Thank you, Jameson. That was beautiful. Dear congregation, let's continue to worship our God this morning by considering his word. If you're a visitor this morning, this is the time in our worship for what we call the ministry of the word. This is the time when we open up God's word and we let it hopefully speak to us. And we seek to mine out the relevant application of it. And we have been working through the book of 1 Peter. And this morning we find ourselves in 1 Peter chapter 4. So if you could turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 4. I'm going to read in your hearing verses 7 through 11. Though our time of exposition will mainly focus on verses 7 through 9. So let's give our attention to the reading of God's word. 1 Peter chapter 4 verses 7 through 11. And if you're following along on a Pew Bible, you could find that on page 1016. Let's give our attention to the reading of God's word. The Apostle Peter says, 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 varied grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves as 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. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our congregation lasts forever, and we are thankful for it. Let's go before the Lord one last time this morning and ask for his help in the exposition of his word. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you this morning for the opportunity to come before you corporately with your people and pour out our hearts to you, Lord. to worship you in song and in confession and in hearing your word. And Father, I know that many of us come this morning with all kinds of different things on our plates, different burdens, different struggles, different doubts, different fears. Perhaps even some of us are coming off the heels of a huge fight in our family. Maybe even at the home or on the car on the way over. And Father, we find ourselves with a palette of emotions that is unstable at best. Father, would you quiet our hearts this morning? Would you bring us before your word as before an altar? an altar where we would do worship, do obeisance by sacrificing ourselves on it for your glory, that we would let your word come in as a searching lamp of interrogation into our hearts, inviting your spirit, dear Father, to roam throughout our minds and our hearts and especially our consciences to show us where we have been unfaithful to you. And yet, Father, following it up with the good news of the gospel so that we do not leave this place despairing, but we leave this place rejoicing, knowing that despite our weakness, despite our doubts, despite our fears, Despite the fact that perhaps as a husband, I failed miserably in letting the argument get out of hand at home before we came to church. I'm still yours. Christ still atones for my sin. And I have heaven waiting for me reserved. And it will not be taken away. Father, give us that hope this morning through your word. Help your servant to unpack it faithfully and relevantly. and Christocentrically, we ask these things in your son's name. Amen. Well, if you haven't been living under a rock for the last 50 years, you've heard frantic in-time doomsayers. You might call them frantic in-time prognosticators. I like that word. It's what the weathermen and women, too, they prognosticate. They predict the future. And they don't do it very well, but that's another conversation. But frantic in time doomsayers or prognosticators are constantly heralding the end of the world. We've seen this in the last 50, 60, 70 years, and frankly, it's been around since the time of Jesus, been around before that. Jesus warned in the last days that there would be doomsayers who would come and predict the end, but he said, but the end is not yet. But we've seen this in a number of different ways. We've seen this by confused Bible teachers. And what do they do? They give this frantic, in-time, doom, sane prophecy, but it tends to be accompanied by some further actions that you need to do. Namely, things like, and this is good, share Jesus with people, Jesus is back, so share Jesus with people, that's good. But then they also include things like, and give your money to our ministry. I never really understood that. The end of the world's coming, why do I need to give my money to your ministry? But not only is it confused Bible teachers that herald these in-time frantic prognostications, but we've also heard politicians do this. In fact, even recently we've heard of politicians that are saying that the end of the world is coming. And what actions typically accompany Those end-time prognostications, well, things like stop polluting, and of course, vote for me, and I will be the Messiah to fix all the wrong things in the world, contribute to my campaign, etc., etc. I'll just leave that right there. Well, Peter wasn't above telling people that the end of all things was coming. In fact, as you see in your text in verse 7, that's what he says right out of the gate. He says, the end of all things is at hand. And then he says, therefore. So Peter, like other in time prognosticators, is not above saying that the end is coming, nor is he above saying the end is coming. So let me give you some things to do in the meantime. But on the other hand, Peter was different because he didn't give a timeline because Jesus taught him not to do that. Both Jesus and Paul and many other biblical authors claim that the end was coming, but they never claimed when it would come. Only what that it would come. With all the biblical authors, they taught what is known as the imminent return of Jesus Christ. What does imminent mean? Imminent means he could come back at any time. Jesus could come back at any time, and this has been the hope of the church since Christ descended into heaven, that Jesus Christ could come back at any time. You might call this hope an eschatological hope. Eschatological means the end, and this end time hope has for 2,000 years animated and conditioned the church, listen, to be who they are for 2,000 years. For 2,000 years, what has conditioned the church to think about how I flesh out my ethic? How do I think about what I do do and what I don't do and what I say and what I think? In other words, my ethic, what conditions that? What governs that? Eschatology, that Jesus Christ is coming back. And right before Jesus ascended, The disciples asked him the very question to which so many in-time prognosticators claim to have the answer. When, Lord? He said, Lord, is it at this time you're going to restore your kingdom? And you remember what he answered? It's not for you to know times and seasons which the Lord has determined, but the Spirit is gonna come upon you, and you're gonna be witnesses in Jerusalem and Samaria and Judea, and you're gonna go out and take this message. In other words, you know what Jesus was saying? Don't worry about when, just let the fact Let that I'm coming back drive you to action. Let it drive you to worship. Let it drive you, as Paul says in the book of 1 Timothy, to once in a while look up into the clouds and long for the coming of Jesus Christ. We're not waiting for the last days to come, dear ones. We're in the last days. The author of the Hebrews said, in these last days, though many prophets have spoke in many times and in many different ways, in these last days, writing in the first century, in these last days, not waiting for the seven-year tribulation, not waiting for some millennium, in these last days, Christ speaks to us, and he consoles us with the coming that he will bring. Someone once asked Martin Luther, I love this, Dr. Luther, what would you do if you knew that the end was coming tomorrow? And in his classic Martin Luther way, he said, I would plant a tree and pay my taxes. I would plant a tree and pay my taxes. In other words, in light of the fact that Jesus is coming back at any moment, what are we to do? Not something extraordinary, but something, listen, ordinary. Business as usual. Be who you are. Jesus is coming back, what should I do? Be a Christian. Jesus is coming back. What should I do? Be a Christian. And he follows up in verse seven and following with three specific things that we are to do. Again, not something extraordinary. Why people are running around in the midst of these end time prognostications like chickens with their heads cut off, trying not to pollute anymore so that global warming doesn't consume us, trying to pick the right politician, trying to sell all their possessions and give it to the end time prognosticators ministry. Jesus says, hey, I'm coming back soon, be a Christian. I'm coming back soon, be a Christian. And Peter leaves us with three thoughts. Number one, to live with a clear conscience, especially for the sake of your prayers. Number two, to love earnestly, especially the stranger. And number three, to use your gifts for God's glory and not your own. Now this morning, what I'd like to do is I'd like to focus on those two. Okay, so the end is coming, what are we to do? We are to live with a clear conscience, especially for the sake of our prayer life, and number two, we are to love earnestly, especially the stranger. So what I'd like to do this morning in thinking about those two things is I wanna ask the question, how does eschatology, the fact that Jesus is coming back, imminently, meaning at any time, how does that drive our ethic in the category of, number one, maintaining a clear conscience, especially for the sake of our prayers, and number two, how does eschatology drive and condition our ethic with respect to loving one another? Listen earnestly, kids, adverb. How do I love? Earnestly. How does eschatology drive that? Because have you thought about that for a moment? We know that in one sense, as we look into the rear view mirror, it's the cross in redemptive history behind us that drives our love. That is true. But have you ever thought that it's not only what is in the rear view of redemptive history that drives our ethic, but it's also, as we sang this morning, as we gaze out into the eschaton, as we stand on the stormy banks of Jordan. And so whether it is the rear view mirror or what is right before us in the windshield, both history and eschatology drive us to love and to keep a clear conscience. And why is that? If I could state it succinctly, it would be this. Listen, the disposition and desire to glorify God with all that you are and all that you have will be in heaven what it is now. Nothing's going to change. Now, there's gonna be other things that are gonna change. You're gonna get a resurrected body. The earth is gonna be purified and judged. Yeah, all those wonderful things, that's true. So we might say it'll be easier to have that disposition in the new heavens and the new earth, but the disposition itself that you're going to have in the new heavens and the new earth, the desire to glorify and magnify God, the desire to make much of Jesus and worship him forever with your life and with your heart and with your soul, that started when you became a Christian. In other words, the kingdom that is coming, you have already entered through conversion. And so the already that we're experiencing right now is a new creation within us, and then the not yet will be when the new creation within us becomes the new creation outside of us. And so who we are now is who we will be then, and that's why eschatology drives your ethic. So here's the main idea this morning. Your eschatology, that is your view of the end and of eternity, conditions your ethic in this life. Your eschatology conditions your ethic in this life. Now let's consider these two things. Number one, how does eschatology condition a clear conscience, especially in our prayer life? Peter says in verse seven, The end of all things is at hand, therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Now I want you to notice here that Peter is talking about maintaining a clear conscience. And he's gonna on the tail end of verse seven say specifically in the category of your prayer life. But eschatology drives us, conditions us, moves us to have a clear conscience. And there's two ways in which Peter conceives of that. He conceives of that in, number one, being self-controlled, and number two, being sober-minded. So, with eschatology, or Jesus Christ coming in view, why are we to be self-controlled? Well, to be self-controlled We are self-controlled by letting the end of the final judgment conduct our life now. In doing this, it's not so much that we're saying, well, the final judgment's coming, so I gotta be good and watch my P's and Q's or else I'm not gonna make it in. No. As a Christian, we think differently. The final judgment is coming, and the way in which I will be acquitted before the Father is because I will be identified with Jesus Christ through my faith. So who I will be then is who I want to be right now. And so I want to be self-controlled in that. I want my vessel, my body, my mind, my heart, my soul, to be controlled by that vision, not by the siren songs of the world, not by the world, the flesh, and the devil, because believe me, and you know this, if you've been a Christian for two minutes, sin is constantly crouching at your door. And you know what, at bottom, if we can get to the psychology of sin, Okay, let's, like Freud, put sin on the couch for a second, okay? What is at the bottom of the psychology of sin? I'm gonna tell you right now. The psychological approach of sin is to do this, get you to be somebody that you're not. The psychology of sin is to try to convince you of a different identity than the identity that you have in Christ. You see, sin wants you to be psychologically and spiritually schizophrenic. Sin wants you to be somebody that you're not, and so Paul and Peter and Jesus and everyone are constantly saying, be who you are. Be Christ-centered. Be the one who wants to magnify Jesus Christ through everything you do, say, think, and are. And as sin comes along, crouching at the door, the main and principal way in which we fight it is what? Remembering who I am in Jesus Christ. This is why we make so much of the sacraments in this place. This is why we make so much of your baptism. Your baptism was your new creation. It was your funeral to your old life and your birth to your new life. So we make much of it and it is that vision, that identity within which I want to be self-controlled. And that self-controlled has an effect on my conscience. Now, the second way in which Peter conceives of having a clear conscience is that we are sober-minded. I love that. I use that constantly in my counseling, and I have to. You wanna know why? Well, back to the first point, why? Because what does sin try to do? Crouching at your door, trying to tell you you're somebody that you're not. And sometimes sin, temptation, the world, the flesh, and the devil, it's actually successful in doing that, isn't it? We are fooled into thinking that we are that old man or that old woman. We fall back into habits and patterns. And we think, well, this is just who I am. That's dangerous. Don't go that direction because what you're doing is you're identifying with the old man and not with the new man. And so Peter says, in keeping a clear conscience, be sober-minded. What does that mean? That you don't have a higher opinion of yourselves than you ought. We think realistically about ourselves. We think realistically about our limitations, about our proclivities, and about our sins. Beloved, here at Grace Covenant Church, we believe, listen to me, we believe the Bible teaches the depravity of man. Do you believe that? Do you believe that man is born good? No. Do you believe that man was born with a blank slate following John Locke? No. We believe with David and all those who confess what the Bible teaches that we are born sinful. We naturally have sinful desires. Listen, sometimes I think these words are white noise. Sin is natural. It's natural. You say, but doesn't the gospel change that? Yes and no. What the gospel changes is the desires and direction of our hearts, but the sinful nature is still with us. So it's this constant back and forth of trying not to be a schizophrenic person spiritually who is either identifying with the old man or going back and forth. No, we are constantly identifying with the new man in Christ. You know, as a Christian, I still deceive myself. I still think that I am stronger than I am at times. And somebody comes up and says, well, you know, John says greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. That's true, but at any given moment, which one are you feeding? At any given moment, are you feeding Christ who is within you or the world that is within you? Because guess what, there's occupancy in your heart for both. So which one are you feeding? And this is why, being sober-minded, listen to me please, this is why accountability is so incredibly important, okay? Can I tell you guys something, especially you visitors who are coming? If you're of the mindset that I live a Lone Ranger Christianity, it's just me, Jesus, and my Bible. Not only is it a bad idea, it's bad grammar. If you're of that mindset, this is not the church for you, okay? We love you, hope you find a church. I'll help you find another one where that's the main frame. But here, we believe in accountability. We believe, again, as we sang this morning, that as we stand shoulder to shoulder with the saints on the stormy banks of Jordan, we are holding one another's hands up. We are holding our drooping arms and our drooping legs and our drooping feet. We're helping people with doubts and fears and discouragement and anger that they have against their brother or sister, trying to help them work through that in a biblical way rather than in a worldly way. We are those who are trying to help people identify what worldly sorrow is and how it is distinguished from godly sorrow. We are people, listen, we are people who think that repentance should bear fruit. Do you believe that? Do you believe that repentance should bear fruit? Whenever I go to that in my counseling, I always go to John the Baptist, you know, bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And I thought, man, is that the only place where it says it? And then I was reading in my Bible the other day in Acts 26, Paul before King Agrippa, and what was his gospel message? He says, I have taught King Agrippa people the gospel in Judea, Samaria, and all the Gentiles. Oh yeah, Paul, what was your message? That they should bear fruit in keeping with repentance. That was his message. Because that's what the gospel does. So here at Grace Covenant Church, you know one of the things we lovingly do? The things that we lovingly covenant to do with you is hold your feet to the fire, is try to keep your feet as close, well, let me put it this way, to try to keep your knees doubled before the foot of the cross as much as we possibly can. Now, we're not the Holy Spirit, but we do have the word through which the Holy Spirit works. And so we take accountability seriously here at Grace Covenant Church. Now, what drives this desire to be self-controlled and sober-minded? Turn in your Bibles very quickly to Romans 13, 11, and 12. Romans 13, 11, and 12, and I don't typically jump around, but what I like about what Paul does here is that he is saying what Peter's saying in just a slightly different way. So again, what's the question? The question is, What drives the desire to be self-controlled and sober-minded? What drives the desire to have a clear conscience for the Christian? Here's what Paul says. Romans 13, 11, and 12. Besides this, you know the time that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is far gone. The day is at hand. Look at that language. The day is at hand. How did Peter say it? The end of all things is near. So then, let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Why do we maintain self-control in our hearts and try to keep them going toward true north in all that we do? Why do we try to be sober-minded and not think that we're a lone ranger Christian who could do it by ourselves, as if the church has never existed for 2,000 years to help saints look toward heaven and long for it. Why do we do that? Because the end is coming, and we desire to shake off the influence of the world, shake off the lethargy of the siren songs of this age, and live in the light of the salvation, which today is nearer than what? Yesterday. And tomorrow is going to be nearer than what? Today. Every day that you live, you're getting closer to Christ, breaking through the clouds. And so my question this morning is, are you desirous to be self-controlled in your mind, in your heart, in your soul? Are you Christian sober-minded? And listen, please listen to me carefully, the sinfulness of sin. Do you know, if you're ever in a place where it's like, man, the gospel's not doing it for me today. The gospel's not shining as brightly as it normally does today. It's not giving me that hope and that foundation that it normally does. You know what a remedy to that is? Take sin more seriously. The more seriously you take sin, the more you see it as wretched and deplorable and disgusting and wicked and detestable, the more the gospel is gonna shine like diamonds on the backdrop of a black cloth. Sin's blackness puts on the glory of the gospel's glory. So, the end is coming and we seek to be self-controlled and sober-minded, but then Peter says something interesting. He tells us to be sober-minded and self-controlled for the sake of our prayers. Now, how do sober-mindedness and self-control connect to prayer? Here's the answer in a nutshell. Have a clear conscience in that for which you ask. In other words, don't be double-minded. What does double-minded look like? Well, it would look, to give you an example, it would look something like this. Lord, help me to stop viewing pornography. Please, Lord. I hate this sin. It's detestable. Please take it away. It's destroying my family, it's destroying my life, destroying my witness. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, I've got two hours to kill. I'll just get on the internet and wander around aimlessly. Given your proclivities, given your habits, given your patterns, I can tell you that's probably not gonna go very well, okay? What would sober-mindedness do? What would self-control do for the sake of your prayers? It would say this, I not only pray it, but when I say, in Jesus' name, amen, I have follow-through. When I was a kid, I went to basketball camp every single summer for seven years in a row. And you would think that with every consecutive year, they would teach you something different. But no, they didn't. Every single year, they taught you the exact same things. They were called the fundamentals. And one of the fundamentals in shooting a basketball is that you follow through with your hand. Why do you follow through with the hand? I'll tell you why. Because a ball that is spinning, which happens by flicking your hand, a ball that is spinning is going to fly more felicitously through the air than a ball that is inert, if you will, and not spinning. And therefore, it's more likely that it's going to get into the basket. So also, that's like prayer. Prayer involves follow through, not being double-minded. So I say amen, and then when I rise up, I follow through with my heart in the flick of the wrist, and I desire to actually go after, or on the other hand, abstain from the very things that I prayed for. So do you have a clear conscience, dear Christian? Do you have a clear conscience in that for which you pray? Or is prayer simply, I say this with a negative connotation, a religious thing that you do? Prayer is from the heart. Prayer is not to be double-minded. Prayer is driven by a clear conscience. So eschatology gives us a desire for a clear conscience in life and in our prayers. But now secondly, and we'll spend the rest of our time in this this morning, how does eschatology condition our love? He says in verses eight and nine, let's read this, chapter four, verses eight and nine, coming back to 1 Peter. He says, above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. It's interesting because we're still in the end of all things is near, therefore. We're still in that imperative context, right? So everything that Peter's saying here in verses eight and nine is still driven by the fact that the end is coming. So eschatology is still driving and governing his instruction for Christians to love earnestly. Why does he say in verse eight, above all, keep loving earnestly? Because if you remember in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, that famous love chapter, Paul is exalting love, right? And he says at the end, a beautiful refrain, he says, faith, hope, and love abide, but the greatest of these is what? Love. Why? Have you ever thought about this? Do you know that in heaven, there will be no faith? And in heaven, there will be no hope? Why? Because faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen. When you get to heaven, there's Jesus. You're not gonna have faith. Now, you're still gonna trust in Jesus, but you're not gonna have faith in someone or something that you don't see because Jesus will be right before you. What about hope? Hope is something you anticipate, and the eschaton is the fulfillment of your anticipation. And so faith will not be there in heaven, hope will not be there in heaven, but you know what's gonna abide? Love. Love will continue in heaven. You know, as I think, if I can do this in a sanctified imagination way, the principle way in which love will for eternity be displayed for all the saints is that on the hands and feet of our Savior, we will forever see the cost of his love. We will see his scars. We will see the nail prints, and they will forever communicate to us love. And so if love is going to be the theme, if you will, of heaven for eternity, how much more, Peter says, should you, dear Christian, hear, and now, above all things, love earnestly. And I love that he says earnestly. Earnestly, love is a strong verb, and it transcends emotion. And it's so important for us to see this because I think oftentimes, especially in our culture, when we think of love, we think of what? We think of emotions. But Peter here says love earnestly. And I think what he's doing here is dispelling the myth that love is exclusively or even primarily emotion. It doesn't exclude it, but love is more than emotion. Love, if it is to be genuine, requires work. Just recently, my wife and I, I can only take about two episodes, but we've been watching this show on Netflix. It's called Tidying Up. Have you guys seen this? Maria Kondo, okay? It's radically changing our house. And one of the things that we did, you know, like we're following Maria Kondo, the preacher. I mean, it's not a gospel thing, but she's telling us how to tidy our home up. And so we bought a shredder from Amazon and we're going through some files and we're shredding them and the kids are just having a great time. I mean, I'm just praying that fingers stay intact. But anyways, pulling out these files and shredding this and shredding that, my wife pulls out this file and it says, love letters. And they were love letters from me to Christina, and from Christina to me. And I forgot, A, how horrible of a poet I am, and B, how many letters I wrote to my wife, right? And you know, in that initial stage, the wooing stage and the googly eyes stage, you know what? Love doesn't have to be earnest. You don't have to work for it. It's already there. Love is earnest, right? Husbands? You don't like, oh, I've got to write a love letter to my fiance. No, it's like, I'm going to write a love letter. I'm a horrible poet, but here I go. I'm going to write this love letter to my wife. And wife, too. Like, she's like, you know, I'd rather write a love letter than eat today. Sorry. But then 10 years come, 15, and guess what? Then the earnestness is called for, right? I can't remember the last time I wrote a love letter to my wife. But do I love my wife? Oh, you bet. In fact, I love my wife more today than I did 12 years ago, and I'm sure that that's true of you men. But when Peter says love earnestly, what he's saying is, folks, emotions aren't always there. And sometimes you know what you gotta do? Despite the absence of emotions, despite your laziness and your apathy and everything else, you've gotta love earnestly. You've gotta put forth effort. And that's what love does. You know what else love does? Love covers a multitude of sins. So many times I use this, not only in preaching the gospel to myself, but also in counseling. Let me just tell you an experience. Early on in my Christian life, a few years after, there was a man in my life, he was a Christian man, in fact, he was a leader in the church. And I'm just gonna be honest with you, I went to the church and I was very much involved and I just didn't really click with this guy. I'm not gonna say I didn't like him, but I kinda didn't like him. And we didn't connect, we rubbed each other the wrong way. And I knew in my heart, not because he was a leader in the church, I see the wheels turning in your heads. I know what's going on. I knew that as a leader in my church, I want to love this man. And I respected him, but it was just hard. So you know what happened? He and his family began to have me and Christina over and started showing us hospitality. And then we, of course, wanted to have him and his family over. And as we went back and forth and there was this blessed reciprocation going on, you know what happened? I started loving that man. I just, I started learning more about him. I started hearing more about who he was. I started hearing more about his struggles. And I'm like, this guy's really, he's really a lot like me. And I realize, I'm like, maybe the reason I don't like him is because he's so much like me. Have you ever found that? People are so much like you. I think psychologists could say this is where the tension comes between fathers and sons and mothers and daughters, right? They're just so much like you. But the more I got to know him, the more, listen, I showed hospitality, and the more he showed hospitality to me, I got to know he was a real sinner, just like me. I got to know that he magnified the gospel despite his sinfulness in his life, just like me. And you know what? Love covered a multitude of sins. Love covered my prejudicial judgment of him, and probably his of mine. So love earnestly pursues, love earnestly loves, and it also covers a multitude of sins. But now I want you to notice in verse nine, love pursues the stranger. Love pursues the stranger. Look at verse nine. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. We've talked about hospitality before in this pulpit, and what does hospitality mean? It literally means a love of the stranger. Okay, now that does, don't take it too literally. That doesn't mean that the only thing that qualifies as hospitality is if you go find some guy on the side of the road and put him in your car and go take him to Jimmy John's or whatever. It can be somebody that is more or less a stranger to you. which in our congregation, there's many of us who are more or less strangers to us, right? And so hospitality is a love for somebody who is not part of your nuclear family. Now, here's the question. And by the way, hospitality is part of love. It's under the umbrella of love, a love for the stranger. So eschatology, I'm going to say two things here as we round off this time of exposition. Eschatology promotes hospitality on both sides. It promotes hospitality as we give it, and it promotes hospitality as we receive it and experience it. So I want to talk about those two sides for a moment, okay? How does eschatology promote and condition our hospitality now? Well, let's start by asking, what does it mean to grumble in showing hospitality? Because he says, show hospitality to one another without grumbling. Now, if we're all honest and we're not liars, we can say that there are times when we show hospitality and we what? We grumble. Why do we do that? I think one of the reservations we have in showing hospitality is that we feel like, and you're all guilty, just like I am, we feel like we have to wait until we have everything perfect before we have people over, right? We have to wait until we fix the perfect meal. to where Paula Deen comes and says, oh my goodness, I'm gonna put you on the front of my magazine. This meal was so amazing. We gotta wait till we have the perfect meal. We have to wait until we actually have time to clean up the house perfectly. We have to wait until our houses look presentable to people. So here's my question, are you ready? How does eschatology promote hospitality? If you wait for those things to happen, Jesus might come back already. Right? There's your eschatology right there. Jesus might come back before we get all those things done. And then there's no chance to show hospitality. How does the imminence of Jesus's return apply? If the end is near, we work with what we have. No one will show hospitality quite like you. Have you thought about that? I don't wanna get too snowflakey here, but nobody will show hospitality quite like you. You are unique in your hospitality. That's true. Nobody will show it. No one will show hospitality like you. Your hospitality doesn't have to look like someone else's. The point is not having your hospitality experience make the cover of better homes and gardens. The point is this is what the Lord has given me. This is what the Lord has given my family, a two room house or a three house or a one room house, whatever the case may be. This is the budget he's given me. So maybe we're having steak or maybe we're having mac and cheese or whatever the case may be. These are the customs and habits that we exhibit. These are the foods we like and we want to share with others to bless them and encourage them. This is our version of hospitality. What's another reservation we have in showing hospitality? We may also grumble if our stranger guests, remember, hospitality is the love of the stranger. We may grumble if our stranger guests don't act the way we want them to. That ever happen to you? I was joking with my wife the other day, I'm like, let's have so-and-so over after church and we could just say, you guys could say as long as you want, we're going to bed at 8.30. Sometimes they have kids that are unruly or get crumbs on the couch and who are loud or who might even break something. But the point of hospitality isn't always picking the guests who are gonna have the same habits as us. In fact, it's kind of the opposite of what we're going for. Strangers, that means they're different. The point of loving the stranger is loving them even if some of their habits are strange. The point is unity. The point is cohesion. The point is fellowship within the body of Christ. What a beautiful mosaic of God's very grace is Grace Covenant Church. And if you move out from there, what a beautiful mosaic of God's very grace is the church at large. All kinds of different cats out there that need your love through hospitality. So that's hospitality on the showing side. Now let's come over here on the other side. Let's come over here and talk about how we receive hospitality, okay? Eschatology conditions how we engage in and receive hospitality. Let me ask a question this morning. Before I do that, let me say this. Grace Covenant Church's hospitable spirit, since I've been here in the last two years, what I have experienced is what I'm trying to say, is I have seen your hospitable spirit grow. I have seen it grow. I prayed this morning the pastoral prayer, a thanks to the Lord, because Miss Renee put out a take them a meal on the website for you guys to fill in. I think within a day it was filled in. We weren't like getting on the phone like, would you guys please give some meals to the crowd? No, people, like elbows, getting people out of the way, let me sign up, let me. I think of Paul, outdo one another in doing good. That's what I see in you. And God bless you for your hospitable spirit. But if I can just address something else, and I do it humbly, does your personal diet tend to encourage table fellowship? Or does your personal diet tend to inhibit table fellowship? Ask yourself that question. If your personal diet tends to inhibit fellowship, then we need to think long and hard about what Peter's saying here. Now, there are necessary diets, and then there are voluntary diets, right? If somebody has a peanut allergy, OK, I'm not going to make them a peanut butter sandwich. That's just not charity, right? But there's other people who don't have diets based on absolute medical need. It's more like, I just feel better, I'm more healthy, I lose weight, I gain more muscle mass, whatever the case may be. But if your voluntary diet has become so all-consuming, listen, that exceptions can't be made to fellowship with other people, just keep in mind that the church has dealt with this before. The whole book of Acts and the book of Galatians and 1 Corinthians 8 through 10 deals with Jews and Gentiles not being able to come together because of what? Table fellowship. Sometimes we have a short memory, right? Paul and others had to tell the Jews, listen, Jews, that your Gentile brothers and sisters, they don't have the same convictions as you. They're fine to buy the cheap meat in the meat market because it was sacrificed to Dagon or whoever, because they don't care. There is no God but Yahweh. And so be careful, Jews, that you don't impose your secondary convictions on Gentiles when you have them over or when you go over to their house. And as we heard this morning, instead of talking about, hey, where'd you get the meat? Oh, I got it from the supermarket Temple Dagon. It was a great price going on. No, just don't talk about that. If they ask, deal with it, and then, you know, you deal with the aftermath. But on the other hand, Gentiles had to keep in mind that Jews had these scruples that they've grown up with all their life. And it's not just simple as saying, oh, Jews, Jesus fulfills the old covenant, so just get over it. That's not love. And so both have to find this middle ground, right? And there's a curious parallel today in the church. The specifics aren't the same, but the challenge is strikingly similar. Some people are on high-fat, high-protein diets. Other people are on high-carb diets. Others are on organic diets. Others are on vegan diets, vegetarian diets, paleo diets, keto diets. I could go on and on and on. How are we going to get all these people in one room to break bread together? Eschatology. It's not about building walls. It's about building bridges. There are alternatives. You could bring your own food if you're invited to somebody's house and they don't have what fits your diet. You could do that, I guess. But you know one thing I've learned as a missionary in a foreign country? Oftentimes the way to the people's heart in Mexico, as I work with them, is learning to love and appreciate their food. When I loved and appreciated their food with their salsas, and I made sure not to mix red salsa with green salsa, because that's anathema in Mexican culture, I think, they loved me, and I loved them. Food is a way to people's hearts. And so think about this. Again, we're talking about special voluntary diets. I know some pretty disciplined people, bodybuilders, athletes, and then people who just have voluntary diets for their own purposes. And even the most disciplined dieters that I know, they always have what? A cheat meal. I was of the mindset that, like, I got three cheat meals a day, and that didn't go over very well. But they're like, one cheat meal a week. So here's an idea. Why don't we, you know, strategically, why don't we strategize and think, if I got a cheat meal during the week, and the Freemans invite me over, and maybe I'm on a special, like, keto diet, whatever, maybe I just take a cheat meal and go eat whatever they give. It's showing love. Let's examine our hearts and motives and seek to show grace and latitude on both sides. Because at Grace Covenant Church, food's important. Don't get me wrong. You want to ask me about my diet, I'll tell you. I care less. I care more about the gospel. But as important as food is, we don't want to offend a brother. over meat. We don't want to offend a brother over turning down a hand of fellowship. We want to do what we can to love one another and show hospitality. Some of us need to learn not to be offended if people don't eat our food. Others of us need to make room for cheat meals. So as we have looked at this morning, Eschatology conditions our keeping of a clear conscience through self-control and sober-mindedness. It also conditions our love, and that love carries over into a love of the stranger and hospitality. So that's looking forward, but the gospel also helps us to look back. The gospel also helps us to look back to the cross and considering how we examine our consciences and our brethren. Paul says in Philippians 2 that we should do nothing from selfish ambition, but in humility count others more significant than themselves. And what example did he give? He gave the incarnation, that blessed text in Philippians 2 of God eternal becoming man. Brethren, do you know what the single greatest, most epic event of hospitality in all of history was? It was God, the infinite, who became the God-man. He left his realm in glory and he came to a place of foreigners and strangers driven by what? driven by self-control, driven by sober-mindedness, and he did all of this for us. This is the blessing of the gospel, that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son into the world. And just as love conditions his coming into the world, so love conditions our response to his coming into the world. Jesus' example is not just an example for us, like, hey, Jesus emptied himself, you empty yourself, too. That's true, and amen. But Jesus' example is also consolation for us. Because none of us are perfect at hospitality. None of us are perfect at being self-controlled. None of us are perfect in being sober-minded. In fact, we're miserable sinners. Even in our repentance, it is broken, and we try to cobble it together, and we say, Lord, here's my repentance, broken and cobbled together, and he says, I do not look at that. I look at what my son has done for you, and based on that, I accept you. The greatest act of hospitality was Jesus coming into the world. Now, unbelievers, let me tell you something this morning, because there's some of you this morning here. What you love will condition your final judgment. What you love will determine and condition your final judgment. You love yourself, you love your passions, you love the world, you love doing whatever the heck you want and don't wanna have to give account to anybody, then it's that love that on the final day God's gonna say, okay, you wanna depend on your own works, then what works do you have, unbeliever? What works do you have that will commend yourself to me? And I tell you, dear friend, none of your works, all of them combined, even on your best day, none of them will commend themselves to God in such a way that he will acquit you. But on the other hand, if what you love supremely and chiefly and mostly is Jesus Christ, then I have good news for you. Because on that day of judgment, having believed in Jesus Christ, what will happen is God will say, why should I let you into my heavenly kingdom? And you will say not for any works that I have done, but because I have placed my faith and trust in your son, Jesus Christ, having turned from my sins. And it's his work and his death that covers my sins and gives me a righteousness that makes me stand before you. Love for that God man will cause you to stand in the final day this morning, dear friends. Where is your love? Is your love for yourself, is your love for the world, is your love for the kingdom of darkness, or is your love for Jesus Christ? Let's pray. Dear Father in heaven, we thank you that you have sent your Son from heaven for strangers and sinners such as us. We come broken this morning, Father. All of us believers, we come, all of we believers come broken knowing that our only hope in heaven is you. But Father, we also thank you that what that does to us. What that does to us is it gives us a desire to be self-controlled. It gives us a desire to be sober-minded. It gives us desire to love earnestly, not only you, but the people for which you shed your precious blood. Father, give us grace by the leading of your spirit to glorify you in this, and thank you that the gospel is the engine under the hood, driving our ethics as we look forward over the stormy banks of Jordan into the eschatological. Come, Lord Jesus, soon, we pray in your name. Amen. Let us stand for the doxology.