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I'd like to continue to speak to you about being clothed with humility, clothed with humility. Clothed yourselves with humility, the text says. What I'd like to do is just, our two main verses this morning is verse 6 and 7.
And I'd like to read to the very end, to verse 11, to give us the context of the overall theme of which Peter is aiming at by the Holy Spirit. Hear the word of God. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.
After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be dominion forever and ever.
Amen. I'd like to draw your attention this morning on verse 6 and 7. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Please bow with me in prayer as we look to our Lord to meet with us. Father, this is your word. There's nothing like it. You've exalted it even above your name. That is beyond us. Lord, we praise you and we thank you that this word is in our own language this morning.
It's come to us in a sea of blood. And by this word, you sanctify us. There's nothing else, no other means in which we can have sanctification unless the word of God cleanses us. It is the truth of all truths.
It is the truth in which sanctifies our hearts and our souls. So, Father, sanctify us wholly this morning by your grace and change us for your glory. May not a one of us leave here the same way we came.
May we all be changed from glory to glory that would be more like Jesus. Help us this morning, we pray, by your blessed spirit because he's the one that shows us Christ. He exalts Christ. Lord, hide myself behind the cross.
May I just be an instrument and a voice for you. May you be exalted above all. In Jesus' name, amen. This morning, we're continuing our study of 1 Peter chapter 5 to ensure we don't forget the theme of the book of 1 Peter and what the primary context of the book of 1 Peter really is.
We need to remember that it is the living hope that the church has in Jesus Christ. It is centered in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And even in the midst of suffering and persecution, there are three primary themes that we see that moves back and forth between this letter to the scattered churches in Asia Minor.
And speaking about the S's, here they are. So easy for us to remember. But it consists of everything that God has for us in salvation. And actually, that's the first thing. It is salvation. Salvation that only can be received by grace, through faith, in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
That is the center of the gospel. That's the heart of the gospel. The salvation that only can be received by grace, through faith, in the person and works of Jesus Christ. The second thing that we see that goes back and forth is the hope that we have in Him, even in the midst of suffering.
We have suffering. And the third is the sanctification that we see that's in the believer, for the believer, as they prepare for glory. Beloved, this is foundational. This is the theme that we have seen all the way through this epistle.
Salvation, suffering, sanctification. We need to remember, as He has gone back and forth, to remind us that this is what He is primarily aiming at. For the suffering believers to focus on the salvation that is revealed in Jesus Christ and also to prepare them for glory as they suffer.
It is sanctification. So we've got a lot to say today about sanctification and suffering. So Peter gives here, to the persecuted suffering church, in this letter, these themes. Now we are looking at two of these verses, which addresses the last two themes in which I mentioned.
Sanctification in verse 6 and suffering in verse 7. Sanctification in verse 6 and suffering in verse 7. Now last time, as we spoke about this, we looked at verse 5, which says, you younger men, likewise be subject, it means submissive.
That's a place of humility. To your elders, we need to remember, that's a plurality of elders in the churches, and all of you, He says, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. For God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Now we see in this text, in these two verses, there are two commands that stand out. They are two imperatives. Now when God commands something, He means it, doesn't He? The first command is the imperative, humble yourselves.
Humble yourselves. We are going to focus on that this morning. In verse 7, He says, casting all your anxiety on Him. Some translation says, your cares, but it means anxiety. So the casting is to humble, first of all, to humble and casting.
And He's going to tell us, in application, how we can do that. It's by casting all of our care, our anxiety, on God, because He cares for us. Now that's a wonderful, wonderful truth. So that's what we're going to focus on this morning.
And we see in this text, the command here, that is given to us. And as we looked at, if you notice in verse 5, clothe yourselves with humility. Now, and before He says, clothe yourselves with humility, He says, be subject to your elders.
Submission, humility. Hand and glove. You cannot separate them two truths. They always go together, because when we are submissive to God, we're actually humbling ourselves before God. And we're going to see this in our text this morning.
So to be subject or submissive to the elders, in which He says, for the rest of us to show humility toward one another. Submission and humility. Those twin truths cannot be separated. So, now let me say this.
You would think that that would be plenty of ground for the Apostle to give us to cover for the church to walk in humility. But let me tell you this. The Apostle doesn't stop there. He gives us plenty more.
He continues with this important theme of humility in verse 6 and 7. So He provides in these two verses, an exhortation to humility, and an encouragement to walk in humility. There's the command to be humble, and then He tells it, isn't this wonderful about God?
Then in that command, He commands it, but He says, almost, okay, I'm going to give you the command, I'm going to show you how you can humble yourselves before Me. And God does. So by God's help and grace, we're going to break these two verses into two main points this morning.
Mainly, what I mentioned, sanctification and suffering. But there's much more to be said. Addressing much of the larger theme, the sanctification is really the larger theme. Because that's the purpose of suffering.
It is to sanctify us.
To sanctify us wholly, through and through. You know, that's holiness. That's what God wants us to be. And He will humble us in that sense, and do everything He can in His love to bring us down to be more like Jesus.
Now, by explaining how we are to humble ourselves before God, we see that in verse 7. So, let me backtrack. Let's look at the first point. The first point is the larger theme of sanctification. And that is, humble yourselves, humble yourselves under, there it is, under, that is being submissive, under God's authority, under His supreme authority, that He's Lord, He's King.
Under the mighty hand of God. So, let's look at that. Humble yourselves, humble yourselves, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in the proper time. Now, let me ask the question. How does Peter's call to humility address the larger theme of sanctification in the letter to the churches?
Well, let me ask another question on top of that. What is the very opposite of humility?
It's pride, isn't it?
P-R-I-D-E That's our problem, isn't it?
It's the I.
And that's, you know, you think of it, it's pride is the one, we looked at that, that is the one sin that God hates.
A haughty look.
God hates it.
It's an abomination to God. And it makes you think, Lord, search my heart here, because this is so deceitful. So many times we may say,.
Oh, I'm not prideful.
But right then, you're lifted up in pride.
You're caught because you just said.
You're something that you're not. We all have to wrestle with this. A .W. Tozer says there's only one thing that can really knock the pride out of us and that's the cold grave. We looked at Spurgeon, he said you can't escape it.
It's like that, almost like an organism.
That just clings to you.
Well, but the cross of Jesus Christ can sure help us mortify it, can't it? While we live and go through this journey on earth. We have here the command to be humble. And so we have to understand how horrible pride is that we may humble ourselves.
Now, we're going to look at this. We're to be truly humble, then we are to put to death, that means to mortify this deadly sin of pride.
It is deadly.
It's very deadly.
It robs us, beloved.
It's a robber.
It robs us of all the benefits that's in God. It robs of the heart and the possibility of genuine brokenness before God. It robs us of repentance. It robs us of our humility before God. It robs us what is necessary for salvation.
That's why people stay away from coming to Christ is because they cannot humble themselves before God.
Look, whom God chooses,.
He always goes after His elect. He humbles them. He humbles them. Spurgeon said it. Every Christian, and let's speak about a Christian, every Christian has a choice. He has a choice between being humble and being humbled.
That's the truth, isn't it? I would choose being humble.
God help us.
Because if we're not going to humble ourselves before God, God will humble us. We will see this. And notice with me, first of all, and I like to consider under A, A, the call for humility. The call for humility.
The call is basically the command.
Therefore,.
Humble yourselves. Humble yourselves.
There it is.
Definition, really, to be humble is very simple. It means to be meek and lowly. It means to cause to be humble in this context an attitude. It's an attitude of lowing ourselves. Bringing ourselves low and down.
That's what it means. It falls into submission under the mighty hand of God. James the Apostle. We went through the book of James and we saw this, didn't we? Apostle James gives actually the same identical proverb that Peter does.
James in chapter 4, verse 6. You don't have to turn there, but this is what he says. But he gives a greater grace. He gives a greater grace. Therefore, it says, God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
And then in James 4 .10, he says the same command. He gives the same command that Peter gives. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you. Peter adds, in the proper time. So the command is to humble yourselves.
To humble yourselves.
Meaning,.
To make yourself low. I believe Jesus said that, didn't He?
He said,.
If you're going to follow after me, you must deny yourself. That's what it means to humble ourselves. You deny yourself. As Brother Keith pointed out last Lord's Day, it basically means not even to think of yourself, period.
And that is the truth. Not less of yourself necessarily, but don't even think of yourself. Think of others. Esteem others more than yourself. Esteem them more high than yourself. You put them on the higher spot.
They said of D .L. Moody, every time he had a guest preacher, he was always on the very front row, always taking notes. Always taking notes. They said when he met Spurgeon in England, he literally meant this, not by show, but he said he shined his shoe.
He used to be a shoe man, selling shoes, before coming to Christ. He said Spurgeon sat down and he went up and shined his shoes. That's a lowly spot of humility, almost washing feet as Jesus, our Lord, gave us an example to follow.
But here the proverb is actually Proverbs chapter 3, verse 34. Powerful proverb, isn't it? And it actually says this in the NASB translation. Though he scoffs at the scoffers, yet he gives grace to the afflicted.
Don't you love that? To the afflicted. To those that are afflicted. Lowly, meek, and humble. God resists the proud. It's like almost that word resist means it's a stench to God. God smells to God. He stays away from people.
That are haughty and prideful.
And they may call themselves preachers and theologians.
And know all the...
Actually, we'll see in a minute, but from the Apostle Paul, how God kept him humble by revealing so many revelations to him. When people get lifted up in pride, I've seen this so often. I know you've seen this so often.
The more knowledge people get, they pretend to be humble, but they're lifted up in pride. They want to sit in Moses' seat. I want to be called doctor and reverend. I want to be somebody, but they don't want to sit at the lowly seat.
Oh, they want to be seen. They want to be heard. They want to be somebody. But that is stench to God. It's not my words. God says it himself. He hates those that has a haughty look. Now, if we look in Scripture, the command, again, God commands theologians and all, humble yourselves.
Humble yourselves. That's a command. That's the call. After Peter has written about God's opposition to the proud, grace toward the humble, now Peter writes, humble yourselves.
Listen to this Scripture here.
I've got a few Scriptures. You can write these down, but you don't have to turn there, but listen to this. In the book of Exodus, in chapter 10, verse 3, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh. You know about the story of Pharaoh.
He goes to Pharaoh,.
And he said to him,.
Oh, I love the way he begins his sentence. Thus says the Lord,.
The God of the Hebrews,.
How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?
And you know the story.
Pharaoh resisted to humble himself before God's mighty hand. God humbled him. God humbled him by sending one plague on top of another, one plague after another, and he humbled all of Egypt by sending plagues of lice and grasshoppers and locusts and frogs, and the darkness came, and God just poured it on him, and still he would go back and forth.
He would harden his heart, and then sometimes God would harden his heart. But whatever the case was, as mysterious as that is, he refused to humble himself under the mighty hand of God. That's what the question was.
How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go that they may serve me. Don't you love God's command there? To this little haughty Pharaoh that thought he was God. Oh, I love it.
And you know the end of the story there. God even used, raised up Pharaoh that God's glory may be seen. God's powerful, all-powerful hand in his arm, and his sovereignty was working right through it.
2 Chronicles 7 .14, very familiar verse that a lot of people take out of context for America today, but it's actually talking to Israel. And if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and shall seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land.
The first thing that they're to do is to humble themselves. That's where people must be. If God is going to work, and then it follows, humility, prayer, seeking God's face, turning, that's repentance, turning from their wicked ways, and then it says, God promises, I'm going to hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will come bring healing to them.
2 Chronicles 34 .26 and 27. A prophetess is actually speaking here. And she says this, but she speaks the word of the Lord. But to the king of Judah who sent you.
To inquire of the Lord,.
Thus you will say to him, thus says the Lord God of Israel regarding the words which you have heard. In verse 27, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God and you heard his words against this place and against its inhabitants and because, listen to this, because you humbled yourself before me, tore your clothes and wept before me, I truly have heard you, declares the Lord.
Now there you have God speaking and God answering a prayer because they humbled themselves. Now, there's another text that's found in Proverbs chapter 6. Now notice, we'll humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, we'll humble ourselves before God.
But Solomon also gives us some great godly counsel here that we're also to humble ourselves before our neighbor. You could turn with me there if you like. And Solomon gives this godly counsel to anyone who becomes responsible for another person's debt.
That's what he's talking about. A debt that is trapped and controlled because he has yielded control of what God has given him as a stewardship. God gives us things from him, his hand, but he gives it to us as to be a good steward.
It all belongs to him.
It's all his.
So we're to be stewards of what really belongs to him. And then he basically says this in verse 3 of chapter 6. Verse 2, I'm sorry. If you have been snared with the words of your mouth. How many times have we been snared by the words of our mouth?
I have.
I raise both hands. Have been caught with the words of your mouth. Again, snared and caught.
Both.
Snared and caught. Verse 3. Notice what he says. Do this. Do this then, my son, and deliver yourself. He tells us how to deliver ourselves. Since you have come into the hand or the palm of your neighbor.
In other words, you're trapped. You've got to do something here. You can avoid it. You can be prideful.
You can let it go.
Or you can make it right. And he tells us how to do it. He says, do this.
Go.
Humble yourself. Humble yourself. And importune your neighbor. So we're to go to our neighbor and to make it right.
That's a good counsel, isn't it?
Humble ourselves before God's mighty hand. Humble ourselves before our neighbor. May God help us to do this. So many people would not do this because of their haughty pride. Oh, what will people think of me?
It's going to ruin my reputation. Hey, look, let it ruin our reputation. Now, I'm not saying I'm against having a good reputation. But notice what the scripture says. Jesus was a man of no reputation.
What did they think of him?
And he was God in the flesh. But he did what was right in the sight of God. He always pleased the Father. He always did God's will. And did you notice? Humility, sanctification, submission under God's almighty hand, that is the will of God.
Even your sanctification, that is the will of God. Giving thanks and everything, that is the will of God. If we really want to know the will of God, those are the action verbs and the words that God gives in living an act in our everyday life.
Now, good counsel that Solomon gives, but it begins always with the action to humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God. So the apostle Peter is actually saying in essence to put away your pride,.
As the old saying goes,.
Swallow your pride, right? You've got to put it away. It's not swallowed. But put it to death. How about crucifying it? We should do everything we can by God's Holy Spirit to crucify this horrible sin that indwells us.
Humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God. Walk in humility. Clothe yourselves with humility. Recognize the hand of God in your life. That should humble us. God who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light to be holy, to be separate.
The one that has redeemed us and purchased us with His precious blood. He owns us to humble ourselves before His mighty hand. That's what Peter says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Isn't that wonderful? So, just thinking and dwelling on that should humble us. Just to know how good God is and how loving God is and the goodness and severity of God,.
Paul said.
When you start dwelling on the goodness of God,.
I don't know about you,.
That leads me right to my face. That wants to make me repent right there.
Just to think,.
All that God lovingly gives and I'm not deserving of it. And yet He gives and gives and gives again. Isn't that wonderful? The goodness of God. Just to know what God has accomplished for us through His beloved Son.
That should humble us. Well, the next under B, that the A is basically the call to humility. Now we have the reason for humility. The reason for humility, the reason is, says, therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.
That He may exalt you in the proper time. The therefore, as we now know, well know, is there for a reason. Peter is pointing back to God's opposition to the proud. Right? That's what he says. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
But gives grace to the humble. Another metaphor is so rich here, and we're going to look, I don't have time really to go in depth on this because we have communion today, but there's a study,.
Through the Scriptures,.
The hand of God. Study His mighty hand, His arm. It's a metaphor. That God has a strong and mighty arm. It speaks of strength and power. All authority. That's what it's speaking of. His power. And we see this, actually, Mary is praising.
Go with me very quickly to Luke chapter 1. I want you to see this.
I love this.
A lot of people focuses on this during Christmas time. And our Catholic friends loves the focus on Mary here.
But can I say this?
The focus really is not on Mary. The mother of my Lord in verse 43. This really is an expression that is not in praise of Mary.
Is it?
But it's the praise of the child. The Messiah. He's the one to be praised. And notice what she says in verse 46 of chapter 1. You know, the mother of my Lord would come to me. Blessed are you among women.
I'm backing up a little bit. For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. That was John the Baptist. Elizabeth is talking. John the Baptist in the womb of Elizabeth.
He leaped for joy when he heard Mary's voice. And then in verse 45. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord. Now, a lot of this she's drawing from the Old Testament.
She's drawing from Hannah who was a very humble servant of God. You remember the story.
You know, the...
I'm thinking about the priest. I don't want to say he's a priest. But they, yes, Eli, would not believe her. And here, they thought she was drunk. Speaking of Hannah. If you read the story. And actually, she was really pleading with God in a very humble way.
Right?
And her humility was almost so out of the way that they just ignored her. Oh, it's no big deal.
But God was using this.
Look at who she gave birth to.
Samuel.
God brought Samuel. But Mary is drawing upon that. You have to go back to that. But Mary gives humble praise to God. Notice what she said in verse 46. And Mary said, My soul exalts the Lord. My spirit has rejoiced in the God of my Savior.
For He has regard for the humble state of His bond slave. For behold, from this time on, generations will count me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for me. And holy is His name. Holy is His name.
And notice verse 50. And His mercy is upon generation after generation toward those who fear Him. He has done mighty deeds. He has done mighty deeds with His arm. There's the arm of God. The mighty hand of God.
He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. He has brought down rulers from their thrones. And He has exalted those who were humble. There it is. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent away the rich empty-handed.
It's humbling just to read this. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent away the rich empty-handed. He has given help to Israel, His servant, in remembrance of His mercy, His compassion. He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his descendants forever.
And basically that praise is there. And Mary stayed with her about three months and then returned to her home. She pondered these things in her heart. So wonderful. There you see humility under the mighty hand of God.
The mighty arm of God. Well, we see here next, this is the reason for humility, right? And this is so wonderful. Now, the reason to humble ourselves is because of God's mighty hand, isn't it? That's why we humble ourselves.
God's hand is mighty. It's mighty. It tells us to humble ourselves under His mighty hand. His mighty hand. A simple but powerful phrase. And can I tell you this? What I just mentioned there really consists of the entire Christian life.
All consists there under the mighty hand of God. What does that mean? Obedience. Submission to His Lordship. Submission to His Lordship under His mighty hand. Obedience to submitting to His words. To the arm of the Lord.
The hand of God under His mighty hand of authority. And how dare we, how can anyone stand against the mighty hand of God? No one can. That's the answer, isn't it? So we better humble ourselves or we're going to be humbled.
One way or another. One way or another. Therefore, we ought to bow ourselves low and humble adoration as the old song says before His mighty hand. Jesus said that. He said if we don't humble ourselves it's going to go the other way around.
God's going to humble us and it's almost like He gives a picture of a great rock falling down. Grinding it to powder. That's what He refers to. But we humble ourselves under God's mighty hand and then it says He's going to exalt us in due time, in the proper time.
So we should make ourselves low. This should cause us to repent. Even to think of His holiness and His majesty should just bring humility to our thoughts and minds. Knowing that He is the sovereign King who rules and reigns over the entire universe.
Well next, not only the call to humility and the reason for humility, there's the benefit of humility. There's the benefit. It benefits something, doesn't it? There's something that benefits.
What is it?
Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God so that He may exalt you at the proper time. Now I love this. Notice with me that term, that phrase. At the proper time. At the proper time. You know what that means?
Amen.
It's God's timing. It's always God's timetable. Not ours. It means God's appointed time. Now this could be used in two ways. Let me give this to you. And this is really ministered to my heart as I was studying this.
And I say, Lord help me to really apply this because waiting on God is a challenge for all of us, isn't it? We get impatient. Lord help me, teach me to wait on the Lord to know what His proper time is.
His will.
Then first of all, know His will. And to know the timing of God. But God's timetable is different than our timetable. All together. So first of all, we can interpret this as any time God seems fit, the time that God appoints, the God that He chooses, not us, appointed the time to exalt us when He pleases.
And He may deliver someone from persecution. Sometimes we think of that. Lord deliver them out of... We pray. Lord deliver them. David prayed God delivers. Jesus said that's proper. Deliver us from temptation.
Deliver us from that evil. Deliver us from the evil, from that temptation. Now, but sometimes God will allow us not to be delivered in the sense that He's testing us. You see what I'm saying? He doesn't tempt us, but He tests us.
We've got to remember that.
There's a difference.
Someone, okay, maybe is being persecuted. Or maybe we see someone suffering for Christ's sake. Lord, deliver them. Deliver them ten... I don't know if He can deliver them tomorrow. He can do it, can't He?
He did that for the Apostle Peter when God's people were praying. God sent an earthquake, sent an angel.
Out. He went.
And then He come to the door. And they were still praying.
There He is.
He's delivered. But you know something? God delivered the three Hebrew children from the fiery furnace. Jesus came walking with them. The fourth man walking in the fire. But there are some times we see that God chooses not to deliver.
See, it's His time.
It's what He seems best. It's what He deems best. Now, here's an example that comes to my mind. The Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul had to endure, as you well know, a thorn in the flesh.
A lot of people say,.
What's that thorn in the flesh? There's been so many theological arguments about it. They really lose focus of the lesson. The lesson is,.
God wants to keep you humble.
That's what we should get from it. Okay, now notice what Paul says. 2 Corinthians 12, 7 -10.
Paul says this.
Here's purpose. Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation. There you go, right there. Let's stop right there. God revealed so much to this man. He's had revelations. He says, I saw heaven.
I was lifted up to the third heavens and I saw things that it was unlawful for me to utter. And then he comes back with the revelations and he knew Christ in such a personal way.
But God says,.
I'm going to send a thorn in the flesh to you. And it wasn't an ailment.
It was a messenger.
It was a messenger of Satan.
Now listen to this. He says this.
For this reason. For this reason. Why? What reason? All the revelations. To keep him from getting puffed up.
This is the apostle Paul.
The greatest theologian that ever lived. The greatest missionary outside of Jesus Christ. Now listen to this. He says, For this reason to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me, again, to keep me from exalting myself.
He says that twice.
Twice.
To keep me from exalting myself. To keep me. You know when we're going through hardships and trials and afflictions, no wonder David says, it is good that God has afflicted me. Affliction is good.
It humbles me.
It keeps me. It keeps me from loving the world. It keeps me from exalting myself. It keeps me from exalting myself in pride. And God uses us in weakness.
Why? He says,.
Concerning this, I employed the Lord three times. He went to God in prayer.
God, deliver me from this. This messenger from Satan that's tormenting me. We don't know who that is.
That's okay.
We don't need to know some things. You know, everybody wants to know everything. God knows everything. You know, what's revealed to us, yes, is to the sons of men. But what God has kept secret,.
That's God's business. But you know something right here? Three times Paul sought the Lord. He employed the Lord. And the Lord Jesus Christ responded to him in this, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.
Now when he got that,.
You're talking about surrender?
Listen to this,.
Most gladly. Now listen, in sufferings, most gladly, therefore I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. He recognized that the weaker he was, the stronger Christ was in him.
There's no defeat to a child of God that gets this.
Now listen to this,.
Therefore I am well content, Paul says, I'm well content with weaknesses. In other words, no matter what he went through, I'm well content with insults, I'm well content with distresses, I'm well content with persecutions and difficulties,.
For Christ's sake.
Not for my sake, but for Christ's sake. With the difficulties,.
Persecutions,.
Distresses, insults, no matter what is thrown at me, if I'm doing the will of God. For Christ's sake, He was okay with it. I gladly surrender to that.
Isn't that wonderful?
You know why? For when I'm weak, then I'm strong. It's in that weakest point.
The lower I am,.
The stronger I am in Jesus Christ. You know, a lot of times we look at, we see these people that's being persecuted for Christ's sake, and you know, they're the strongest ones. Because they're the ones that are at the weakest state.
You think those who are at the strongest state, like we are over here, we're at our poorest state in a sense. We have no strength with Christ. Because we're too self-dependent. We're depending on everything else but God.
But there, Paul understood. Oh, I'm telling you, beloved,.
We get this,.
This is the theology of the Bible right here, what Paul's talking about. No wonder Brother Bill brought that message to us. Wasn't that wonderful? Well, God chose this thorn in the flesh to keep Paul humble.
Amen?
To keep him humble. Well, the second interpretation of this would be, and I take this personal interpretation.
Well, I think you could take both of them.
But in the context of what Peter is saying, it could also mean that at the time when God appoints, at the day of judgment, when Jesus Christ returns, with all power and glory, and at that time, God consummates all things, everything is final, there's the final judgment, and Jesus Christ is the judge of judges, the King of kings, He will judge the world by His Son.
Jesus Himself will be the judge. A time that He will vindicate His people. A time when He will share the glory of His Son with those who have embraced His Son. That is a time that God will exalt us in the state of glorification.
So it could mean more, the more immediate context, or when Jesus Christ, who is the chief shepherd, appears in the future. Now, whatever God chooses, I'm well content to say God knows what's best. Because I like what Bunyan said.
What God says is best, and is best. You can't argue against God. And what He says, and what He does, and what He chooses, He's God, and we need to trust Him in that. The mighty hand of God will ultimately be made visible in the last time.
At the proper time, in the due time, He's going to exalt us. This is the truth that believers in Peter's day were looking to, and it also should be the truth that we are looking to as well. So even in the midst of persecution, suffering, keeping humble, staying humble, being humble, humbling ourselves before the mighty hand of God helps us to stay ready, to be watchful, until Jesus Christ returns or until He calls us home.
Christians should be looking for this glorious, great appearing of Jesus Christ. At the proper time, God will exalt you. Now, let's look at that word, exalt you.
This little word, exalt, carries the idea of lifting up. He's going to lift you up. Basically, the definition of this is to enhance to a place of honor. To promote, to give in a high position and power of authority.
And that's what God the Father did for the Lord Jesus Christ. Think of this. Jesus Christ, there's no one that humbled himself like Jesus. He came from the highest of high, the throne above the universe, and humbled himself and came by the power of the Holy Spirit into the womb of the Virgin Mary, into that dark place.
Was born, and when He came into this world, born in a stable with animals and stench and smell, Jesus Christ was there born, humbled himself from that point, made flesh as He grew in stature, in great grace, in wisdom.
And as He grew, and then His ministry came about. Now, you know His perfect life. It's incredible. It's humbling to think of it. And then those 33 years,.
He humbles Himself, He humbles Himself,.
And even to the point of death, to the death of a cross of shame, to take our sin,.
To take our sin,.
And God's wrath be poured on Him that you and I may have salvation,.
Eternal life.
Now, is that humility? God contracted to a span. Humbles me just to think of it. It's absolutely awesome. But that's what He's talking about, Jesus Christ. And because He humbled Himself like none other, God has exalted Him to the highest place.
God has given Him a place of authority above all. He left His throne on high to a great mission.
For God so loved the world.
That He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. And because He went to the cross and then humbled Himself and shamed to the cross, God exalts Him now.
Where is He? At the right hand of the Father in majesty and power. And all creation is going to bow before Him. He goes back to the Father. Incredible.
Amazing.
But that's the truth.
And who are we to think well of ourselves? Who are we? We need to keep looking to that exaltation time as Jesus did. The joy that was before Him is the joy before us. He led the way. Now, we need to keep looking to the exaltation.
At one time in the future, God's going to exalt us as well. Stay humble. Because one day God's going to exalt you.
Not to seek vengeance.
To those who oppress us, right? Not to become vicious or retaliate. But to stay meek and lowly and humble towards our enemies, towards those that persecute us. We're to pray for them. We're to bless them.
All this. All this. Jesus says what? Great is your reward in heaven. What's the attitude we should have?
Be exceedingly glad.
Rejoice.
Why?
Because one day God's going to exalt you. He's going to lift you up. You may not be here on this earth, but in heaven, it's opposites. That's why Jesus says the first is going to be last, and the last is going to be first.
Upside down kingdom. Amen, Brother Keith? He says that quite often. I love that.
It's an upside down kingdom.
Because in this world, we should not expect to be exalted. It's in the kingdom of God. That's why Jesus said to Pilate, my servants will not fight because my kingdom is not of this world. How would he expect that everything is going to go well for us.
When Jesus says you deny me.
And take up a cross?
That the crown comes later, right? Not now. People want the crown now. People want it exalting now. And when people have that idea, they need to be born again because it's upside down.
Jesus says no.
You are to be meek and lowly and follow me.
Learn of me.
Follow me in the tracks of humility. And then one day, one day at the proper time, God will exalt you. This is a great truth. Let me quote our Lord. Matthew 23, 12.
Jesus says,.
And the only difference between Matthew and Luke here is Matthew says shall and Luke says will. I like either one, don't you? Jesus says whoever exalts himself shall be humbled. And whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.
Shall be!
Again, Luke 14, 11. For everyone who exalts himself.
Will be humbled.
And he who humbles himself.
Will be exalted.
You know what Jesus is saying? That's the way it is.
There's no escaping it. So choose to humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God now. Then God will properly in His time.
Exalt us.
Now, let me go on before my time leaves me. And it's almost gone. Jesus repeats this often in the Gospel record. Where. There's so much more we could talk about on that. Read Luke 14. He talks about that whole parable there of the ambitious guest about the place that the servant is to take.
He's to take the last place.
That's humility, right? The servant of God always takes the last place.
Not the first.
What do you see now? I see people taking the first place. There's something wrong with that. Jesus said, no, you take the last place. You take the place of a servant. Well, I could take off right there, but anyway.
Read that wonderful parable our Lord gave. Now, Peter addresses the doctrine of sanctification. Now he addresses the doctrine of suffering. And he goes to the next verse and he basically gives us the how-to.
How do we want to humble ourselves? Look at verse 7. By casting. The two imperatives and two commands is be humble, humble yourselves. Now he says, by casting. Casting all your anxieties, your cares on God because He cares for you.
That's the two commands. That's not a suggestion. We're to humble ourselves and we're to cast. Cast. That's imperative, isn't it? It's be humble, cast. It's almost like he is saying be humble by casting.
Be humble by casting or throwing your anxieties on God. Now this is an idea that comes from fishing. The fishing industry. We can honestly say in our day we use rod and reels, don't we? But in Jesus' day, in the apostles' day and I believe Peter's mind was thinking this.
Because Peter was a fisherman. Peter understood.
But what kind of fishing?
They didn't have rod and reels back then, did they?
They had the net.
They would cast the net.
Cast the net.
Jesus knew about that. He said, cast that net on the right side. Peter said, what are you talking about? We fished all night and caught nothing. Jesus said, cast the net on the right side. They could have swarmed the fish.
You know what that tells you?
God, Jesus is sovereign. He knows where the fish are. Do what I say. Obey the words of the Master. He knows. Cast it on the right side.
That's what they did.
They cast those nets to pull fish in. And it's the idea here that the net is weighed down so that it will sink with weights that the fish will swim into that net and be caught. We're to cast that net.
That's glorious.
Here the metaphor is casting in respect to anxieties and concerns and our burdens. Don't we have plenty of concerns and burdens? I don't know about you.
I've got a lot of burdens.
And he's basically saying, you cast all this on God. Now, let me give you the opposite of this. If we refuse to cast, if we refuse to throw that net on God and cast it on Him, we're disobeying God. And in that sense of disobedience, we're saying, okay, we've got these cares,.
We've got these burdens,.
We've got these distresses, we've got these afflictions, all this that we're going through, and we're exhibiting pride. Because we're basically saying, amen, we're saying I know what's better than God.
We're saying that I'm okay. We may not say, oh God, it's pride.
No.
It is pride. Because it's saying that we know better than God and it's unbelief. It's unbelief because it's not coming to God in faith and believing what He can do. See, it's a lack of trust in the sovereign power of God that He's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all what we can ask or think.
It's basically saying, Lord, You're not in control. You're not all powerful.
You're not all wise. I know what's better.
Is that arrogant? So, that's how arrogant we can be by not obeying and casting our cares on Him, right? But God is in charge.
He is all wise.
He is all powerful. He knows what's best. And we submit to Him and we cast all our care on Him. Really, only God can fix everything, right? Only God can fix it. Now, this does not mean that we neglect or negate our personal responsibilities that God has given to us as stewards, as I mentioned already, right?
It does not mean to neglect that. But it does mean, when we come to God in prayer,.
That's what we're doing.
We're casting all that burden on Him because He cares for us. God uses this for our sanctification like suffering, persecution, affliction to make us more like Jesus. You know, we can't stop someone from reviling us or mocking us.
We cannot stop someone from mistreating us. But God can. If God chooses to. If God chooses to. Isn't it wonderful to know about the sovereignty of God because God can choose not to. God can say no in prayer.
And a loving Father will say this, I know what's best. And I won't let you go through that. And I got a lesson for you. That's why Jesus allowed the disciples to go. He was on the top of the mountain praying.
He saw them.
They were going into the dark of the midnight. And He let them go. And they rode all night. Blisters, hands, and probably snapping and fighting each other. And then Jesus eventually, at the darkest hour of the night, He comes walking to them on the water.
They thought He was a phantom.
But He sent them away.
He taught them a lesson.
And that's what He does to us many times. He allows us to go through the darkest times. To humble us. That we may learn to trust in Him. Now you see, beloved, all this casting our care on Him, it's because we trust in Him.
But the opposite of it, when we're not casting our care on Him, it's an awful act of sin and pride. So let us never, ever, stop casting our care on Him for He cares for us. And I love this. Because He cares for us, because He cares for us.
And we're acting in obedience. Jesus learned obedience as a man. Just read Hebrews 5a. He learned obedience. Perfect man. Perfect Son of God.
How much more shall we?
Ourselves under the mighty hand of God. Well, my time is just about gone. I've got so much more I'd like to bring to you. There is a wonderful song. When I first came to the Lord and I was converted, I loved this little simple song that the Gators sung.
Someone to care. When the world seems so cold and your friends so few, there's someone who cares for you. When your tears in your eyes, your heart bleeds inside, there's someone who cares for you. When your disappointments come and you feel so blue, there's someone who cares for you.
When you need a friend, a friend till the end, there's someone who cares for you. And there's no one that cares like Jesus.
Jesus is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. Well, there's so much more I'd like to say. Lord, we're going to finish this next week, but I want to end with this. Isaac Watts. Isaac Watts mentioned something about this text.
I was reading devotions, and I came to this devotion yesterday morning. And guess what the devotion text was? 1 Peter 5, 7. Casting all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. And I said, I took that as a sign in a sense.
Lord, this is what I need.
But I'm going to share it with you. It's a devotion by Isaac Watts. And this is what he said. When a saint draws near to God, he has all the fullness of his heart breaking out into holy language. He pours out his whole soul before God and His Father.
All the infinite affairs of life, body and spirit, His life, the one to come, all things in heaven and earth, created or uncreated, may at one time or other be included in our conversation with God. A good man in devout prayer can spread his hopes and joys before the Lord as well as his sorrows and fears, his distresses.
Here at the mercy seat, we may confess our great sins, how great our sins are, and pray for pardoning grace. As we draw near, we could tell Him how malicious and full of rage our enemies are, and how the world strikes at our senses and our ears and our eyes and our outward faculties to draw us away from God, our best friend.
We may lay before Him the rage of Satan that is ready to throw in some foolish suggestion to divert us. I also would beg the presence of my God to assist me and become a conqueror through Him that has loved me.
As I look forward to my last great enemy death, I can share my perplexity of mind that I realize how few hours I devote my communion with Him. I would tell Him of my temporal troubles and spread before Him all the sorrows and vexations of life that unhinge my soul from its center and throw me off my guard.
I would not go away without a word for my family and friends that are far from God and put in a word, a petition for them that they are careless. I would weep for my children, my brothers and my sisters that they might be brought near to God.
Why do we delight to tell Him all of our circumstances and sorrows? Answer, because He is our best friend and it soothes the soul to unburden our cares in the bosom of a friend. This is the noblest and highest friendship, amazing grace of God to man.
Rejoice in this and delight in all the opportunity to employ and improve it. And that's basically Isaac Watts. It fits so perfectly. When I read that, I said, you know, I needed that. I needed to hear that.
Jesus Christ is the best of best of friends and He cares for you. So may we not, in our own pride, resist. We're to resist the devil, right? But never to resist God, but to humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God because He cares for you.
Amen and amen. Let's pray. Father, how good and caring You are. How gracious You are. And how ungracious we are. How wonderful and infinitely loving You are. And how awful we are at times. Lord, but we know there's pardoning grace.
We thank You for the Lord Jesus Christ who is right now at Your right hand forever making intercession for us. And we thank You, Father, for Your holy word this morning. We thank You for the word that sanctifies us wholly.
Through and through.
That we may be a holy people to love You and to show forth the praises of You that has called us out of darkness into Your marvelous light. So, Father, we pray, please, we plead with You through Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that these attitudes of humility, meekness, holiness, kindness, love, faith, faithfulness, patience would all be evident in us, characteristic in our lives.
It's our character, Lord, that You care for to make us into what we would be before You, before we are glorified. So, Lord, sanctify us. May we submit to Your will. Lord, help us to submit to Your authority.
Help us, Lord, to submit to Your lordship and humility. Forgive us for all the times we have neglected to cast all our care on You, Lord. So, Lord, help us to clothe ourselves with humility every day, to walk in humility toward one another, and to trust, to trust in You, to believe, as Jesus says, You believe in God, believe also in Me.
In my Father's house are many dwelling places.
Thank You.
So, help us, Lord. Help us, Lord, to trust and obey. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen and amen.