Serving in the End Times

Serving in the End Times

Scripture Text: 1 Peter 4:7-11

1. Key Scriptures

• 1 Peter 4:7-11: Main sermon text
• 1 Peter 4:1-6: Living the rest of our earthly lives for the will of God
• 1 Peter 4:3-5: Leaving pagan passions behind and remembering the coming judgment
• 1 Peter 1:13: Be sober-minded and set your hope on Christ’s revelation
• 1 Peter 3:18: Christ suffered once for sins to bring us to God
• 1 Peter 3:22: Christ reigns at God’s right hand over all powers
• 1 Peter 4:12: The coming “fiery trial”
• 1 Peter 5:8: Be sober-minded and watchful
• Acts 1:6: The disciples ask Jesus about the timing of the kingdom
• Mark 14:38: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation”
• Proverbs 10:12: “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses”
• Romans 15:7: “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you”
• 1 John 4:19: “We love because he first loved us”
• Matthew 24:46: Blessed is the servant whom his master finds faithfully serving when he comes

2. Sermon Flow & Takeaways
3. Since the End Is Near, Pray with a Clear Head: 1 Peter 4:7

Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension have brought history into its final redemptive age. Peter does not respond to the nearness of the end with speculation or panic, but with a call to sober-minded, self-controlled prayer.

• Biblical teaching about the end should make Christians alert without making us frantic: keep your head and bend your knees.
• Eternity puts present troubles back into proportion and changes our prayers from merely protecting our comfort to seeking faithfulness, holiness, the advance of the gospel, and God’s kingdom.

1. Above All, Love One Another Earnestly: 1 Peter 4:8-9

A church preparing for suffering must be bound together by strenuous, enduring love. Such love refuses to keep rehearsing offenses and expresses itself concretely through generous, ungrudging hospitality.

• Love covering sin is not the same as covering up sin. Serious and unrepentant sin may require confrontation, but many offenses simply need to be forgiven rather than repeated and weaponized.
• Hospitality is love with the door open. Because Christ has welcomed us, Christians should make room in their lives for people beyond their natural social circles.

III. Serve One Another with God’s Grace for God’s Glory: 1 Peter 4:10-11

Every Christian has received something from God that is meant to serve others. We are not owners of our abilities and resources but stewards of God’s varied grace.

• Ask not only, “What do I want from the church?” but “What has God entrusted to me for the good of His church?”
• Those who speak must faithfully handle God’s truth, and those who serve must depend on God’s supplied strength: the speaker must not invent the message, and the servant must not invent the strength.
• God gives the grace, God supplies the strength, His people serve one another, and God receives the glory through Jesus Christ.

Conclusion: Be Found Faithful

End-times readiness is not knowing every detail of the prophetic timetable. It is being found faithfully praying, loving, welcoming, and serving when Christ comes.

• Keep your head. Bend your knees. Stretch your love. Open your life. Use your gifts.
• For the Christian, the coming Judge is also the Saviour who suffered once for sins to bring us to God. For those outside Christ, the coming judgment makes the gospel invitation urgent: repent, believe in the crucified and risen Christ, and be reconciled to God.

3. Primary Sources Cited

• John Calvin, Commentary on 1 Peter
• Samuel Rutherford, Letters: quoted: “Build your nest upon no tree here; for you see God has sold the forest to death.”

4. Additional Resources

• Sam Waldron, “Christ Will Not Return at Any Moment
• John Piper, “God in Everything at the End of the Age”
• John Piper, “Marriage, Singleness, and the Christian Virtue of Hospitality
• Matthew Henry, Commentary on 1 Peter 4:7-11
• Thomas R. Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude.