The Fruits of 11th Hour Intensity

We’re in this soft transition
to a new line of thought, but not a hard break. It’s still
in line with all that he has said before. Still essentially
downstream of that great thought of persecution and suffering
and how we are supposed to handle that as Christians. He’s still
in that main stream of thought. But there is a bit of a transition
here. And the transition is one to
what do we do? What do we do? It is, in a very
real sense, an urgent call to ministry. I remember, for me,
what was a shocking poster that I saw when I was a little kid. It was a picture of Uncle Sam
with that very slender finger and stern look on his face. And
the poster simply said, I want you. And in a very similar way,
that’s what Peter is saying here. I want you. What he’s calling us to is urgent
ministry. There’s an urgency to ministry
at all times, but Peter seems to indicate here more than ever.
More than ever. Go back, if you would, even if
in your mind’s eye, to 1 Peter chapter 3, where he began this
generally new section. He had certainly addressed suffering
and persecution before. Even from the opening words of
Peter’s epistle, there is this thought that we are aliens and
strangers. We don’t fit in. But in chapter
3, verse 13, he began that grand section that we called instructions
to the oppressed. How are we as Christians supposed
to correctly handle this persecution? How do we rightly respond? He
called us to be reasonable, to be assured, to be composed, devoted. to be clean, innocent of those
things in which we are slandered. And we spent some weeks developing
those thoughts. He cited for us the greatest
example of all, the great example of Christ Himself there in verse
18. when he said, for Christ also
died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order
that He might bring us to God. And his point was that our suffering,
just like Christ’s, has a purpose. Christ’s purposeful suffering
benefited our salvation. It was all because of Christ
and His suffering that we gained. Christ’s ministry didn’t stop
there. We began to see in verses 18
through 20 that Christ even had a ministry during his burial
time, during those days when he was in the tomb. And flowing
out of that is this great thought of baptism and the waters of
baptism, the flood of mercy, as we called it, there at the
end of chapter 3 and verses 21 and 22. where we got a glimpse into the
mystery of baptism and what it represents. And it’s in that
context that Peter begins this new section, an application,
if you will, to all that he has said in those latter verses of
chapter 3. And in verse 1 of chapter 4,
he says, Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm
yourselves, be prepared for the same purpose. And we saw again
that we are called to suffering. It shouldn’t surprise us when
we do. It shouldn’t catch us off guard. Peter offered here in these opening
verses of chapter 4, the Christian’s threefold purpose for suffering
in Christ. That our testimony needed verification,
remember. That our life had need of a change
of mastery. And sometimes that doesn’t come
easy. and that our sin has need of mortification, you may recall. From there, we transitioned to
that sad look into the album of the lost. Snapshots into the
enemies of Christ and Christians. We saw that those persecutors,
Peter offered up three little snapshots that those persecutors
are so often astonished at the change of lifestyle. They’re
astonished that we don’t want to walk with them anymore. They’re
shocked by the sudden change of allegiance that we have in
our lives. And because of that, they are verbally abusive. But
finally, we saw that they are drawing ever nearer to judgment. That is all in the same flow
as is the passage before us. Peter isn’t done talking about
suffering. He’ll take it up again momentarily. But it’s in that context that
Peter wants to offer this encouragement. What do you do? What is your
response to suffering? How do you put this all together?
And what does it look like in practical terms in your life?
If you would, 1 Peter 4, v. 7-11. where Peter writes, the end of
all things is at hand. Therefore, be of sound judgment
and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. Above all, keep fervent
in your love for one another because love covers a multitude
of sins. Be hospitable to one another
without complaint. As each one has received a special
gift, employ it in serving one another. as good stewards of
the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, let him speak
as it were the utterances of God. Whoever serves, let him
do so by the strength which God supplies, so that in all things
God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs
the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. The whole context is composure
in the midst of this persecution. The early church was facing it.
We shouldn’t be surprised when we face it. In fact, the persecution
that we face pales in comparison in how much easier the composure.
For us, what greater need, what greater call for composure than
this statement that Peter makes, the end of all things is at hand. I’ve often thought, considering
various disaster situations, how I would react or how I would
respond, how I would conduct myself. What would I have done
if I were in the towers? What would I have done in those
final moments as I began to see the water seeping up on the bow
of the Titanic? What would happen if we suddenly
found out that there were a missile in the air directed at our city?
How would I behave? What would I do if I suddenly
found out I had a terminable disease? I had a month, a year,
five years. The clock is ticking, essentially,
is what Peter says. We don’t know. We don’t even
we’re not even guaranteed that we have tomorrow. And so when
Peter says the end of all things is at hand, he speaks to each
individual one of us on a very personal level. And he says,
what about you? I want you. The end of all things
is at hand. And we are called to a right
response. When he says the end of all things
is at hand, there obviously is need of clarification there because
it can’t be the end of God. God is eternal and will last
forever. It can’t be the end of souls. We know that souls
are eternal and will be forever with God or forever in God’s
absence. What Peter means is it’s the
end of worldly enjoyments is at hand. The end of time is at
hand. The end of pain. The end of suffering.
The end of trials and sorrows, but you know, also the end of
opportunities to preach, the end of opportunity to repent,
the end of opportunity to serve God here on this earth. And these
kinds of thoughts are replete throughout Scripture, these kinds
of motivational sentences in Scripture that call us to pull
ourselves up by our bootstraps, by God’s grace, and to get back
in the fight and to serve Him the more. Romans 13. Romans 13.11, this do, knowing
the time that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep,
for now salvation is nearer to us than we believed. What a great
thought that is. As we first came to Christ, we
probably looked down this long corridor and said, one day, yes,
it’s true. I believe it. One day I will
be with Christ. What Paul says here is you’re
one day nearer. We don’t know how many days,
but you’re one day nearer. And he goes on and says, the
night is almost gone and the day is at hand. Let us therefore
lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
There, it’s a clear call to holiness in light of the brevity of time.
In light of the brevity of time, the writer of the book to the
Hebrews said this, that we are to be not forsaking our own assembling
together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and
all the more as you see the day drawing near. The very last thing
that God’s people should do in the advance of Christ is absent
themselves or to take light of Christ’s body, the church. In light of the brevity of time,
Paul urges us in Philippians to patience. Philippians 4, 5,
Let your forebearing spirit be known to all men. The Lord is
near. And it doesn’t mean that the
Lord is merely in the room. What he means is the Lord is
returning. We’re called also to endurance, James 5, 8, you
to be patient, strengthen your hearts for the coming of the
Lord is at hand. And so you have these thoughts
throughout, particularly the New Testament, of the brevity
of time and our necessary response to it. To make the most of it.
To be all that God has called us to be. To love and serve the
church and show patience and vigilance for the truth. 1 John
2.18 Children, it is the last hour And just as you have heard,
the Antichrist is coming even now. Many Antichrists have arisen. For this we know, it is the last
hour.” Time is short. And if it was short for those
dear saints to whom Peter was writing in the first century
of the church, how much shorter is it for us? If Peter says it’s at hand and
he’s talking to those first century saints, how much closer is it
now for us? It won’t be long now until the
end of time and all things in it. We are 2,000 years closer
to whatever that point in time is. Whether you look at time already
expired If you look at it in light of eternity, that time
before the time that Christ returns is very, very short. And we must consider, we must
consider how we would use these few days that the Lord has given
us. We don’t know that any one of us would be here next Lord’s
Day. We’ve seen saints come and go.
We’ve greeted saints one Sunday and come back the next and they
are in eternity. You don’t know that you’re likewise. What Peter wants to give us is four specific fruits of what
that 11th hour intensity looks like. He’s calling us to urgent
ministry. And Peter essentially and primarily
addresses ministry within the local church, as we’ll see shortly. It is within the Christian circle. And here you find a great list
of one another’s. Peter, one of the most frequent
user of that little phrase of the one another’s of Christendom. But here they come into play
primarily in the context of the local church. What I’ve suggested here for
you this morning is four specific fruits of this 11th hour intensity. Some weeks ago, we took this
passage and we did some diagramming. We spent some time in Sunday
school and I laid it out to you so you can go ahead and write
down your four H’s. I didn’t stay up all night last
night alliterating this for John’s sake. I did this years ago. It’s a simple, simple passage
with great clarity. The urgency, first of all, of
the hour should affect our head. The urgency of the hour should
affect our head. Look at the passage once again. Therefore, be of sound judgment
and sober spirit. The sound judgment that we are
called to is, the word is used numerous places in Scripture,
but it essentially means sensible. Do the right thing. Use your
head. It is, as one pastor called it,
the exercised grace of making good decisions. And we all have
need of that, don’t we? Don’t we do just some goofy things
sometimes? Make some really bad decisions?
It literally means to be in your right mind. To be temperate. Self-controlled. Not flighty
and unbalanced and flitting here and there and carried away by
all kinds of empty and vain thoughts. We’re called to have a sound
mind. One brother described it this
way, to be under control and not carried away by an errant
view of oneself. That’s a problem sometimes too,
isn’t it? That we think more of ourselves than we ought to
think. We think more of our gifts and graces. In the Gospel of Mark, it’s used
to describe that crazy man that Jesus freed from the legion of
demons, that all of a sudden he was clothed and in his right
mind. And people, first and foremost,
the Christian is to operate in his right mind. We are to operate
in a sphere of sound judgment. We’re supposed to think biblically.
We’re supposed to think and live Christianly. We’re supposed to
think and live in a God-honoring manner. We’re to constantly be
bathing our minds in Scripture and biblical principles so as
to direct our thoughts and our lives in a God-honoring way. We’re not supposed to be caught
up in emotions and constantly reacting to that. We’re not supposed
to be doing irrational things or impulsive things. What it
kind of echoes is our more modern word, self-control. We’re supposed
to exercise self-control of the mind when it comes to exercising good
judgment, discretion, wisdom, common sense. Those words come
into mind. The problem is that we live in
a society that is so frivolous, carefree, careless. And Peter says the last thing
that a Christian should do is emulate the world. One pastor said it this way,
the sensible person is in command of his mind. He has control of
the things he thinks about and does. He doesn’t allow circumstances
or the immorality or foolishness of others to distract him and
gain his attention and his interest. He not only does not become involved
in things that are outright immoral and unspiritual, but also avoids
things that are trivial, foolish and unproductive. And may I say
that that is where I see the advance in the church in this
day and age. It isn’t so much the outright
immoral and foolish and sinful things as much as it is the unproductive
and the foolish things. Just time-wasting kinds of things. One of the Puritans said, it’s
as if one who carries on a continual consultation within himself for
the guiding of his whole course What a great thought. Is this
really the best thing I should be doing? Is there some better
way that I could be living? Is there some better thing that
I could be doing in this moment, in this time that the Lord has
given me? The brevity of it? The preciousness
of it? You know what? These are strange
words for Peter, aren’t they? We called Peter at the outset
the apostle of the grace-changed life because of all things for
Peter to do, to go completely outside of what we see of him
in the Gospels. Peter was not a model of sound
mind in the Gospels, was he? When you see Peter, he is constantly
impetuous. And so for Peter to either do
this is either great hypocrisy or the fact that God had changed
his life. And we’ve already seen that.
We’ve seen it time and time and again that this is the apostle
of the grace changed life. This is a new man. And when Peter
says that we must be of sound judgment. Peter is speaking from
personal experience, having dealt with the Lord who changed him
from this impetuous going off in every direction individual. To a man changed by God’s transforming
grace. not only sound judgment, but
sober in spirit. Originally, as you know, we’ve
dealt with this word before. It meant free of wine. And so
that word sober tends to have this connotation of only dealing
to a lack of drunkenness. But it goes far beyond that.
It’s a calmness. It’s a circumspectness. It’s
a prudence. It just speaks of one who is
steady and solid and sound. It isn’t brushed around by all
the goings on around him. Again, one pastor characterized
it this way, it is easy for the Christian to be carried away
with this and that and the next sudden enthusiasm, especially
in our day, right? I mean, you’re almost on the
outside looking in if you haven’t done the latest craze, if you
haven’t been to this conference or you haven’t done the 40 days. It’s easy for the Christian to
be carried away with this and that and the next sudden enthusiasm
and to have a mind which becomes readily intoxicated with the
latest fashion and the newest craze. We are to maintain the
essential steadiness of the man who knows what he believes. What a great concept. What a
novel concept. See, this sobriety, this soberness
of mind guards guards us against the quote unquote intoxication
of false prophets, prophets rather, against false views, against
moral and doctrinal influences that are not of God. I think what Peter intends for
us to hear in this exhortation is that we are at war. We are
at war. And we ought to live as if we
are at war. We ought to be sound in our judgment. We ought to be sober in our spirit. And we ought to be so for the
purpose of prayer. For the purpose of prayer, so
that we might be in a prayerful frame. What would it look like
if our lives were always spent in kind of a constant communion
with God, wrestling with even our next duty, bringing it up
before the Lord so that we might glorify Him in it. Wouldn’t it
be transforming? Wouldn’t it change your lives? Wouldn’t it keep you out of so
much trouble and heartache? That’s what Peter says. That’s what Peter means here.
That if we would only adjust our minds and dial in our minds
characterize ourselves with sound judgment and sober spirit so
that we are in a prayerful frame. Have you ever tried to go have
a quiet time after a party or after some great dinner deal
or after a big night with friends? Isn’t it exceedingly difficult
to go immediately from that kind of a setting to the peaceful
communion with God in prayer? I challenged a friend of mine
one time that never, ever, ever has the radio off. Never has
the radio off. And it’s generally good stuff
that’s playing, but it’s always playing. There’s never peace. There’s never absolute quiet.
I’ve come to the point where I think there’s some people that
don’t like the quiet. They don’t like it. It’s too
intense. It’s too intimidating. It’s hard to pray in the midst
of racket and turmoil. One Puritan said it this way, they that would carry themselves
aright under much discouraging opposition, and remember, Peter
doesn’t say that it’s possible. He says it’s coming. You’re going
to have opposition. You’re going to have difficulty.
You’re going to have persecution. And if you would carry yourself
aright under much discouraging opposition in the ways of the
Lord, and you would keep yourselves in a fit disposition for meeting
with Him, meeting Him at the end of all things, we must study
sobriety, which consists of a mean or a base esteem of ourselves
and our gifts and our graces. And all of that fitted for the
purpose of prayer. that we might be in a prayerful
frame, that we might engage with the Lord on a peaceable level,
so that we can be all the more used for God in that regard. There’s a second fruit of this
intensity that comes because of the brevity of the hour, the
brevity of the time. The urgency of the hour should
not only touch or affect our head, it should touch our hearts.
It should touch our hearts. Look at verse 8, above all, keep
fervent in your love for one another, because love covers
a multitude of sins. Over and over again is Peter’s
exhortation to one another kind of love. In chapter 1, verse
22, he said it this way. Since you have, in obedience
to the truth, purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren,
fervently love one another from the heart. It isn’t even the
first time that he’s given this exhortation. And the very fact
that he repeats it means that this is something that Peter
saw as crucial to the church. Our care for one another ought
to be so different and look so different that that in and of
itself becomes an appeal to the lost as they see how we deal
with one another. What is this love? One described
it this way, said this love is not only or not primarily kind
feelings or generous impulses, I mean, that’s what you get from
the love of unbelieving family, right? We do things, we show
up, we go through the motions. He says, not certainly the sentimentality
which breathes itself out and sighs and raptures. I love the
way he says that. It’s not just this whipped up
emotion. You can get that from a movie.
Not merely the fond attachment which clings as the rose to the
trellis, but above all things, service. How does our love look
any different than the world’s? We roll up our sleeves and we
get down to work and we serve one another. Self-denial. Self-giving. And you say, well,
who? Who? It’s the church first and foremost. First, it must be the church. It must be your brothers and
sisters in Christ. John Brown, a great Puritan,
said wherever you see the image of the Lord, wherever there is
consistent profession of the faith of Christ, there we ought
to fix our Christian affections. And having fixed them, we are
not easily to allow them either to abate or to be transferred.
You cannot quit. You can’t quit serving your brothers. That wasn’t the only exhortation
Peter made of that concept. 1 Peter 1.22. He also said it
in 2.17. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the King. You can’t even mix those up. You couldn’t say fear the brotherhood. You can’t really even say love
the king. And so even the way that Peter utilizes
those words is designed to bring our hearts home. To the church,
to serve the church, to serve the people in it, love the brotherhood,
and Peter wasn’t done there in chapter three, verse eight, he
said it again to sum up. Let all be harmonious, sympathetic,
brotherly, kind hearted and humble in spirit. That word brotherly
there, Philadelphia, speaking of the love of brothers, that
it was so characteristic of the churches in that day. Far beyond human brotherhood
and blood brotherhood. Is this Christian brotherhood? The love of Christians is supposed
to be a more tender, more affectionate love for one another than even
those of your own family if they are not in Christ. Romans chapter 12. Go ahead and turn there real
quick. In Romans chapter 12, Paul echoes this same sentiment.
And he gives it technicolor, if you will. In Romans 12, look at verse 9.
Let love be without hypocrisy. Now, mind you, I would say that
a good portion of this so-called love that we see, even in the
context of the local church, isn’t genuine. You know, we put
on a smile. We shake the hand. We even say
that we’ll pray for you, brother. And we go on about our way and
we’re distant and we’re aloof. We’re not really part of their
lives. In fact, you know, one of the things that characterizes
love for me is a love for their soul. I don’t even need to read
it anymore. One of my favorite quotes from
Richard Baxter. Pretend not to love them. And he’s talking about your brothers.
Pretend not to love them if you hate not their sin and seek not
their salvation. He says, in essence, call it
whatever you will. Just don’t call it Christian
love. Let love be without hypocrisy,
abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one
another in brotherly love. Regardless of all the rest of
the stuff that we’re good at, could we honestly say that we
did an excellent job this past week in being devoted to one
another in brotherly love? This church is far, far better
than most. But I’ll tell you, we haven’t
even come close. We haven’t even come close to approaching what
it is to be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference
to one another in honor. Not lagging behind in diligence. Fervent in spirit. Serving the
Lord. That’s ultimately who’s behind
your service. Rejoicing in hope. Persevering
in tribulation. Devoted to prayer. Contributing
to the needs of the saints. Practicing hospitality. What
a great, great list. What a great exhortation. What
a great check for us. As we come to the body of Christ,
we say, have we loved her? Have we loved the members in
it? Have we served them and cared
for them? Peter, in essence, says, stoke
the fire in your heart for that one another love. And it really
reminds me of Paul’s exhortation to the Thessalonians. When Paul
starts there, he says, you know what? You’re characterized by
this love, but excel still more. Press on. Don’t be complacent. Don’t plateau in how you care
for one another. Press on. One pastor said, Christian love
is not easy. It’s not an easy sentimental
reaction. It demands everything a man has
got of mental and spiritual nerve. It means loving the unlovely
and the unlovable. It means loving in spite of insult
and injury. It means loving when love is
not returned, but spurned. Peter here says, above all, keep
fervent. That word is an interesting one.
We’ve seen it before, as you know. It means a stretching forth,
stretching out. It’s an intense, unremitting,
unwearied effort. Don’t quit. Don’t quit loving
each other. Don’t quit serving each other. Our love for one another ought
to be, it will be stretched as it ought to be. And we ought
to stretch with it, is what Peter says. We should be eager and
fervent in our love for one another. Why? He goes on to say, because
love covers a multitude of sins. This is a difficult but not impossible
phrase. We’ve dealt with it before. Whose
sins are covered? And how? Are they covered from God? No. In other words, here in this
kind of an obtuse phrase, we’re ultimately supposed to forgive
one another. The quote probably, at least
in the back of his mind, is Proverbs 10.12. We’ve seen this before
when we looked at James. Proverbs 10.12, hatred stirs
up strife, but love covers all transgressions. Charles Bridges,
in his great commentary on the Proverbs, characterizes this
and he says, love overlooks, speedily forgives, and forgets. That’s what it means to love
when your brother offends you. But he also goes on to say this hatred. However, varnished by
a smooth pretense is the selfish principle of man. In other words,
he says, that’s how most of us operate. That’s the natural drift
of each heart. Like a subterraneous fire, it
constantly stirs up mischief, creates or keeps alive a rankling
coldness, disgusts, dislikes. It carves at the infirmities
of others. It aggravates at the least slip or resents the most
trifling or even imaginary provocation. And now I would ask you, have
you loved your brother? See, our natural drift The natural
tendency of our heart is to be provoked, to hold a
grudge. We are to cover a multitude of
sins in our love for one another. We can’t hide their sins from
God. Ultimately, they deal with their sin before God on their
own. The only sins ultimately that
are covered before God are the ones covered by the blood of
Christ. But when it comes to personal
offenses, we smooth them over with the
love with which God has shown to us through Christ As Kevin and Carly would attest
in part of our pre-marriage counseling, we take people to 1 Corinthians
13, the definition of love. And it’s a good place for a wedding
couple to go. But it’s not a wedding couple
verse. In fact, it’s actually a church verse. And in that context, Paul wrote
and said, love is patient. Love is kind and is not jealous.
It does not brag. It is not arrogant, does not
act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own. It
is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
does not rejoice with unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things. Does that describe your life
in the body of Christ? Some people say that this verse
that Peter, this phrase that Peter mentions, refers to God’s
love covering all sins. Other people say it describes
believers who are lovingly overlooking each other’s transgression. And
because the passage here really doesn’t give a definitive answer,
really the The best thing to look at it is to step back and
look that ultimately love covers sin. Whether it’s the love of
God reaching down and dealing with their sin in general, or
it’s our love as their brother and sister in Christ, glossing
over, smoothing over, addressing it, yeah. But ultimately giving them the mercy that they need. There’s a third. We’ll introduce
it and come back to it next Lord’s Day. I said there were four specific
fruits of this eleventh hour intensity. The urgency of the
hour should affect our head and should touch our hearts. But
thirdly, the urgency of the hour should open our home. It should
open our home. Now, I shared with you a couple
of weeks ago, if there was any one of these H’s that I would
change, it’s this one. Because it goes so far beyond
opening our home. It is the exhortation to hospitality. Look at verse 9. Be hospitable
to one another without complaint. It literally means the love of
strangers. And the image is this that back
then there were very few inns or hotels. There was Tom Bodette
had not come on the scene yet. And so people were literally
at the mercy of the town when they came in. No wonder the exhortation is
repeated throughout Scripture. Romans 12, 13. Paul there acknowledges
those that were contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing
hospitality was just absolutely crucial, especially for Christians
who were unwelcome in the first place. When Paul is considering what
widows in the church ought to be cared for and supported by
the church, he puts these caveats up there for all of us to consider.
If she has a reputation for good works, if she’s brought up children,
if she has shown hospitality to strangers. Paul put a premium
on it. Just like the elders of the church,
it is a character quality of the eldership that they should
be hospitable. Exhortation in Hebrews 13.2,
do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. For by this some
have entertained angels without knowing it. It is the love of strangers. And so often we reduce hospitality
to having people over. And it’s especially easy for
us men because we don’t even have to cook, really, most of
the time. We should be ready to take in
or befriend or lodge someone who’s traveling. We should be
able to minister to persecuted believers, those who have a need. But hospitality doesn’t refer
primarily to having people over to your house for dinner. In
fact, think of Luke 12 or 14, Luke 14. Jesus said, He went on to say
to the one who had invited Him to dinner, when you give a luncheon
or dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your
relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in
return and repayment come to you. Don’t we operate like that? Alright, it’s just me. So often when you do, it’s this
constant reciprocal thing. Well, it’s their turn to have
us over. Oh really? That’s not what Jesus said. But
when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame,
the blind, and you will be blessed since they do not have the means
to repay for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
Jesus said, go far beyond whatever your social circles are and look
for those who are in need. Those are the ones to whom are
to show hospitality. The true test, said one of godly
self giving hospitality is what we do for others completely out
of a desire for their welfare, not what we’re going to get in
return, not what somebody owes us, not what we’re going to gain
in our account if we have them over again. Does it include travelers? Absolutely, but far more than
travelers. Is he speaking about Christians
primarily, but not just Christians? What he’s talking about is our
time, our resources, our home, our car, our tools. There’s a
hard one, men. Our money, our food. Jesus said it this way. In Matthew
chapter 25, for I was hungry and you gave me something to
eat. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and
you invited me in naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you
visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous
will answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and
feed you are thirsty and give you drink? And when do we see
you as a stranger and invite you in or naked and clothed you?
And when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?
And the king will answer and say to them, truly, I say to
you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of
mine, even to the least of them, you did it to me.” The time is short. Very short. We are called to clarify our
minds and to exercise them in such a way that we’re maximizing
this brief time, these few moments, fleeting hours that we have for
God’s glory. In these brief closing moments
of our lives, we ought to be loving the church. We ought to be showing hospitality
and care and practical love to all that the Lord brings across
our path. Let’s examine our hearts before
the Lord. Merciful King, we pause in Your
presence having heard that solemn reminder that there are those
that we minister to without even realizing it at times. Ultimately,
we’re ministering to you. Father, the time is short. We
don’t even realize or certainly know how short. But, Father,
grant us the grace to think biblically and to think wisely to make the
most of our time to love and serve our brothers and sisters
in Christ and to reach out and to show practical love to strangers. Be glorified in and through us.
Draw others to Christ because of it. The very purpose of Peter’s
exhortation. We thank you and we praise you
in Jesus name. to me