person. But this verse, 1 Peter 4 .8, qualifies that verse.
What I believe Matthew 18 is saying is that certain sins rise to a level where it needs to be addressed. And in those cases, you are to go to that person. Let's say that someone is in the habit of insulting you where it hurts.
You let it go a couple of times, but now the number is up to a dozen and you need to say something. The first several times you overlooked it, since love covers a multitude of sins. But it came to a point where you needed to address it.
It rose to that level. So there are times when someone sins against you and you overlook it because that's what love calls you to do. In a local church context, we are a church family. And just like a biological family, we sin against each other.
When that happens, we need to have a forgiving spirit to the one who sins against us. There's an old saying, familiarity breeds contempt. And it's so true. How easy it is when those closest to us get under our skin and we get under their skin.
This is where we need to have forgiveness. If you think about marriage, the dazzling person that you married goes away pretty quickly. And then what is going to make a marriage last? It's true love. It's true biblical love where it's giving.
And it's not just give me what I want, but it's giving to the other person. Any healthy church has a pattern of forgiving and confessing. And sometimes people don't confess and in those cases, we are not to hold bitterness against the one who offends.
With all the false love that is shown around the world, please understand that true love forgives. Mature Christians are not bitter people, but those who show grace to others. All you have to do is think about your sins against God and others and that should make you much more gracious to others as Ephesians 4 .32 says.
Forgive others as God and Christ has forgiven you. So Peter is calling believers in the local church to show love by having a forgiving spirit. So fulfill your Christian responsibilities as the end nears.
And the second practice how is by overlooking the sins of others. The third practice how you are to fulfill your Christian responsibilities as the end nears is by opening up your home to others. Now Peter focuses on another Christian responsibility in verse 9.
Verse 9, Peter writes, show hospitality to one another without grumbling. Peter highlights something that can often get overlooked. But what he highlights here is the practice of hospitality. Here's a dictionary definition for you.
I mentioned earlier that society has a wrong definition of love. If you actually type in love on the internet, the definition of it, it's actually a really bad definition because it just says a strong affection for someone else.
But what I said is that love involves action. The dictionary definition I found for hospitality was actually pretty good. It says here, the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.
Hospitality is welcoming people into your home. And this can also be applied to other things like a restaurant, a business, or a local church. When people come into this church, Eureka Baptist, they should feel welcome.
It should feel like home. It should be a warm environment. The facility should be warm, but even more importantly, the people should be warm. Healthy churches have a home feel to them. Hospitality is a biblical principle.
Biblical hospitality is always done with a good attitude. As Peter writes at the end of verse nine, this should be done without grumbling. The author of Hebrews highlights this biblical practice in Hebrews 13 too.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels. The author of Hebrews is referencing Abraham's wife, Sarah, who had angels show up at her door and on the spot, she welcomed them by providing a meal.
Sometimes showing hospitality to someone is planned, and sometimes it's not. So the question we need to ask ourselves is how are we doing in hospitality? And here's a convicting question to ask yourself.
Are you doing better or worse than the world in this area? Some of you know people who aren't Christians and they do a good job of hosting people in their homes. These people don't even know it, but they are borrowing from the biblical value of hospitality.
It is a shame when the world outdo's the church in this area. And here's a question to ask yourself. When was the last time you had someone from church in your home? And I say in your church because that's what Peter's talking about here primarily.
He's saying show hospitality to one another, to your local church. Because remember, Peter is writing to churches in Asia Minor here. He's telling these churches, show hospitality to one another in your church.
I remember when Brianna and I moved here during the heart of winter in 2017. We didn't know anyone. What a blessing it was when Sean and Rachel Anderson invited us to dinner at their house where other church people were as well.
They were showing hospitality and we were blessed by it as we felt welcomed by our new church family. There have been many times where I've rode on my electric bike. And yes, it is an electric bike. And as I rode on my bike and stopped at people's homes, people welcomed me.
And people gave me a drink. People didn't shoo me away. And I've had other experiences in this church. Mickey used to be my neighbor and I would just show up at his house. And one time he was actually traveling for work and I was at his house.
And I was watching a game on TV and we were actually texting back and forth about the game. So Mickey was a wonderful host as my neighbor. And it's not just about those in your church who you're supposed to show hospitality to.
You're supposed to show it to everybody. But especially to those in your church. But when we think about unbelievers, hospitality is a great way to do evangelism. It's important to understand that we need to reach people for Christ and what an opportunity when we invite someone into our homes.
So we must do hospitality. It's important to understand that in this crazy world we live in that is inching closer to Christ's return, Peter calls his readers and us to practice the simple biblical practice of being a good host.
And may we do this joyfully. And as you do this, what a blessing you will be to others and you too will experience the joy of blessing others. So fulfill your Christian responsibilities as the end nears.
And the third practice how is by opening up your home to others. The fourth and final practice how you are to fulfill your Christian responsibilities as the end nears is by using your gifts to build up the body of Christ.
Now we get to Peter's last instruction concerning the Christian's responsibility as the end nears. And this is what he says in verses 10 and 11. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace.
Whoever speaks is 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. So what Peter describes here is the responsibility of the Christian to use your gifts.
And here are a few observations as to what Peter is saying. The first in verse 10 is that each has received a gift. Once you receive the Holy Spirit at conversion, you are given spiritual gifts. Then Peter says in verse 10 that these gifts are to be used to serve others.
The gifts are used to bless the body of Christ. The apostle Paul writes this in Ephesians 4 .12. He says that these gifts are given to the people of God for the building up of the body of Christ. So these gifts are given to each genuine Christian in the church indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
And these gifts are given for the purpose of serving others. Thirdly, Peter says that those given these gifts are to be good stewards of God's very grace. And when we think about what a steward is, it's a servant who has a master who leaves.
And the master puts this servant in charge of his home, of his property. And when the master returns, he expects to see that things were taken care of. That the tasks that he gave to his servant, the servant performed.
And this is how Peter wants us to think about the spiritual gifts that God has given each of us. It is a gift that He has given. And the Spirit has been given to you for you to use this gift for the glory of God.
Which means blessing your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ within the church. Then Peter makes the point at the end of v. 10 that this is God's very grace. That is to say that different people have different gifts.
The Apostle Paul explains this in 1 Corinthians 12, verses 12 -31, where he writes that there are different functions in the body of Christ. Just as there's different functions with the body, there's different functions with each person in the local church.
Then Peter in v. 11 explains examples of these gifts that goes along with what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12. Peter writes, "...whoever speaks is one who speaks oracles of God. Whoever serves is one who serves by the strength that God supplies.".
And all the gifts are to be used for the glory of God as Peter continues. In order that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To Him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
What this means is that nobody can show off with their spiritual gift. Ultimately, it comes from God. As Scripture says in 1 Corinthians, what do you have that you did not receive? We don't want to be prideful.
Any gift we have is given by God. And when we use this gift, we must rely not on ourselves, but on the Holy Spirit. As Scripture says here, the gift that He supplies, the strength that He supplies as we perform this gift.
And He is glorified through it as He gives us the help. As we think about different gifts, there are gifts of speaking. That's what I'm doing right now. It's what Alan did this morning in Sunday school and he's done for several weeks.
And others in the church have this gift as well. It's called the gift of teaching. Then there are gifts of service. And so many in this church serve in so many ways that blesses everyone in this church.
All of this is done, whether speaking or serving, with the strength that God supplies as verse 11 says. God is the giver of these gifts and the power in these gifts. Now you might be wondering, what gift do I have?
What are you naturally good at? God made you that way for a reason. And then when you're saved and the Holy Spirit's given to you, you're able to use these gifts to bless others. Earlier I said that we should all practice hospitality.
Some are very good at it, so do it a lot. Some are teachers. Some are encouragers. Some are good at helping those who are suffering as they show compassion. Some are good with administration. Some have the gift of evangelism where they are good with people and sharing the Gospel comes natural.
Some have the gift of praying. It is obvious that people like Linda Owen and Jan Marko have that gift. And we think about administration. Amber Lindo has that gift. She's so good. As you look at our website, as you look at our newsletter, she's so good at administration.
Some have special skills that no one has. The Lord wants you to use whatever gift you have to bless His church. So do not withhold being who God created you to be to be a blessing to your local church.
All of the gifting that God gives, as I mentioned, is to build up the body of Christ as Ephesians 4 .12 says. So as we wrap this up, fulfill your Christian responsibilities as the end nears. In this text, we have seen four practices how?
By living for the will of God, not sinful passions. By overlooking the sins of others. By opening up your home to others. And as we just saw, using your gifts to build up the body of Christ. So as the return of Christ is on the horizon, we are not to bunker down in some remote place.
We are to be with God's people. We are to worship Him together. We are to love one another in the different ways that we have seen in this text this morning. And by His strength, may we do this and experience the rich blessing that comes from living in this sweet communion together.
Now next Sunday, we will return to a theme that we have seen several times already in our journey through 1 Peter. We will see the theme of persecution resurface. And this is very timely in these days in which we live.
So I look forward to looking at that with you next Sunday. At this time, let's bow our heads in prayer. Father, thank You for Your Word. And my prayer is that You would apply this to everyone right where they are at.
As we look ahead to the return of Christ, help us to carry out our responsibilities in this church You have placed us. Help us to do it all with the strength that You supply. And may all of us experience the blessing as everyone use their gifts.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.