“The end of all things is at hand.”

Those words sound like the beginning of a rather sensational sermon. We might expect what follows to involve identifying the Antichrist, decoding current events, calculating dates, or determining whether the latest war in the Middle East fulfils a particular prophecy.

Peter goes somewhere very different.

“The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers” (1 Peter 4:7).

Then he tells Christians to love one another, show hospitality, and use their gifts to serve.

It is wonderfully ordinary.

Peter certainly believed in the return of Christ. He believed history was moving toward judgment, resurrection, and glory. He had heard Jesus promise to return. Yet Peter’s eschatology did not produce speculation. It produced faithfulness.

Perhaps ours should do the same.

The End Is at Hand

When Peter says that “the end of all things is at hand,” he is not suggesting that he possessed a secret timetable according to which Christ had to return within a few years. The New Testament understands the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ as bringing history into its final redemptive age. The decisive events have happened. Christ has come. Atonement has been accomplished. The tomb is empty. The King has ascended.

We are waiting for the consummation.

That means Christians have been living in the last days since the apostolic age. We are not waiting for the last days to begin. We are living in them.

This should give urgency to the Christian life, but not panic.

Peter’s first command is almost ironic given how Christians sometimes behave when discussing prophecy: be sober-minded.

Keep your head.

Biblical teaching about the end should make Christians alert without making us frantic. The return of Christ is not given to satisfy our curiosity about tomorrow but to shape our obedience today.

Calvin saw this pastoral purpose clearly. Commenting on this passage, he observed that Peter calls Christians to remember the shortness of the present age so that they will not become intoxicated with this world. That remains one of the great benefits of biblical eschatology. Eternity puts the present back into proportion.

The career setback that seems enormous will not be enormous forever. The possessions we exhaust ourselves accumulating will belong to someone else. The body we spend so much time preserving will return to dust unless Christ comes first. The praise of people will disappear with the people who gave it.

Christ is coming.

Therefore, Peter says, pray.

Keep Your Head and Bend Your Knees

There is something revealing about that connection.

If I genuinely believe that history is moving toward the return of Christ, judgment, resurrection, and eternity, I should pray differently.

Many of our prayers are understandably occupied with immediate needs: health, employment, finances, children, travel, relationships. God invites us to bring these things to him. But eternity enlarges our prayers.

We begin praying not merely, “Lord, remove this difficulty,” but, “Make me faithful in it.” Not merely, “Protect my children,” but, “Keep them faithful to Christ.” Not merely, “Give our church peace,” but, “Make us holy and useful for your kingdom.”

The end is near. Keep your head and bend your knees.

But Peter does not allow end-times Christianity to become private spirituality. His next words are, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (v. 8).

Apparently one of the best ways to prepare for the return of Christ is to love the Christians God has placed around you.

Love One Another Earnestly

Peter’s word for “earnestly” carries the idea of something stretched or strained. Christian love is not sentimental niceness. It is love that keeps stretching when relationships become difficult.

And church relationships do become difficult.

Christians disappoint one another. We say foolish things. We misunderstand motives. We overlook needs. We irritate each other. Any vision of church life that does not account for sin will eventually collapse.

Peter says love “covers a multitude of sins.”

He does not mean that serious sin should be concealed or that wrongdoing should never be confronted. Scripture clearly teaches otherwise. He means that love does not keep a meticulous ledger of every irritation and offence. It knows when to forgive, when to overlook, and when not to turn a small wound into a major conflict.

That is an urgently needed end-times discipline.

If Christ is returning, perhaps I do not need to win every argument. Perhaps every annoyance does not need to become an issue. Perhaps I can forgive more quickly because I know how much I have been forgiven.

Then Peter gets even more practical: “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling” (v. 9).

Open your home.

Share your food.

And, wonderfully, do it without complaining about it.

There is nothing spectacular about hospitality. Nobody builds prophecy charts about setting another place at the dinner table. Yet Peter places it right in the middle of Christian preparation for the end of all things.

Serve While You Wait

Finally Peter turns to our gifts: “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (v. 10).

Notice that Peter assumes every Christian has received something to steward.

Some speak. Some serve. Some teach. Some encourage. Some organize. Some quietly perform acts of mercy that few people ever notice. The gifts differ, but their purpose is the same: serve one another.

That means the question is not merely, “What is my gift?” It is, “Whom can I serve with what God has given me?”

The end of all things is at hand, and therefore this is no time for spectators.

The church does not need a handful of exhausted people doing everything while everyone else watches. God has distributed his grace throughout the body. Your abilities, opportunities, possessions, experience, and time have been entrusted to you for the good of others.

And Peter tells us where all of this is headed: “in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (v. 11).

That is the goal of history.

Not our comfort. Not our reputation. Not even the survival of the institutions we have built.

The glory of God through Jesus Christ.

One day Christ will return. Faith will become sight. The church’s prayers will give way to praise, our imperfect love will be made complete, and our service in weakness will be finished.

Until then, what should Christians do?

Peter’s answer is refreshingly unsensational.

Pray clearly.

Love deeply.

Open your home.

Use what God has given you.

Serve faithfully.

And do it all “in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”

That is how Christians prepare for the end.