Welcome to Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. We're glad you've joined us for today's program. Here at Connect with Skip, we love helping you understand God's Word and apply it to your life through clear, practical Bible teaching and real encouragement. And if you'd like help to keep growing in your walk with Jesus, sign up for Pastor Skip's free weekly devotional. You'll receive biblical insight, teaching highlights, and exclusive resources designed to help you stay strong in your faith.
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Have you ever dreamed of visiting Israel? Leni and I want to invite you to join us for a life-changing journey through the land of the Bible in April of 2027. You can walk where Jesus walked. You can worship on the Sea of Galilee. You can celebrate baptisms at the Jordan River, and we're going to share communion at the empty tomb.
You'll also have the option to attend. The Epicenter Summit in Jerusalem, where I'll be speaking alongside of Joel Rosenberg, Greg Laurie, and Graham Lotts, Jack Graham, and more.
So, join us April fifth through April sixteenth. You can learn more today at ConnectWithSkip dot com slash Israel.
Now, let's dive into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Tomorrow, tomorrow is what comes after today. Although we have no guarantee that it will actually come at all, but we have a hunch that it will. We think that it will just keep coming, and that is because of a simple fact: today used to be yesterday's tomorrow, and it came. And because those days just sort of keep piling up and keep on coming, that's why we often say, "I'll do it tomorrow." I can't finish it today, so I'll do it tomorrow.
So we bank on the idea that we're just going to have more and more and more tomorrows. But you also know that tomorrow is a very elusive idea. That the more tomorrows we get under our belt, the shorter they look. They become shorter incrementally each day. When you're young, you think you have oodles of tomorrows.
They just never end. I mean, think of it. If you're if you're two days old, tomorrow is half your life. But the older you get. Days seem to be shorter.
I remember when I was a little kid in school, and I had a teacher named Miss Feiner. She was a beautiful gal, and I just thought she was awesome. Until she announced to our class her age. She said, "It's my birthday, and I'm 25 years old." And I remember thinking, "Goodness, 25—that's old. She doesn't have many tomorrows left." Because I, on the other hand, was thinking I have an infinite number of tomorrows left.
Then there were my parents, and you know they—they were just so so old to me. I thought they—they can't have many tomorrows left at all. They've used most of them up. It's like the little boy who said to his grandpa, "Grandpa, were you on the ark?" Grandpa said, "Of course, I wasn't on the ark." The little boy still couldn't get it, so he said, "So, so then why didn't you drown?" He just thought, "You're at least that old. How did you survive the flood?" Truth is, one day we will have no more tomorrows at all left.
There will be none.
Some of us may not actually make it through tomorrow. That's one of the facts of life. Like the patient who went back to see his doctor after a series of tests, and the doctor said, "Well, the tests came back, and I've got good news and I've got bad news. The good news, actually, is you have 24 hours left to live." And the patient said, "How could that be good news? What could be worse than that?" The doctor said, "The bad news is I was supposed to tell you yesterday that you had 24 hours left to live." So here is my question: How would you live if you had no tomorrow?
If no more tomorrows were guaranteed, you what things would change? How would you live in the light of that? With that as an introduction, we go to one Peter chapter four, beginning in verse seven. But the end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers, and above all things, have fervent love for one another.
For love will cover a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified, through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion for ever and ever, Amen.
Now there's a problem with Peter's statement, in terms of our reading it, and that's the first statement he makes in that paragraph. Says the the end of all things is at hand. The reason I say that's a problem is that he wrote that two thousand years ago.
So we read this document two thousand years after he said the end of all things is at hand with a big question mark. Because certainly, as we read the New Testament, John the Apostle, Paul the Apostle. Peter, all in their writings, talked about the end, the consummation of all things, and they taught in the imminent return of Christ that He can come at any moment, and they believe that. But here he says, "The end of all things is at hand." When the New Testament closes, Revelation, one of the last words of Jesus is this: "Yes." I am coming soon.
So we read that, and we ask, so how soon is soon? And I'm actually helped by a book by C.S. Lewis called *Voyage of the Don Treader* in the Chronicles of Narnia series, where there's a conversation between Lucy, one of the humans in the story, having a conversation with Aslan, that Christ figure, the lion. And they're parting company, and Aslin says to Lucy, "Lucy, don't look so sad. We will meet soon again." And she says, "Please, Aslin, what do you mean by 'soon'?" And Aslin replied by saying, "I call all times." Soon, here's what I want you to know, and then we'll get into this.
The last days is technically a phrase in the New Testament that refers to the time between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ. That of all of human history, that is the last part of human history between the first and second coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
So. We are living in the last days, but we must be living in the last part of the last days, because of all of the predictions made that have been fulfilled in our lifetime.
So let's just put that aside, because we should be living, and every generation should be living in the anticipation and expectation that the Lord could come back.
So here's a question: Whether you have one tomorrow left or thousands of tomorrows left, how should you live? How should you live?
Well, there's three things that Peter says because the end is near. Three things: pray harder, love deeper, and serve smarter. Those are the three areas we examined this morning: pray harder, love deeper, serve smarter. Let's look at the first one in verse seven. But the end of all things is at hand.
Just for another clarification, it means near. You didn't say the end of all things is here. It's near. It's moving. God's consummation toward the end is.
At hand, therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers. Stop for a moment, right there. Be serious and be watchful in your prayers.
Now, does that sound familiar to you? Think of Peter. Think of the last time Jesus said those words to Peter. They were in the Garden of Gethsemane, right? Remember when when the Lord brought Peter, James, and John into the Garden of Gethsemane, and He said something to the effect of, "My my soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to the point of death.
Watch with me." So Jesus goes away, prays, comes back, and He finds them. What are they watching? Yeah, they're they're watching the inside of their eyelids. Is what they're doing. They're sawing logs, and and so the Lord Jesus said to them, "What?
Couldn't you watch with me one hour?" And his final exhortation: Watch and pray. Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation.
So here is Peter, sort of resurrecting that idea when he writes these words: "The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers." How do you live like there's no tomorrow? Pray harder. Pray harder. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig, Weekend Edition.
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Now. Here's more from Pastor Skip.
Now I've noticed something. Whenever a sermon is discussing prayer, people get a little bit nervous. We're not particularly fond of sermons messages about prayer. You want to know why that is? Because we don't do it much.
That's just the honest truth. Prayer isn't huge on our priority list. And so, whenever somebody talks about it or we read a book on it, we fidget a little bit. One source said the average Christian prays 45 seconds a day, and that's usually over a meal. Another source, unrelated to the first, says the average conservative Christian, in a total year, the total time spent in a year praying, six hours.
Now, the same source. Goes on to describe other activities, hobbies, and shopping mall expeditions in a year ninety hours, sporting activities one hundred hours, vacationing one hundred and twenty hours, prayer six hours. I'm not here to heap guilt on you. You're going. Didn't work.
So let me be honest with you. I'm here to confess my own inadequacy in this area. See, I have a problem in my Christian life. Me, and it's the loss of passion over time. The loss of passion over time.
It's like spiritual entropy. It happens. I can think back to my early Christian walk when. I discovered prayer, and it dawned on me: I am in conversation with the Creator of everything. He is listening to my words.
Moreover, he's very interested in what I have to say, and he wants to help me. And I remember that dawning on me, and it made such an impact on me. That I would go camping. I was single. I would go camping two, three days, and I'd fast and pray, and it was some of the most exhilarating times of my life.
But as time went on, as tomorrows kept coming, I just found that passion sort of leaking out. It wasn't what it used to be anymore. Prayer becomes professional and contained. What Peter seems to be saying, if I'm reading it accurately, is that as your tomorrows become fewer, your prayers—you should pray harder. As time takes its toll, as time casts its shadow on the path of your life, what will sustain you more than anything else is a solid prayer life.
The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers.
Now, back to my own experience. The reason all of that happened to me and happens to me—it happens to me all the time. It's part of the life of a believer that we deal with. Can be summed up by what Jesus said to the Church of Ephesus in Revelation chapter two. He said, "I know your works.
I know your patience. I know all the stuff you do. You're very active. You're very busy. But I have something against you.
I don't like it when Jesus says that. I've got something against you. What is it? You have left your first love. You've left your first love." One translation, the New Living says, "You don't love me like you did at first." There's been a cooling of passion.
There's been a waning of commitment. At first, it was really good, but you don't love me as like you did at first. You have left your first love. By the way, don't misquote that. I hear some people say Jesus said, "You have lost your first love." You don't lose it.
You leave it. You walk away from it. You make conscious choices not to need him as much as you did, and that has been my problem. You've left your first love.
Now, isn't it interesting when when Jesus writes to them, he says, "You do a lot of things right. I know your works. I know your labor. I know your patience. I know your discernment." So you're busy, you're active, you're going through the motions of devotions, but there's an erosion of devotion deep inside here.
Now, what happens in our relationship with the Lord? Here's something you can relate to more easily. It happens in every relationship in life. It happens in marriage. Anybody who's been a counselor knows what it's like to have somebody sit on the other side of the desk and say something like, "We just don't love each other anymore," and especially if you know the couple and you've watched their journey, you look at them and you wonder what happened.
What happened to that young girl whose heart skipped a beat whenever she heard his voice? What happened to that young man who would drive across town just to deliver a bouquet of flowers? What happened to that couple who used to talk together about everything so much? You know, one of the things about a dating relationship is the couple—they just talk forever about everything. Two in the morning, they're talking.
What are you talking about? The carpet?
Now, I smile a little bit at that because, according to James Dobson, he says go into a restaurant and watch couples. And you can tell in the restaurant who's married and who's not. He said, "I'll guarantee you this: the married ones are not talking much. The married ones aren't talking much. The ones dating—they're looking at each other's eyes.
They're talking back and forth, back and forth.
So anyone in any relationship can leave their first love, leaving your first love." Is not a blowout. It's a it's a gradual leak over time.
So pray harder as your days get fewer. Pray harder. That's the first one. Second one. Second way to live like there's no tomorrow.
Love deeper. Love deeper. Watch this, verse eight, and above all things, preeminently. More than anything else, have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another, without grumbling.
Wouldn't you agree that love is the identification mark of the Christian? It's our birthmark. It identifies that you belong to Christ. That's what Jesus said. They'll know you're my disciples because you love each other.
But look at the word fervent. Have fervent love.
Some translations just say love deeply.
So I've just said love deeper, deeper love, fervent love. The word fervent literally means strenuously, strenuously. It's a word that in ancient times described a horse at full gallop. That horse was stretching and straining its muscles. That's the word for fervent.
It also described an athlete who would stretch or strain his or her muscles to win the race, give it all that he has or she has.
So now let me retranslate it: When you love people, give it all you've got. When you love people, hold nothing back in your love for them. Love people like you're trying to win the love Olympics. When you love people, do your love like you're trying to win a gold medal in loveology. That's loving fervently, strenuously.
Now you'll notice in our text, there's two aspects of this love that Peter talks about. First is the love that covers. Then there's the love that recovers. There's covering love and recovering love. Covering love is in verse eight.
Above all things, have fervent love for one another.
Now, watch that he's quoting a text. For love will cover a multitude of sins. He's quoting Proverbs ten, which says, "Hatred stirs up strife, but love will cover all sins." When somebody wrongs you. And right now, you're thinking of somebody, perhaps who has. When somebody wrongs you, you have, you have two choices that you can make.
Number one, you can cover it up and forgive, or number two, you can expose what that person has done. This kind of love will not air dirty laundry. This kind of love does not want to expose weaknesses or cause humiliation. This kind of love seeks to handle things privately, discreetly, before it ever goes public. And there is a time to go public.
Jesus said in Matthew 18, "You go to that person one on one, and you tell that person his sin or her sin privately." If they don't listen, you bring somebody else with you, just another person. If you don't listen to that person, then you widen the circle. There's a time to go public, but this kind of love is protective. It stretches itself out in order to cover. I know some people that take pride in uncovering, not covering.
Or they feel so. Righteous that they're the whistle blower, they're uncovering sin. I'm the gospel Gestapo. It's my calling in life. I'm the great sin sniffer, and I smell it around here.
And I'm going to find it eventually. You know the type. This is covering love seeks to cover. The second type of love is recovering love. Verse nine: Be hospitable, hospitality.
Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. Hospitality is a New Testament word that literally means loving the stranger. Hospital comes from that. Or you'd set up a system to treat people you may or may not know them, but you're hospitable to them. Means to love the stranger.
Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. Before we go, remember that your generosity helps share clear verse by verse Bible teaching with people everywhere, helping them know God more deeply and live out His truth. And this month, when you give fifty dollars or more, we'll send you Pastor Skip's brand new devotional, Soaring Above It All, as our thanks. This one-year journey through the Bible will help you see how Scripture fits together, understand its key people, events, and themes, and grow deeper in God's Word each day. Give today at connectwithSkip dot com slash offer or call eight hundred nine two two eighteen eighty eight.
We'll see you next time for more verse by verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. Make a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
