Book of 1 Peter, Ch. 5, Vs. 1-14 - 01/23/2022

Last week, we had a really small crowd and I kind of anticipated that that would happen.

So I looked up a passage of Matthew 18, 20, and it says, for where two or three are gathered together in my name, there

I am in the midst of them. I just left that there because we had a lot of sickness and I thought we may have a small crowd again, but we've already exceeded our allotment, what, six times over?

So we're good. Today, we're going to probably finish all of 1

Peter chapter five. So I began with Matthew Henry, who gave us an outline of the fifth chapter of 1

Peter. And I'm just gonna read what he says. The apostle gives particular directions. First to the elders, how to behave themselves toward their flock.

And that's verses one through four. Then he switches to the younger, to the obedient, to be obedient and humble, and to cast their care upon God.

That's verses five through seven. Then he exhorts all to sobriety, watchfulness against temptation and steadfastness in the faith, praying earnestly for them.

And so concludes his epistle with a solemn doxology, mutual salutations and his apostolic benediction.

And those are verses eight through 14. And I think we will get through all of these reasonably easy today.

We'll take much longer on verse one than probably all the rest of them together.

So let's just read verse one again. And it says, the elders, which are among you,

I exhort, who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed.

Now, the first word to consider is elder. Elder simply means the maturity and wisdom that an older person should have, making him qualified for leadership.

In application, it's more about wisdom than it is about immaturity, than it is about a specific age.

So keep that in mind as we go forward. When Paul is talking about elders, he's not talking about old guys like me.

He may be, I may be an elder, or I may be a younger.

I may be early in my Christian life, or I may be late. My chronological age doesn't really matter.

It's my spiritual age that does, my maturity, my wisdom, and it does.

And we have in our audience a young man that is young in chronological years, but old with respect to wisdom.

And that's my cohort of men who skipped out on me last week. And there's one thing that I knew for sure when you weren't here, that you had a good reason not to be here.

And so I wasn't worried about it. And I told Katie the exact same thing last time that I'm telling you today, that I am very impressed with you and also with young Huber, Huber the

Younger. Both of you are wise, I think, beyond your age. Now, the elder

Huber and myself, maybe we're wise according to our age, who knows? But the elder is not about how old you are.

It is about how spiritually mature you are. Now, Spurgeon says it this way.

It will always be our wisdom, dear friends, to put ourselves as much as we can into the position of those whom we address.

It is a pity for anyone ever to seem to preach down to people. It is always better to be as nearly possible on the same level as they are.

So if your job is to teach or to preach, you need to put yourself on the level of those that you're preaching and teaching to as much as you can.

And part of that wisdom is humility. In my words,

I've said, don't be too full of yourself. That's a tendency that I have, to think too highly of myself.

And as I was looking for a passage that I had from a memory that I had, not a passage, a memory that I had from one of the

Shepherd Conferences, Dr. Montoya made a comment about putting your cookies on the bottom shelf.

And I was searching that and I found an article by a man by the name of Eric Raymond, who turns out to be a

Baptist preacher in metropolitan Boston of all places. And he wrote a blog and the blog is a much better illustration of putting your cookies on the bottom shelf than I could possibly do.

And I hope I saved that and don't have to go back and find it again. This is a blog written by Eric Raymond, a pastor at a

Baptist church in metropolitan Boston. And here's how he begins.

I'm just gonna read it because it's much better than I can, but don't form a judgment too quick of Eric. If you're a parent of a younger child, then you make decisions every day about what they're exposed to.

The concern is of course over influence. We know that certain things, movies, music, video games, friends, et cetera, are impactful.

These outlets can shape the way they see and experience the world.

Therefore, we are intentionally selective about what they see. Pastors, and I added teachers, do a similar thing in their preaching or teaching.

They look at the culture and the content of the church and decide what is best in terms of exposure.

They set the preaching schedule, cadence, and style off of it.

And as a result, one of the first things that get shifted is the depth of the sermon.

The pastor, with good motives, I'll assume, keeps the content at a relatively surface level for his people to be able to keep up and tune in.

Then he adds, while I believe this is helpful in parenting, I believe it's counterproductive in preaching.

If the goal is for people to side, I'm sorry, to see and savor the glory of Christ, then preachers must go deep with their sermons.

God opens eyes to see the glorious beauty, regality, and power of Christ in the gospel.

The same Jesus and his saving work are on every page of the Bible. In fact, there's a reference to Luke, Luke 24, and this is on the disciples, two of the disciples are on the road to Emmaus, and Jesus overtakes them and they don't recognize him.

And they walk down the street, walking and talking, and Jesus begins teaching them.

And he teaches them all about himself out of the

Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the

Old Testament, that's what this guy's saying, the Old Testament is stark full of descriptions of Christ.

In fact, the entire Bible is nothing but a description of Christ, if you look at it carefully enough.

And so I agree with that. The same Jesus and his saving work are on every page of the

Bible. It is this Bible, the word that we're to preach.

A robust and weighty vision of Christ must make up our sermons.

If we're not preaching the wonderful deep beauty of Christ in the gospel, then we're not helping our people, regardless of any assertion of pure motives.

The truth is this, shallow preaching does not deliver the package. It will not bring the sight, the savoring that is required.

As Christians, the whole realm of our spiritual experience is mediated through the

Holy Spirit as he drives the word of God more and more deeply into our souls. And the more deeply we dive, the more we see and the more we savor.

And a comment that I'd like to make at this point, normally, if we're hungry and we eat, that satisfies us.

And we don't wanna eat anymore. But with the scripture, it's different. With scripture, spiritual hunger, the more you feed it, the hungrier you get.

If you start reading the scripture, you start studying it. The more you study it, the more you receive it, the more you envelop yourself in it, the more you want more of it.

So it works backward to the way the body does. Lots of spiritual truths are like that.

The more deeply we dive, the more we see and savor. He goes on to say, as a point of clarification, deep does not mean inaccessible.

To endeavor to take people deep into the word of God is not a mission of deception.

We're not working to give people theological whiplash or spiritual altitude sickness by flying too high and too fast.

The whole goal of the preacher is to make things clear. If we're preaching rich and deep theological truth, but struggle to communicate, then we are not serving our hearers any better than those who preach shallow sermons.

The preacher must take complex, even infinite concepts and make them understandable.

I'm gonna read that again, because I really butchered it. The preacher must take complex and even infinite concepts and make them understandable.

I remember hearing D .A. Carson talk about how he does not put all of his cookies on the bottom shelf.

That's where this all came from. All his cookies on the bottom shelf when preaching. Carson quickly added, but don't put them all on the top shelf either.

Instead, Carson advocated for challenging the most mature and the least mature hearer in his congregation every week.

And the only way to do this, he added, is to a robust but accessible gospel -centered theological exposition.

And what is the essential characteristic that a good preacher must have?

He must have the ability to take complex topics and make them clear and understandable.

And I think we're gifted in this church by having a pastor that is able to do that.

And take hard, difficult concepts and bring them down to the level that even

I can understand them. And I am just so thankful that I am at a church where we've got that kind of pastor.

He finishes his blog by saying, like the parent who loves their children and cares about their flourishing, the preacher must work hard to bring a steady diet of clear doctrinal exposition to his people.

If he does this, his people will grow. If not, then they will not.

And it's that simple. Okay, I would like to take just a second or so and invite comments if you'd like to make any.

Anybody got anything they want to say? If not, we're gonna go on.

And please be willing to join in and give me your thoughts.

If the mics won't pick them up, I'll repeat whatever it is that you said. I think I probably have to do that one.

The elders which are among you, we've talked about elders already. I exhort, who am also an elder.

Well, how was Peter qualified to speak? Because he was an elder. He was a fellow elder.

Now, if I were to ask you to name an apostle or disciple,

I guess I've poisoned the water, haven't I? What's the first name that pops to mind?

First name, first disciple, Peter. If I hadn't said anything about coming here this morning, first thing

I'd have said is, who can tell me who they think the premier disciple is?

Everybody would say Peter. I mean, there's not a question about that, I don't think. He was clearly the most prominent disciple.

Well, that's what some people say. Is Peter the rock upon which he's building the church?

He's a little tiny rock. He didn't start building his church on that little tiny rock. It'd be a little tiny church.

Over nearby were big rocks. And Jesus said to Peter, you're

Peter, you're a little bitty rock. See that big rock over there? On that big rock, I'm gonna build my church. So contrary to a lot of people, and I know

I'm not quibbling with you because I know exactly what you mean. Peter didn't claim any special privilege or position.

Christians over the course of years, some of them have given him special consideration, special privilege.

He's not the Pope of the first church. He's not the first Pope. He's not any

Pope. He didn't view himself as that. How did he view himself? As an elder among the other elders, and not just the 11, and not just the 12 counting

Paul. All of the church leaders, he considered himself a leader.

No, an elder, one of the church leaders, not the church leader.

Now, in this verse, he also says, and a witness of the suffering of Christ.

Well, we know he witnessed Christ suffer. Did he witness him actually dying on the cross?

Was he there at the crucifixion? Crucifixion, well, we don't know. He probably was, but if he was there, he wasn't there shouting out that he was a disciple.

We know that because a little bit earlier when they were trying Jesus, he was denying that he even knew him.

So if he was watching the actual execution, he was doing it quietly and in the background.

But he likely did witness the sufferings of Jesus on the cross.

And the remembrance of that would make his exhortation to his fellow elders, those did not see it themselves, all the more powerful.

It would be like he said, you are leaders of the people for whom Jesus Christ died and suffered.

I saw him suffer. I saw him die. And I saw him raised from the dead.

Now, Spurgeon adds this, yet we consider that many saw

Jesus suffer and it did not affect them the way it affected

Peter and the others who saw with faith. There were thousands who were eyewitnesses of the

Lord's suffering. Nevertheless, saw not the true meaning of them.

They saw the great sufferer be smeared with his own blood, but into his wounds, they never looked by faith.

Thousands saw the Savior die, but simply went their way back to Jerusalem, some of them beating on their breast.

Now, beating on the breast was a form of warning. Beating on the breast, but none of them believing in him or really knowing the secret of that wondrous death.

So we finished verse one. And in verse one, we saw Peter exhort the other elders to do something.

So what does he exhort them to do? Verse two, feed the flock of God, which is among you, taking oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind.

So what does he say to do? Feed the flock. That's the first aspect of leadership.

Paul, Peter, you see, seem to remember Jesus' three -part commission to him in John 21, verses 15 through 17.

Jesus told Peter to show his love for Jesus by feeding Jesus' sheep.

Now, before I read this, and I'm gonna read it twice, I'm gonna read it one time using the word that the translators in the

King James Version used. And then I'm gonna read it the second time. And in place of that word,

I'm gonna put the Greek word that was translated to be the word that they wrote. You understand what

I'm saying? I'm gonna read it one time, just like it is in the King James Version. I'm gonna read it again with a substitution.

So here we go. John 21, verse 15. And read along with me, if you will.

And it would be nice if you would underline, if you've got a Bible, it's a paper

Bible, the word or highlight or something when we get to it.

So when they had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?

And he said unto him, yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He said unto him, feed my lambs.

Verse 16, he said to him again, the second time, Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou me?

And he said unto him, yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. And he said unto him, feed my sheep.

Verse 17, he said unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?

Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, lovest thou me?

And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee.

And Jesus said unto him, feed my sheep. Now, just a bit.

I read that and I read that many, many times and I could only see one difference.

That, I mean, he said lamb, he said sheep, he said sheep. And Peter kept saying the same thing and he kept asking the same question three times.

And I said, okay, maybe you're just doing it three times for stress. Sometimes in Jewish writings, if they said it once, they meant it.

And if they said it twice, they double meant it. And if they said it three times, they really, really meant it. So I thought that's all it was.

And then I stumbled across something written by Chuck Missler. Well, he just does what

Brother David does all the time. He did a interlinear study and he looked up all the

Greek words. And to save you the time, I'm going to read them to you again, but this time

I'm going to read the Greek word. Now, there are three

Greek words that could be used for the word love. One is agapeo, that's love like God has for men.

There's phileo, that's friendship. That's kind of love that a man might have for his brother.

That's why Philadelphia is called the city of brotherly love. Although you won't find that too much in Philadelphia anymore.

And then there's a third kind of love, eros. And that's the love of a man for his wife or a man just for any other woman as far as that goes.

It's erotic love. And so there's three kinds of love, eros, phileo, and agapeo.

Now, here we go. And I'm going to substitute the words that you saw. Every word that appeared all seven times was love, lovest, lovest, love, lovest, lovest, love.

All right? Now, again, so when they had dined,

Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, agapeo thou me more than these.

That's Jesus talking to Peter. And he said it to him, yea

Lord, thou knowest that I phileo thee. Jesus had godly love for Peter.

Peter says, I'm your friend. He said it to him, feed my lambs.

Then he said to him a second time, Simon, son of Jonas, agapeo thou me.

And he said it to him, yea Lord, thou knowest that I phileo thee.

Godly love, friendship. And he said to him, feed my sheep.

Then he said to him the third time, Simon, son of Jonah, phileo thou me.

And Peter was grieved because he said it to him the third time, phileo thou me.

And he said it to him, Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I phileo that to thee.

And Jesus said it to him, feed my sheep. You see the difference? Godly love,

Jesus, godly love to Peter. Peter, friendliness to God.

Godly love, friendliness. Friendliness, and that's what made

Peter upset. That's why Peter was grieved. Jesus changed his word.

Do you think Jesus suddenly decided that he was not going to love

Peter with godly love anymore? That he was only gonna be a friend to Peter? No, that's not what was on his mind.

What was on his mind was he wanted Peter to understand that there was a difference.

There was a kind of love that he could have to Peter that Peter at this point could not yet have to Jesus.

Now, there's another great passage in the New Testament dealing with love. And I was going to do it as well, but since I spent so much time fiddling with my computer,

I'm not going to. But it's, if I were to, anybody know the topic of 1

Corinthians 13? That's like the, I can't think of, it's the love chapter.

It's the love that says love is better than all the, love is better than prophecy. Love is better than preaching.

Love is better than faith that will move mountains. Of all the gifts that God has, love is the best gift. I'll just tell you the long and the short of it.

In that passage, every word that is translated love, the King James Version is translated in other places.

I'm sorry, it's translated charity in the King James Version. Most other versions is love, but it's the same word.

And every one of those words is agapeo. Every one of those in the

Corinthians section is godly love. And it's godly love that's superior, not friendship.

Okay. Verse four.

And when the chief shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.

Peter is reminding the shepherds, the leaders of the church, the elders, that they would one day answer to the chief shepherd.

Who's the chief shepherd? Jesus. And the chief shepherd will want to know what they did with his flock.

So there'll come a time when Brother David, who had been given the job of the shepherd of this church, will have to answer to Jesus.

And the question that Jesus is gonna ask David is, what did you do with my flock?

Not your flock. It's not Brother David's flock. It's Jesus' flock.

And that's something that every teacher and every preacher needs to keep in mind. What did you do?

You're in a position of leadership. You're in a position of tending and feeding my flock.

What did you do? Did you protect them? Did you feed them? Did you, as a preacher, give them spiritual food or did you give them cotton candy?

What did you do with my flock? So you held a higher standard.

If you're an elder, you're held to a higher standard. Now Peter's getting ready to change focus.

He's changing his focus from the elders to the youngsters. And remember what we said in the beginning.

Elder has nothing to do with chronological age, has everything to do with wisdom and maturity.

And now he's talking about the ones that are younger. Not that they won't be, not that they won't grow.

They won't stay young forever. Hopefully, if the elders do their job and the youngsters do their job, they won't stay young forever, but they'll grow and become elder.

Likewise, the younger, submit yourselves to the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble.

Now Peter's quoting Proverbs 3 .34 here to show that humility is essential to our relationship with God.

If we want to live in God's grace, grace is unmerited favor, then we must lay aside our pride and be humble, not only to him, but to one another.

Proverbs 3 .34 said, surely he scorneth the scorner, but he giveth grace to the lowly.

Pride and grace. Pride and grace are eternal enemies.

Pride demands that God bless me in light of what I think I deserve.

God, I'm doing a good job. I'm doing the best I can. I don't deserve to have this happen to me.

That's pride talking. Grace deals with me on the basis of what is in God, not on the basis of anything in me.

Everything from God, nothing from me. Spurgeon says this, if you're willing to be nothing,

God will make something of you. The way to the top of the ladder is to begin at the lowest ground.

In fact, in the church of God, the way up is to go down. But he that is ambitious to be at the top will find him before long at the bottom.

Verse six, humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time.

Now, not everybody is at the same place at the same time. If you've been placed in a place that you think is beneath you, in a humble place at the present time, just submit to God's plan.

He knows the due time to exalt you better than you do. But we often think we know that time better than God does.

We sometimes think we're ready. When God says no, you need to prepare a little more.

When Paul saw the light on the road to Damascus, he may have thought I'm ready. After all, he had prepared for years and years.

So what did Jesus do? What did God do? God sent him to the wilderness for three years to prepare more.

He thought he was ready, but God said, no, you got three more years to prepare. God knows the time better than you do.

Verse seven, casting all your cares upon him for he careth for you.

The cares that you have are like a big backpack that you're carrying around.

And if you're going to do some heavy lifting, probably it's a good idea to lay the backpack down first.

Don't keep your cares and try to take on the extra.

Spurgeon used this illustration of a man who came to move your furniture, but he carried a heavy, huge backpack of his own.

He complains that he finds it difficult to do the job of moving your furniture. Would you not suggest that he would find it easier if he lay his own burden aside?

So that he can carry yours? In the same way, we cannot do

God's work when we're weighed down by our own burdens and worries. Cast them upon him and then take up the

Lord's burden. And the Lord's burden is light. The yoke is easy.

So he's now talked to the elders. He's now talked to the youngsters.

And now he's getting ready to refocus again. And this time, everybody. Verse eight.

Elders, youngsters alike, be sober, be diligent.

For your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour.

Now, Peter exhorts us to remain clear headed. That is, sober and watchful, diligent.

Because Satan has not yet been bound and restrained for a thousand years.

So what's Satan doing right now? He's down on the earth, walking around, seeking whom he may devour.

He will be at some point in time, bound for a thousand years, but that time is not yet.

The devil certainly walks around. He's a finite being and can only be at one place at a time.

So he has to be over here and over there and over here, but he's not alone. He's got his host of demonic angels along with him.

Those that are not currently bound. And there'll come a time before they're all bound again.

There'll come a time when they're all loosed. And I'm not totally convinced that that's not very close or not already happened.

Seems like devilish influences are everywhere. But his effort and his energy and his associates enable him to extend his influence all over the world and in every arena of life.

And Spurgeon adds this, we note Satan's goal, seeking whom he may devour.

He isn't just looking to lick or nibble on his prey. He wants to devour.

He can never be content until he sees the believer utterly devoured. He would rend him to pieces and break his bones and utterly destroy him if he could.

Do not therefore indulge the thought that the main purpose of Satan is to make you miserable.

He's pleased with that, but that's not his ultimate end.

Sometimes he may even make you think you're happy.

Or he hath dainty poisons, sweet to the taste, which he administers to God's people.

He feels that our destruction, if he feels our destruction can be more readily achieved by sweets than by bitters, he certainly would prefer that, which would best affect his end.

Now back to Peter chapter five, verse nine, whom steadfastly resist in the faith, knowing the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.

I'm just gonna continue reading from Spurgeon. Resist, be more prayerful.

Every time he is more active, be more prayerful. If you feel Satan infringing upon you, be more prayerful.

He will soon give it up. If he finds that his attacks drive you to Christ.

You see, when he attacks you, one of two things will happen. You'll move away from Christ or you'll move toward Christ.

If you want him to quit attacking you, move toward Christ. He'll eventually give up.

Often has Satan been nothing but a big black dog to drive

Christ's sheep near to the master. Okay, and now we are getting close to the end.

Ooh, I'm getting close to past my time too, aren't I? I'm just gonna read this. But the

God of all grace, who hath called us into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

Hath called, already called, are partakers to be partakers of that eternal glory.

But the God of all grace, who hath called us into eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

Matthew Henry says, observe what he prays for. Not that they might be excused from suffering, but that their suffering might be moderate and short.

And that after they had suffered a while, that God would restore them to a settled and peaceable condition and perfect his work in them.

And that he would establish them against wavering either in faith or duty, that he would strengthen those who are weak and settle them upon Christ, the foundation, the big rock.

So firmly that their union with him might be indissolvable and everlasting.

And then verse 11, to him be the glory, dominion forever and ever.

To whom? To Christ. Not to Peter, not to the other of the church, not to Mary, to whom?

To Jesus. By Silvanus, that's Silas, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose,

I have written briefly exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein you stand.

Verse 13, the church that is in Babylon elected together with you, salutes you, and so does

Marcus, my son. This may be the literal city

Babylon on the Euphrates, which still existed in Peter's day. There was also a place known as Babylon in Egypt.

It was a military fortress near the present city of Cairo. Yet many, and that would include me, think that Peter meant

Babylon in the symbolic sense to represent the city of Rome. As a biblical concept,

Babylon as the city of the world stands in contrast to Jerusalem as the city of God.

If you were to say that today, you might say New York City, Wall Street, or something else.

And finally, greet one another with a kiss of charity.

Peace with you all that are in Jesus Christ. Peter concludes with a command to greet and display

God's love to one another by pronouncing a blessing of peace. These two things, love for one another and peace, are especially necessary for all those who suffer and die and live in dangerous times.

Most gracious, heavenly father, we thank you for bringing us together again this morning. Bless us and keep us and go through all the services today.