Humility (1 Peter 5:5-11)
Notes
Transcript
We will be in 1 Peter 5:5-11 today.
Happy Palm Sunday!
Humility has always been difficult for Humans, and lest you think this is simply a more modern day struggle, we didn’t struggle with this back in my day, Let me quote the Words of Mac Davis from the 1070s, which we can spin in my office is you wish…
Oh Lord it's hard to be humble,
When you're perfect in every way,
I can't wait to look in the mirror,
'cause I get better looking each day.
To know me is to love me,
I must be a [pretty good man, if you know the song he uses a different word that I use as a noun in sermons] of a man,
Oh Lord it's hard to be humble,
But I'm doin' the best that I can.
Let’s Read 1 Peter 5:5-11, pray and walk through the text.
5 In the same way, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. All of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time,
7 casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you.
8 Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour.
9 Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world.
10 The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little while.
11 To him be dominion forever. Amen.
Pray
We Humble ourselves because God cares for us.
We Humble ourselves because God cares for us.
5 In the same way, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. All of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time,
7 casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you.
5 In the same way, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.
All of you clothe yourselves (Aorist Imperative)with humility toward one another,
because God resists (Present Indicative) the proud but gives grace(Present Indicative) to the humble.
So in wrapping up this Letter Peter told these churches and pastors (Elders) to cloth yourselves in humility… because God continually resists the proud and continually gives grace to the humble.
There isn’t a time frame where God is like… you know what I am not going to resist the proud anymore, I think I’ll take a break.
There isn’t a time when God takes a break from giving grace to the humble.
Coming on the heels of Peter talking about how a pastor is supposed to pastor (Shepherd the flock among you, willingly, eagerly, as an example) The sheep that are being shepherded are supposed to submit to their own pastors in a way that glorifies God, while the pastors or pastor who is shepherding them is supposed to shepherd in a humble way understanding that Jesus is ultimately in charge.
The only way this will work is with humility from everyone involved.
I’m not better than you, you are not better than me. We are all sinners, we are all fallen, we are all not perfect. We are Christians, working together as best as we can for the glory of God.
As Peter is finishing his thoughts and wrapping up the letter, he concludes with these ideas.
6 Humble yourselves (Aorist Imperative), therefore, under the mighty hand of God,
This is a command.
Bible reading tip: When the bible repeats a phrase or an idea pay attention to what is being said.
All of you clothe yourselves with humility towards one another, because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God.
Humble Humble Humble… Peter is making the point very clear…
I’m not better than you, you are not better than me. We are all sinners, we are all fallen, we are all not perfect. We are Christians, working together as best as we can for the glory of God.
You and I are on the same plain, but God is not.
The triune God, (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is far beyond us.
He is completely independent.
He is completely independent.
God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything.
He is unchangeable (immutable is the big theological word)
He is unchangeable (immutable is the big theological word)
God is unchanging in his being, perfections, purposes, and promises.
Since God is completely perfect, for God to change would not make Him more perfect, it would mean God is not perfect or adding imperfection.
He is eternal
He is eternal
He has no beginning, no end. He is not bound by the constraints of time like you and I are.
He is not stuck in a succession of events of moments. We cannot comprehend this. We are bound by time so much so that language betrays us.
To say God exists before time is to use time words to describe a place without time. There is no before if there is not time.
He has never not been, and he will never not be.
He is eternal.
He is everywhere (omnipresent is the big theological word)
He is everywhere (omnipresent is the big theological word)
Much like how God is beyond the constraints of time, so to is God beyond the constraints of spacial dimensions.
He doesn’t have size.
God is small enough to dwell in your heart, to stitch the smallest cells you have together and hold them in place, while at the same time, God is large enough to place the entire universe in the palm of His hand, to speak and create everything including the farthest Star away, and largest galaxy.
I used this illustration when we started the Book of Genesis a couple years ago.
The information I am going to share was on a TedTalk by a guy named Jon Bergmann. I know nothing about him other than this is the Ted Talk that came up when I googled help me understand how small an atom is.
God created the world with building blocks.
Protons, Neutrons, and electrons.
Those three form atoms.
No atoms are visible to the human eye, you need a special microscope to see them.
Take a grapefruit, for our purposes we will say that every atom in a grapefruit is nitrogen, they are not, but it helps us wrap our mind around how God built the world.
How many atoms are in a grapefruit?
If we take each microscopic atom and blow it up to the size of a blueberry, how big do you think the grapefruit would be?
It would be around the size of the earth.
Imagine the Earth filled completely with blueberries thats how many atoms are in a grapefruit.
Remember Atoms are made up protons, neurons and electrons.
Electrons orbit the protons and neutrons, which is called the nucleus.
How big is the nucleus of these tiny little atoms?
If you made the atom the size of a two story house… the nucleus would be around the size of a small marble.
Remember… the Earth being filled with blueberries is how many atoms are in a grapefruit, and if you take one of those blue berries and make it the size of a two story house then that nucleus would be the size of a marble.
That’s mind numbingly small… Yet Psalm 139:13 says
13 For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
God is everywhere and this mean God is created and creates the tiny little atoms with protons, neutrons, and electrons. Every single one of them in the entire universe.
And not one of those atoms, is outside of God sovereign rule.
At the exact same time (God is not bound by time) He is able to hold the largest Star, the biggest universe, all of space together.
When we talk about the size of the universe… we have to talk about the observable vs the unobserved universe. Do you know why? Because we haven’t seen the end of the universe.
According to Nasa the farthest galaxy that the Hubble Space telescope has been able to see is 13.4 Billion light years away.
Meaning you would have to travel the speed of light for 13.4 billions years to reach it. (1 light year is 6 trillion miles.
100
1000
10,000
100,000
1,000,000 Million
1,000,000,000 Billion
1,000,000,000,000 Trillion (12 zeros)
Maybe you hear or have seen some of the new pictures of space things because there is a new telescope, the James Webb space telescope and it can see 13.6 billion light years away.
We know that the universe has been expanding, God spoke, and since then everything have been moving outward, which means that the observable universe is something like 93 billion light years…
So to put this in terms to make your head hurt… if the entire observable universe was shrunk down to the size of our solar system, the size of Earth would be about the size of one virus.
You know those things that you cannot see without a microscope.
That’s big of a scale we are talking about here… and yet Genesis 1:14-17 says this
16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night—as well as the stars.
17 God placed them in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth,
That’s just the known universe… it go farther than we can even see.
He is everywhere (omnipresent is the big theological word)
He is unified, He is not divided into parts.
He is unified, He is not divided into parts.
In 1 John 1:5 John says God is light.
In 1 John 4:8 John says God is love.
Does this mean that God is partially light and partially love?
No.
It means that God Himself is light and God Himself is love. God is not some various characteristics that we add together to get a deity that we like. God’s whole being is all his attributes. He is entirely loving, entirely just, entirely mercifully.
Omniscient
Omniscient
This means God is all knowing…
You and I though the only creatures made in the image of God, are feeble minded compared to God.
There is nothing that God does not know.
Not only does God know out thoughts, God knows our heart.
This is important because it means, Jesus wasn’t surprised when he died on the cross about the amount of wrath for your sin that He bore.
He didn’t climb on the cross and regret doing so because He didn’t know how much he would have to bear, that hidden sin in your heart that no-one knows about… Jesus knows and he died for.
He knew exactly what it would take, He knew exactly how much of the cup of wrath he would drink.
God cannot get surprised because God is Omniscient, all knowing.
It’s not an accident.
Omnipotent
Omnipotent
God is all powerful...
God can make the wind and waves obey His voice… we can put our smartest scientists our best engineers, in place, and we cannot slow the wind down.
Large amounts of the ocean have not been explored because they are deep, and cold, and dark.
We don’t know how the pyramids were built, but we know they were built and it took a long time to built them.
We know that skyscrapers can be built very high but it takes us lots of money, and lots of time to built them, because we have to dig deep into the Earth to anchor buildings that tall.
Yet in one breath God can create mountains so high you and I could never reach the top.
In one breath God controls the uncontrollable.
God is sovereign, and we are not.
God is all powerful…
There is so much more that could be said here about God… but listen to what Peter says as the command.
6 Humble yourselves (Aorist Imperative), therefore, under the mighty hand of God,
Humility is hard, until we start thinking about who God is, and how he has revealed Himself to us.
Humility is only difficult when we imagine we are the center of our life.
Humility is only hard when we think we are more than we are.
Sin is looking at God and saying, I should be king or queen I should rule not you.
I should be able to control my life.
I should be able to do what I want.
I know what is best for me!
Those who humble themselves under the hand of God do so so that…
so that he may exalt you (Aorist Subjunctive) at the proper time,
Those who humble themselves will be exalted by the God they put themselves under.
Why?
Why would the: Independent, unchangeable, eternal, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, unified God exalt the creatures who rebelled against Him?
Because He cares about us.
7 casting (Aorist Participle)all your cares on him, because he cares (Present Indicative)about you.
There is no reason God should care about us, beyond setting an example and pouring His justice on us.
Yet, Peter tells us… not only God this God who knit you and I together in our mothers womb, who is everywhere, who can do anything… He cares about us. About you.
That he sees you.
He hears you.
He knows whats going on.
He isn’t blind to it.
He is powerful enough to stop it, but sometimes He doesn’t.
He is all knowing, he sees it happening.
He cares and he loved you.
He knows that this is what brings Him glory, which is what all of live is about bringing God glory, so those concerns, those hurts, those pains, those scars, that anger, that frustration, those burdens, those sins… cast them on Him.
He knows… He can take them.
It’s why we humble ourselves before His mighty hand, we cannot handle it, but God can.
We Humble ourselves because the Devil is real.
We Humble ourselves because the Devil is real.
8 Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour.
9 Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world.
8 Be sober-minded, (Aorist Imperative)
This is a command.
be alert. (Aorist Imperative)
This is a command too.
Keep your head on a swivel.
Why?
Your adversary the devil is prowling around(Present Indicative) like a roaring (Present Participle)lion, looking for (Present Participle)anyone he can devour(Aorist Infinitive).
The Devil is not fake.
He is real.
He is continually prowling around, like a roaring lion.
Yes the devil is real.
Yes the devil is dangerous.
Yes the devil is continually looking for anyone he can devour/destroy.
This is the plan of the devil.
We can think to much of Him and we can think to little of him.
What should we do?
9 Resist him, (Aorist Imperative) firm in the faith,
Did you notice who adversary the devil is? Yours, as in the Christians reading this letter.
This is a command, resit him
He cannot force you to do anything, he can persuade, he can influence, but Jesus has already defeated him on the cross.
So resist him, stand firm in the faith… the faith in God.
Satan is not another god fighting our God.
It’s not an even match… our God is infinite, the devil is finite.
So probably what Peter is talking about the the suffering that is happening, is partly the devil attacking and looking for people to devour.
listen to what Peter says
knowing that (Perfect Participle) the same kind of sufferings are being experienced (Present Infinitive) by your fellow believers throughout the world.
The devil is not omnipresent… which means the devil and his minions, the demons are causing all these sufferings… but even in the midst of the devil looking for people to devour, God is using that as comfort for those who are in the middle of the battle.
Just simply knowing that others are suffering too, they are experiencing the lion roaring, they are being chased after to be devoured, they are being burned at the stake before of their faith that is supposed to be what they cling to to resist the devil… just knowing you are not alone brings comfort and peace.
It solidifies faith.
How can in one breath Peter talk about being humble because of the might Hand of God and in the next verse say also be humble because the devil is looking to devour and you are not so important that he cannot get you…
How can Peter say God cares about you so cast your cares upon Him while the devil is roaring like a lion and looking to devour you?
From our perspective we often feel like if God cares then the devil would not exist. God would wipe him away.
Have you noticed that Christians will chalk anything they do not like up to the devil… someone told me I need to be nice to my coworkers and I looked at him and said not today satan.
The devil has just been coming after me lately, my kids, my spouse, the laundry, the dishes, etc.
Now listen on the one yes God care about the things that bother you that burden you face, as small and silly as they may seem God cares.
But at the same time we must understand that laundry isn’t the fault of the devil, that’s the fault of man… Adam and Eve were naked in the garden.
God allows evil to show His glory.
We are called to be humble because the devil is real and he is dangerous.
But also we need to understand what Peter is saying in verse 10-11.
We Humble ourselves because God did, does, and will do the work of saving.
We Humble ourselves because God did, does, and will do the work of saving.
10 The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little while.
11 To him be dominion forever. Amen.
10 The God of all grace, who called you(Aorist Participle ) to his eternal glory in Christ,
Grace is unmerited favor. It’s a gift. It cannot be earned only recieved.
God is the God of all grace, not most of the grace, not 99.99% of the grace… ALL GRACE.
Without sin, without evil, without suffering, there is no cross.
Without the cross you and I would not understand the Love and care God has for his children.
Remember all the things we talked about God as, independent, unchangeable, external, omnipresent, unified, omniscient, omnipotent.
Jesus is God Jesus is all of those things.
The infinite God who is outside the bounds of time and needs no one, steps into time, inserts himself into the story.
He becomes finite, he becomes bound to time, puts on human flesh.
He is born and tempted like you and I are tempted.
The devil tries everything in his power to get Jesus to sin, yet Jesus never sins.
Finally the devil rigs everything around Jesus so that since He cannot get Jesus to sin, maybe he can get those around Jesus to hinder his ministry.
Finally it all culminates after the passover, when Jesus is arrested, and illegally tried, found guilty of blaspheme (which is so sad because Jesus was claiming to be God but it wasn’t blaspheme because it was true) He gets on the cross, bears the wrath of God for the sins of his people and dies.
Like it feels like the devil won… but it is in the suffering, it’s un the shedding of His blood for His people who rejected Him, who didn’t love Him first, who didn’t care for Him that ultimate victory is had.
That on the Cross, Jesus satisfied God’s justice and showed the immeasurable riches of his grace.
Peter can say cast your cares on him because he cares about you and at the same time say be humble because the devil is looking to eat you because in the end Jesus wins.
For those who have faith, trust in Him.
Those who remain, through the hard times.
We are humble because Jesus does the work, we simply follow Him.
He will himself restore,( Future Indicative)
Make them fully prepared and complete with respect to any resource or ability that they lost through suffering.
We may lose everything, but we know in the end Jesus will restore it all.
establish, ( Future Indicative)
He will establish them firmly in any position, rightful privilege, or responsibility which this suffering has taken.
strengthen,(Future Indicative)
for any weakness they have been made to suffer, any inadequacy for overcoming evil which they may have known.
We will feel weak, but in the end Jesus will strengthen.
and support you (Future Indicative)
Settle them into any rightful place from which the suffering has wrongfully removed them.
We will long for more, but Jesus will support you.
All loss will be made right and will last for an eternity.
after you have suffered(Aorist Participle) a little while.
After the suffering not before.
You have to go through the fire to be purified.
11 To him be dominion forever. Amen.
6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.
7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man,
8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.
9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth—
11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The Gospel was God’s idea.
The Gospel is accomplished by God.
The Gospel is all we have.
The Gospel is enough.
God opposes the Proud, but gives grace to the Humble.
Be Humble.