Jesus Christ will come again. That’s one of the most basic Christian beliefs. In our communion liturgy, which we say every month, we say, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” In our oldest creed, the Nicene Creed, we say, “Christ will come again in glory.” And of course, Jesus Himself said that He would come again “on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.”
We don’t know when Jesus will come again, of course. When Jesus was on earth, He said that He, Himself, did not know when He would come back. Only God the Father knows.
We do think about it sometimes, though. Some people think it will happen soon. They look at the things Jesus said would be signs of His return–wars and rumors of wars, famines and earthquakes, false prophets appearing, lawlessness increasing–and they see them happening now. And I certainly cannot deny the truth of that. On the other hand, we’ve seen these things happen before, and Jesus has not returned yet. So I don’t know. If Jesus Himself did not know, at least while He was on earth, I’m okay with not knowing, either.
In the first years following Jesus’ death, His followers expected it to happen soon. Many of them expected it to happen in their lifetime. That’s why the gospels were not written until thirty or forty years after Jesus’ death. Writing was a laborious process back then. It took a lot of time, and getting copies made took even more time. And if you thought Jesus was going to come right away, well, you did not have time to go through all that. You simply went everywhere you could and told everyone you could about Jesus. It was only after time passed, and the people who were witnesses to Jesus’ life and death were starting to pass away, that people thought, hey, we’d better get some of this stuff written down while we still can.
And of course, in saying that, I want to note that the people who wrote it down did so under the inspiration of God. Yes, they were relying on memories, but they were divinely-inspired memories. You and I might be fuzzy on the details of something that happened thirty years ago. But God was involved in the process of writing these gospels, and that helps us know they are accurate.
But the point is that the end times will come at some point. We get a day closer to it every day. And of course, even if the end times are a long way off yet, our own personal end time is also coming. We get a day closer to that every day, too.
So, we need to be ready. How do we do that?
Well, the obvious answer is to have faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior. And that’s the correct answer. And it’s tempting to just leave it at that.
But I’m not going to leave it at that, for two reasons. One is that this would be a really short sermon if I did. But the more important reason is that Peter, in our reading for today, did not just leave it that. He agrees, of course, that we need to have faith in Jesus Christ. But he goes on to talk about what that means.
First, he says, be prepared to suffer. Well, that’s not something we want to hear, is it? But Peter says, look, the rest of the world is going to live for selfish desires–in fact, Peter calls them, “evil human desires”. He lists some of them: debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry. I doubt that Peter meant that as the complete list, but I think we get the point.
And Peter goes on to say that people who do those things–who live for selfish, human desires, are going to be surprised if you and I don’t. They’re not going to understand why we don’t. They’re going to feel a little bit guilty, when they see that you and I don’t. And so, they’re going to try to get us to join them in their way of life. And when we don’t, as Peter says, they will “heap abuse upon us.”
And I don’t want to move past that too quickly. The influence of the world is strong. Those things Peter listed–you see them everywhere. You see them on TV. You see them on the internet. Sometimes you see them in the lives of people you know. And we see an effort, right now, to make those things seem normal. All kinds of behaviors, all kinds of activities, that not many years ago would have been roundly criticized, are now being brought into the mainstream of society, and even celebrated. And if anyone does not celebrate them, they’re told they’re haters and bigots, and an effort is made to silence them.
The influence of the world is strong. Resisting it is not easy. But, as Peter said, we will all have to give an account to Christ, the one who is to judge the living and the dead. Not that we earn our way into heaven–no one could ever be good enough to do that. But our faith in Jesus Christ is shown by our actions. If we believe in Jesus Christ, our behavior should show that we are doing our best to live as Jesus told us to live. Not doing so perfectly–perfection is beyond us. But doing the best we can. And when we fail, asking for forgiveness and trying again.
But it’s not enough to just resist the influence of the world. What is it that we should positively do? Peter tells us that, too.
First, “be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray.” Think about that. Peter could’ve just said “pray”, but he did not. He said, “Be alert and of sober mind, so that you may pray.” We say that prayer is talking to God, and it is, but Peter reminds us that this is more than just casual conversation. If we want to really get something out of our prayers, we need to focus. We need to concentrate. It’s okay, sometimes, to say just a quick prayer to God. But if we really want to get closer to God, if we really want to feel God’s Holy Spirit with us, if we really want to live a life in which we do God’s will, we need to put some effort into our prayers. We need to think about the fact that we are talking to the almighty, all-powerful God. We need to go to Him with respect, as if our conversation with God was the most important conversation we will ever have. Because, in fact, it is.
Then Peter says, “love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” You see, it does not just matter what we do. It matters how and why we do it. There’s an echo here of what the Apostle Paul says in First Corinthians Thirteen: if we have the gift of prophecy and all knowledge, if we have faith that can move mountains, if we give all we have to the poor, but do not have love, we are nothing.
So that goes back to resisting the influence of the world, right? When we resist, we need to do so in a loving way. Any condemnation will be done by Jesus Christ–we don’t need to do that job for Him.
But, of course, love sometimes requires us to say things people don’t want to hear. Have you ever had someone do that for you? Someone who loved you enough to tell you that what you were doing was not right, was not acceptable, and that you needed to change? I have. I did not want to hear it at the time. I was not happy to hear it at the time. But as I look back on it now, I’m very fortunate that I had people in my life who loved me enough to tell me those things.
But again, they did it in a loving way. And that’s the key, It’s not easy to do that. But sometimes, it’s what love requires.
Peter goes on to say that whatever gifts we’ve been given, we should use them to serve others. Each one of us has been given gifts from God. There has never been anyone who has not been given gifts from God. We need to use those gifts to serve God.
And when we speak, we need to speak the words of God. That does not mean our every statement has to quote the Bible. But it does mean that our words should reflect God in some way. They should reflect God’s love. They should reflect God’s grace. That should reflect God’s mercy. And they should reflect God’s glory. We won’t do that perfectly, of course. No human being can. But that should be our goal.
Think about the words you say. Do they reflect God? I don’t know about you, but too often, mine do not. It’s something I need to work on. And I suspect I’m not the only one.
And all of these things–showing God’s love, using the gifts God has given us, speaking the words of God–need to be done for the glory of God. In other words, we need to stay humble. We need to realize that any of those things that we do–anything good we ever do–is not because of our own goodness. As Jesus said, no one is good but God alone. Any time we do any of these things, it’s because of God. And we need to give God the honor and glory, because God deserves it.
I don’t know if the end times will come sooner or later. I don’t know if they’ll come in my lifetime or thousands of years from now. But I know they will come. And I know that my personal end time will come, too. So will yours. So let’s listen to the words of Peter. Let’s resist the selfish, human desires of the world. And let’s get ready. Have faith in Jesus Christ, pray, show love, use our gifts, and speak the words of God. If we do, then we don’t need to be afraid of the end times. We will know that, when the time comes, by our faith and God’s grace, we will go to be with God in heaven.
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