The End of All Things

All right, let's turn in our Bibles this morning to one Peter Chapter four. Yes, we are still in chapter four. For those of you who've been paying attention, we have five chapters to First Peter, and I said five weeks. No problem. Here we are.

We're in April. We started in January. So four months in, we're in First Peter, Chapter four. Today we're talking about the end of all things, folks. The end of all things.

My wife said there was a Lord of the Rings reference in there. I should have showed a clip, but she told me that as we were on the way out the door to church. So I need to run some stuff past her earlier in the week for those kind of things. The end of all things. As we've been going through First Peter, we've been talking about Standing Firm in the Grace of God.

That's our series title from 1st Peter 5:12, which says, I've written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it. And so if you've received God's grace by faith in Christ, stand firm in it. In the good times, in the bad times, in the best of times, in the worst of times, stand firm in God's grace.

If you've been a Christian for a day or you've been a Christian for your entire life, as much as you could remember, however old that you are, stand firm in grace. It's all that we have, it's all that we need, and it's what God supplies to us to do and to be all that he has purposed for us to be in Christ Jesus. It's by grace. On the days that you beat yourself up because you didn't do enough, God's not beating you up.

He is extending his grace for you and me to correct, to rest, to refocus on him, to get back in alignment with His Spirit, with His Word, with His grace, with his truth. And just as much as the believers needed to be reminded of this in their time, we need to be reminded too, that it is by grace that we're saved.

Not anything you can do. It's the grace that comes through putting your faith in Jesus Christ, the Savior, God in the flesh, who took your sins and my sins and the sins of the whole world and died on the cross for us. And then he was buried, defeated death, and rose from the dead so you and I could walk in God's grace.

Grace is the foundation for being able to receive and to understand his truth. Grace is the foundation for Being able to discover what we're called and gifted to do and then to exercise those gifts, it's all grace. It's all a gift. It's all because of him, not because of you and me. And so just encourage us as we continue through these letters from Peter, one of the closest followers of Jesus to Christians around the world at the time that he lived, and to us today.

Stand firm in grace. We need it. Amen. Amen. As we talk about the end of all things, let's pick it up in verse seven of First Peter, chapter four.

And if you don't already have a copy of our first two Peter and Jude journal and you'd like one, raise your hand and Dan will get you a copy. But in our scripture today, starting in verse seven, the end of all things is at hand. And I just kind of picture that man with the sandwich board sign standing on the corner, right? The end is near.

The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, freak out. No, just kidding. Be self controlled. Be 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 varied 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. And all God's people said, amen. The end of all things is at hand. And I think we feel it, don't we? We feel it in our world.

We see it on tv, on our phones. We realize that it is more real than ever that the time of Jesus return. The end of all things, as Peter calls it, is close at hand. You know, we're not the only generation to see enough things happening to go, maybe this is it. Maybe this is the end of the world.

The end of the age. As REM sang. The end of the world as we know it. Right.

And I feel fine. Yes, well, we're going to talk about how we're supposed to feel, but the Iran war and other conflicts in the Middle East, I mean, if you've been around long enough for some of you younger folks, you see what's happening in Iran and you're like, oh, this is new. And if you're old enough like me, it ain't new. But I will say this, it's different. It sure is different.

We See anti Christian sentiment. We see persecution and legislation that is anti Christian increasing around the world. We see an increase in both natural and man made disasters, diseases and other kinds of destruction. We see lawlessness, economic and social unrest. We see an increased normalization of immorality and things that the Bible calls evil.

We see an increase in false religion and false belief, false spirituality and even false Christian beliefs. All of these things as we see it, we feel it. The end of all things is near. Jesus had something to say about this. So let's turn in our bibles to Matthew 24 and talk for a few minutes about what Jesus had to say.

Matthew 24, starting in verse three, as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? These are good questions, right? Two questions here. When will these things be?

Things that Jesus had been talking about, specifically the destruction of the temple that they were looking at, which did take place in 70 A.D. about 40 years after this. And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

Jesus answered them, see that no one leads you astray. The first caution Jesus gives in this conversation about the end of all things is be careful not to be deceived, which means I need and you need to be familiar with what's true. And so Jesus gives us some understanding here on what is true. He says first, for many will come in my name saying I am the Christ, and they will lead many astray. I think recently I saw that not only was there somebody claiming to be Christ in an African country, but the same person or someone else, I couldn't figure it out, is building an ark for the flood that's coming.

So he says, and he is not the first, and he surely won't be the last before Jesus come. But for thousands of years many people have been claiming to be the Christ. And here's the effect. They will lead many astray. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.

See that you're not alarmed, for this must take place. But the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death.

And you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come. Notice what Jesus says here. And he answers these two questions later in this commentary that he is giving his disciples about what's yet to come. Look at verse 36, he says, concerning the day and the hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father knows.

And then again in verse 44, he says, Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Was it about five years ago that one guy was at Herald Camping? Maybe it was seven years ago, he was putting billboards all over the country that Jesus was coming back in May of that particular year. Again, not the first and surely won't be the last, but so many times, whether well intentioned or deceptively, there have been attempts to nail down the exact date of Jesus return. There have been attempts to take different things from the rest of Matthew 24, which I encourage you to read, as well as things that we understand from Thessalonians and Jude, Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, to take those things and try to project on them our current view of the world and say, oh, that definitely must be this or that.

One of the examples I would give you today is in Revelation we're told that there's going to be these grasshopper like locust, like beasts with wings that are flying, that have angry faces and long black flowing hair, almost as glorious as Henry's here. And, and some people have said, well, John, as he's getting this vision from Jesus, was transported into maybe our current time. And what he saw could have been like, you know, attack helicopters, like the Army's Apache or the Marines Cobra helicopters. And you know, I can understand that if John was in fact seeing our time. But I also like to believe that sometimes the plain thing is the main thing, that there's going to be some pretty wild stuff in the last days when the veil, the barrier between that which we can see and that which is unseen at the moment is separated.

And all of these things that John saw are a lot more real than we give credit for.

But Jesus said, whatever people are saying about the end of days, there's some things he wants us to do, some things he wants us to understand. And when I don't know what to do and when I don't have an understanding of what this imagery means. Your response and my response can be what Jesus said. Be ready. Always be ready for Jesus to call you home.

Always be ready for either that moment when you take your last breath here and your first breath in eternity, or be ready when he splits the sky and calls us home.

I personally am looking forward to seeing that happen in my lifetime of the sky ripping open and him calling us and we meeting him in the air. I hope that happens in my lifetime.

And I'm sure Peter did. And I'm sure those who gathered around Jesus in what we call Matthew 24 had that same hope and expectation that they would see these things. What they did see was the destruction of the temple. What they did experience was persecution. But what they did not encounter was the end of all things.

They lived in an expectation that the end of all things was still yet to happen. And so, as Peter writes this, he is living in that immediate expectation. But I also think by the Holy Spirit, looking forward to the next generations of Christians and saying, how do we be ready for what Jesus said will eventually happen? You see the details that Jesus spelled out for the disciples and for us should should instill in us readiness. If you remember being a kid, some of you need to go back a little bit farther than others.

But if you remember being a small kid, I want you to remember Christmas. I want you to remember the expectation that you had when either the presents were under the tree before Christmas and you were told, we have to wait, or you, you were told that some dude in a red suit and a long white beard was going to come down the chimney, and you're wondering, well, we don't have a chimney, mom and dad, how does that happen? But you had expectation, you had anticipation, you had hope that Christmas was going to be amazing. If you can remember any other time in your life where you had an expectation that just kind of consumed you in such a wonderful way, this readiness, this expectation that Jesus wants to be instilled in us should be something like that and even more show more so as we see the day approaching. And what was the closest thing that Jesus gave us to the time of his return?

We see it here in verse 14 that we read, and this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come. And, friends, I think we're in that time. There really is no technological barrier. There's no travel barrier anymore for the gospel to go out in the whole world.

The only barriers may Be that of governments and those type of things. But we live in a time where the whole gospel can in fact be proclaimed to the whole world, to all nations, nations. And then the end will come. And so back in first Peter, chapter four, Peter picks up where Jesus left off here in verse seven. Let's read that again there.

Sorry, that's not the right verse. Chapter four, verse seven, he says the end of all things is at hand. Shall we panic? Shall we freak out? Should we dig a bunker in the backyard and stash it with 20 years worth of food?

Or should we do something different? Or maybe we should do something as well. Okay. Proverbs tells us that the wise man sees danger and gets out of the way or avoids it, prepares for it. And so if we see things and conditions in our world that provoke some sort of a fear or an uncertainty about things like resources and shelter and those things, I think there's wisdom in preparing for that.

But it's the same kind of wisdom that you would prepare for an earthquake, which is not really like a big threat here until they say the big one happens. And then when the big one happens, I don't know if we're all going to be toast or if we're all going to be knocking on our neighbors doors. But the idea is preparedness, right? The idea is to be one ready? And so he says, the end of all things is at hand.

Therefore be self controlled, be sober minded. Ain't nothing more crazy making and mind bending than an obsession with the end times without a focus on Jesus. Let me say that again. Nothing more crazy making and mind bending than an end times obsession without a focus on Jesus. There's a lot of apocalyptic movies.

I don't probably don't even have to name any of them. You guys already have one that comes to mind. The one that I remember vividly is Independence Day. You remember that? With Bill Pullman and a couple other people, Will Smith and a few others.

And I just think that is the most worst case scenario. And it's just a movie, just a bunch of bugs and spaceships coming to take care of us. My wife has observed. Why are the aliens always bugs? Like, if aliens are a higher, more intelligent life form, why are they bugs?

I mean, just think about that little nugget for you to stow for later. But now in our time, people are talking about extraterrestrial visitation on a level that is no longer, you know, overnight AM radio, it's no longer conspiracy boards on the Internet. It's mainstream from UFOs and UAPs to lizard people and all the rest of the. There is an awareness. There's a little bit of a ring, y', all, and.

Almost a growing hyper focus on the extraterrestrial, on the potential for an alien incursion. I've got my thoughts and my opinions about what those things are, as I'm sure you do. But I think this is some of what Jesus was talking about when he said, when you see these things, don't be deceived and find yourself in a ready place, find yourself prepared. How can we do that? Be self controlled, meaning to have sound judgment, to exercise control over your own thoughts.

How many of you are easily distracted by just about anything? Can I get a. Can I get a witness? Can I get an amen? Easily distracted by just the next thought.

Add ADHD. My dad said if I was 8 years old, when I was 8 years old, if they'd had me tested, they probably would have put me on something. And so I've grown up my whole life with this constant, like, awareness of the next thing and the next thing and the next thing and the next book and the next podcast and the next trend and all these next things. And he says, be self controlled. Get your thoughts under control.

Focus.

Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth sometimes? I need to hear that. Focus.

And be sober minded. And the idea of self control is not just an exercise over your own thought life, but it's also where the thoughts go. As a man thinks in his heart, so he is those things that we meditate on, those things that we dwell on, the things that we hyper focus can come out as an expression in our actions, in our words, in the habits that we form, in the ways that we respond to things. And Peter says, in the awareness that the end of all things is at hand. Be self controlled.

Get control over your own thoughts, your own passions, your own focus. Be sober minded, meaning don't be controlled by something external, whether it's a substance or an attitude or a cultural trend. Be watchful. Be circumspect is the idea of the word, the idea of circumspect. Does anybody have a360 camera?

You know what I'm talking about, where you can hold that camera and you can see all the way around. You got some of those folks where they stick it on like a stick and they jump out of an airplane or slide down a hill or something like that. It's out there. Have you seen the ones where they put that camera in their mouth and they got this 360 camera and you're like, oh, they're going to see something incredible. And all you see is this weird bug eye version of their face.

The idea of circumspect, I'm getting somewhere with this. The idea of circumspect is having a 360 view view of your life in the military or maybe law enforcement. They say, keep your head on a. Wow. There's a lot of folks who know what that means. All right, Keep your head on a swivel.

That's what sober minded means. Be aware of your environment. Be aware of what's going on in the heart. Being aware of what's going on in the mind. Be aware as you interact with the people in your life.

Be sober minded. Be circumspect. Keep. Keep your head, your thoughts, your focus on a swivel.

Because what did Jesus say? Don't be deceived. Don't be led astray. People are going to come and say, I am the Christ. People are going to come and say, Jesus is in Salt Lake City.

Jesus is in Taiwan. Jesus is in Sudan. Jesus is in Fill in the blank. And people have done it over and over again. There are people who start a YouTube channel and say, I am the one.

I am the chosen one. Now, that came from something that was a movie. Right? Here's the point. With the way that AI is so infiltrating of all of our technology in a level that I don't even know we quite understand, there are some people who are becoming very aware that if I don't get into a room with real human beings, I'm not going to know who's real anymore.

Your evening news, definitely not AI. Oh, but then there's cbs, NBC and ABC stations who are using AI filters now on their newscasters to give them just the perfect look. A little bit of. Little bit of post makeup. Makeup.

Well, that's all we're doing.

I'm going to pick on you folks who are older than me. I'm 46. Can I just ask who's older than 46? Okay, look around, young people. This is you one day, okay?

Have compassion.

So if you're 46 or older like me. Our demographic is becoming more and more susceptible to fake social media. Everything. Videos, pictures, posts, people. Have you ever gotten a friend request from the same person?

But it's like three or four or five different profiles. It's AI that is something being manufactured. And I think part of the great deception of the end times is going to be the inability to distinguish between what is real and what is fake. So as Christians, we need to be self controlled and sober minded. We need to have our heads on swivels, aware, not just believing everything that our dear friend Greg would call the magic box.

What's on the magic box? Right. Just the idea that you can have everything at your fingertips, both a convenience and a problem. Right. And so I would encourage you.

Being self controlled and sober minded in our time still requires the same awareness and readiness at the end is almost near, but it requires maybe an extra level of help. Lord, I don't know what's real anymore. I don't know if that preacher that I've been following on YouTube is a real person. I don't know if what I'm seeing on the evening news or on my social media feed is this true. There are actors and personalities of different types that have died like a dozen times and that's been going on before.

AI, but you see what I'm saying, What is real? I just saw a trailer for a movie coming out recently with Val Kilmer. He passed away already. But the rights to use his image and his voice have all been granted for future movies. And I have to tell you, I couldn't tell.

I looked like Val Kilmer to me. So you and I, we got to be careful. We got to be aware of what is happening in front of us. Hey, a little bit of entertainment, a little bit of those things, they're okay in moderation with discernment. But be aware.

Don't check your brains out at the door. Don't just believe everything coming in. Take a healthy, questioning approach to anything that you see or hear. Especially if it claims to be the, the voice of the Lord, especially if it claims to be the Christ in this place or that.

So Peter says, how are Christians to behave? Are we to freak out and run around scared? The sky is falling. The sky is falling. No, be self controlled, be sober minded for the sake of your prayers.

Ain't nothing going to mess up a prayer life more than a distracted mind. Especially distracted by things like fear, anxiety, panic, all the rest, which I think we can all relate with on some level or another. Right? There are things that genuinely cause fear, generally create panic in us and the response is to be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers. And I say one of the best antidotes to being deceived is to keep a daily, clear minded, wholehearted conversation with God every day.

Just talk to him when you get up. Good morning, Lord, it's me. Again, sitting on the edge of the bed, just doing my stretches. Just talk to him throughout the day. Ask him what you should do.

Ask him what you should say. Offer the things in your life that are weighing you down to him and what you're going to find. It's like we were singing, Lord, come fill this place in the atmosphere. He'll fill your mind, he'll fill your home, he'll fill your car. He'll fill your workplace with his presence.

And you'll just, you'll have an awareness of him with you, in you, available to you, to empower you to live a life in perfect peace and perfect joy with Him. When we allow the fear of the unknown or the fear of the not yet take over and we tend towards panic, we aren't being self controlled, we aren't being sober minded. And so the response is again, a response of grace. A response where we say, lord, help me, I need to be self controlled. And you'd be sober minded in response to this.

It will greatly empower your prayers and that prayer life will empower your sense of purpose in this world as you follow Jesus. Maybe you're familiar with that passage from Philippians, chapter four, starting in verse four and going through verse nine. Finally, brothers. No, let me back up. Rejoice in the Lord always.

Again, I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.

And the. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things, what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. Rejoice again.

I say rejoice. I think you and I, we need to be reminded that joy is a choice. And the choice is to rejoice again and again and again to rejoice. You see, the Lord is at hand, both in the fact that he's returning. I believe that's part of what Paul's saying.

But the Lord is at hand. The closeness of his daily presence. How far can you reach out? Everybody just reach out. Just don't hit the person next to you, just reach out.

There's the Lord right there. He's at Hand. He's close. He's nearby. Put your hands in your pocket.

Put your hands like head and shoulders, knees and toes. The Lord is there. He's at hand. So don't be anxious about anything or be anxious for nothing. Some translations say, if you're going to be anxious, let it be over nothing.

It's my loose paraphrase. The idea of this, the anxiety is trouble thinking or troubled thinking or being troubled in your mind. And there is nothing in this life worth overthinking to the point of mental distress.

We need our minds, our mental focus to be clear. Paul writes in 2nd Timothy 1, God gave us a spirit not of fear. So if the Lord is at hand and you have his presence in your life, he doesn't give you fear. The end of all things is at hand. Well, don't be afraid about it.

Respond the way that God means for us to respond, with that awareness, ready and trusting in Him. He says in everything. What does everything mean? Very good. By prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

You got a problem you need to solve. You got an anxiety that's weighing you down. You got a distraction in your life. You got a person who's being unreasonable. Remember, he just says, let your reasonableness be known to you.

Got some unreasonable people in your life. How about spending some time praying about it before you take some time to gripe about it, before you take some time to say something you're going to regret about it? Maybe. Lord, show me when these things happen that the response is prayer. And by that prayer, through that prayer, the peace of God.

We need peace. The peace of God will create a fortress around your heart and your mind. You'll be like, you'll be protected. You have the best armor you could have in this world with the peace of God. And if we need something to focus on when we're praying, he says, whatever.

I don't know what the young kids say. I don't know what the Gen Z kids say these days. I know that in our day we said whatever. You said it to the wrong parent and you got whatevered into the next room, right? But whatever, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, just pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, worthy of praise.

Focus your thoughts, your meditations, your prayers on these things. Sometimes the best approach to start a prayer is just to tell God how awesome he is and then to say thank you for everything he's done for you. And then to get to the hard part. Lord, I messed up again. Please forgive me.

Thank you for your forgiveness and your love and your grace. And then to begin to ask him to handle situations you can't handle. To give you wisdom for things you don't have wisdom for. To give you faith where you're like the man with his son who needed to be healed. Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief.

Lord, I need that belief now. I need that faith to be increased in my life. So the peace of God is found when we focus our minds on whatever is good and will draw us closer to him. And wait, there's more. Back to first Peter, chapter four.

He says in verse eight, above all. What's the idea of above all? It's above all, right? If you have like dudes, you get this. If you have a honey do list and you just take that list and you start working at it in whatever particular order you think is important, something is not going to get done when the expectation for it to be done isn't met.

So when you have the honey do list, a little bit of inside free marriage advice here. Ask which of these things would you like to see done first?

What is most important here? Like what do I need to get done before dinner? What do I need to get done before the weekend? Right? That's the idea of above all, highest priority.

Above all. You ready for this? The end of the world is near. Above all.

Somebody throw the Scriptures up there. What does it say? Keep loving one another earnestly or sincerely, since love covers a multitude of sins. How many of you are walking into this Sunday with a multitude of sins? Okay, come on, we're all there.

Everybody is there. He who says he is without sin is a liar. That's what the Bible says. Okay? All right.

So we all walk in to the assembly of God with a multitude of sins combined or individually. And the response of the Christian family to one another in light of end times is love each other and cover up those sins. Not in a cover up sort of a way, in a you're forgiven, God forgives you and he's given you the power to live right. That is found in this when we gather together. This is found in the assembly that is found when we love one another.

And not just love one another, but what does it say? Throw it back up there. What's that little four letter word after above all, keep, don't stop, continue loving one another earnestly, loving one another sincerely. Here's one of the ways you can. Here's a how ready?

Verse nine, show hospitality to one another. Caveat. Without grumbling, just Take them out to lunch. Be happy about it. Just invite them into your life and be happy about it to the level that you feel equipped, to the level that you feel called.

Show hospitality in a way that says, God, I'm doing this because of you. Matter of fact, he says in the next verse, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another.

Everybody's been given a gift. Maybe your gift of hospitality is a handshake on a Sunday morning. That's okay. We'll see you outside of church before and after the service. But maybe for some of you, the gift that you've been given is to open your heart, your home, your life to other people and to show them what the love of Jesus looks like in everyday life.

I think we can all do that in some way. The point is, let's find a way to keep loving one another. Yes, the end of all things is near. The end of all things is at hand. So while we're waiting, love, show hospitality.

He says in verse 10 through 11, serve one another, speak the oracles of God, and by God's strength and for God's glory, do it all in love.

Because verse 17 says, it is time for judgment. It is time for God's serious discipline to begin at the household of God. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome of those who do not obey the gospel of God? One of the biggest problems I see in the church, and I'm speaking of myself personally too, is it's a whole lot easier to point at all the problems going on outside of these walls. Look what they're doing.

Look what they said. I can't believe he really tweeted that.

Oh, yeah? What did you tweet in your heart? What did you think about your brother, your sister, your husband, your wife that wasn't honoring to the Lord. You see, judgment, serious discipline must begin here with us, with God's people. And if God is serious enough about a people being separate from the world and being holy, useful for his glory, we've got to accept that he is doing a work in us that requires us to be tuned into him and not tuned in to what my neighbor's doing, not tuned in to what the government's doing, what the actors and the musicians and the politicians are saying and doing.

No, I need to be focused on, Lord, what does my life look like in alignment with your will and your purpose? Am I showing love? Am I exercising hospitality? Am I serving others? Am I speaking the oracles of God?

And then, as Jesus said, the gospel of the Kingdom will be proclaimed through the whole world, through your lives, through my life, through the lives of those who truly believe in him and live in alignment with him. The Gospel will be proclaimed through the whole world. And I believe it's going to be proclaimed, claimed by believers who are in a loving and submitted relationship to Jesus Christ as Lord, not just Savior. He is your Savior, Praise God for that. But as your Lord, he calls the shots.

And if I want to be ready. Whatever happens today, whatever happens tomorrow.

Somebody made it into the White House press corps dinner and began shooting in the direction of of the President and his cabinet sitting in there last night. Bombs are going off in countries all over the world.

The economies of the world are unstable. There's an opportunity for more pandemics and diseases and all of these natural and man made disasters. And we are faced with a choice.

Get afraid, fall apart, dig a hole, take all your Cheerios into it and live in the underground. I remember Y2K right? You guys remember that, okay? But the end of all things. Since the end of all things is at hand, then as followers of Jesus, we need to use the expression of the Tuskegee Airmen.

We need to straighten up and find, fly right. We need to straighten up and fly right. How do we do that? Put our focus on Jesus, Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is on, or meditate on those things, pray over those things, think of all things. And as the end of all things is on our horizon, which I believe it is, let us be self controlled, sober minded, loving one another as God has loved us first.

Amen. Amen. Can I invite you to stand as we close in prayer, if you're able to? Father, in heaven, we stand before you and we ask you to give us the grace that we need to face what's next.

Lord, we don't know when the end of all things will be here, but we can see that it is truly at hand, as Peter said. And the reality is too, Lord, is that our last day, our last breath on this planet at hand, we don't know how long we're going to be here. Are we going to be here for an hour? Are we going to be here for 50 years? We don't know.

But you've given us a way to respond. You've given us a way to live. Lord, I pray first. We would respond with a deep faith in you, with a readiness for your eventual return, and with a deep love for other people, especially our church family. Lord, help us to love one another well.

Help us to ask more questions and to tune in to the needs around us and in the capacity that you've gifted each one of us. May we meet those needs. May we respond to those opportunities with gratitude, with love, and with joy. Lord, as Paul said in First Philippians 4, Rejoice. And again I say, rejoice, Lord, I pray that we would make that choice, to walk in your joy, even if our world is falling apart, even if our lives are struggling, Lord, that we would stand firm in your grace.

We would choose joy, and we would express love. Jesus, we trust you. We thank you for all that you are, all that you've done for us. And we ask, Lord, that you would fill us with your spirit as we leave this place to live our lives in alignment with your word and your will. In Jesus name, amen.