GRACE ENABLED HUMILITY

Introduction: Peter’s Purpose v. 12-14

His purpose is clearly stated in the conclusion of the epistle.

Stand Firm in the Grace of God

Exhorting and Testifying - Peter is

Passionate about the topic

This is not something he mentioned in passing

He wrote a Holy Spirit inspired letter and his tone certainly communicates his passion.

Passionate about the audience

Greet you and so does Mark my son

Greet one another with a kiss of love

Peace to you all who are in Christ Jesus

The True Grace of God

What is grace? - Grace is God’s gift of favor and benevolence upon the unworthy.

What does it mean to stand firm in the grace of God?

It means that God’s grace is the foundation upon which you build your life.

It means that when the storms of life are their strongest your foundation is the surest. Because no matter what you live with the confidence that God’s favor and mercy are not something earned but something given.

Stand Firm Together

The church in Babylon

a figurative place of affliction

Babylon may have been a safe way for Peter to refer to Rome without getting in trouble.

“elect together with you” - we are in this together

We are stronger together and the grace of God is revealed in clearer and greater ways when we stand firm in it together.

The Enemy Within v. 6-7

(Therefore - takes us back to v.5b “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble”) Peter’s logic is simple, because God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble, what should we do? HUMBLE OURSELVES! But why does God resist the proud? Why does God hate our pride?

Pride resists the hand of God - “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand...”

Humility places us under the hand of God.

Guidance

Protection

Chastening

Comfort

It is right where you want to be

Isaiah 40:12–15 “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, Measured heaven with a span And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales And the hills in a balance? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, Or as His counselor has taught Him? With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, And taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge, And showed Him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, And are counted as the small dust on the scales; Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing.”

Humility makes us willing and eager participants in God’s will and plans

Pride resists the will of God and seeks to implement our own plans no matter how pitiful they are in comparison.

“Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” - Lewis

Pride is self-exalting - “that he may lift you up in due time.”

Humility exalts the only one worthy of exaltation - God.

Psalm 57:5 “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; Let Your glory be above all the earth.”

Isaiah 25:1 “O Lord, You are my God. I will exalt You, I will praise Your name, For You have done wonderful things; Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.”

These are verses and those like them that need to be meditated upon.

Humility is not self deprecation, but rather getting in touch with reality by learning to view yourself the way that God views you and learning more of who God is and what He is like.

Humility is thinking of yourself accurately.

Pride internalizes your cares - “cast all your anxiety on him...”

Pride infuses us with a desire to take care of things on our own.

Rather than casting our anxieties on Him we internalize them and hold on to them as though they are some precious treasure. Probably in some measure because we have learned to identify ourselves with these anxieties. It gets to the point where we might say, I don’t know who I am without my box of cares. And when we learn that God’s expects us to cast those cares into the sea of His grace we become defensive and put up walls and make excuses.

Now is the time to embrace His grace, the free gift of His favor that enables us to trust Him with our box of cares.

This is without doubt an act of humility. We must admit that we cannot solve this on our own.

Pride veils the care of God - “because He cares for you.”

When pride causes us to internalize our cares we loose sight of just how much God cares for us. Please don’t misunderstand me here. God’s care for us hasn’t gone anywhere we just frequently pull the wool over our own eyes.

We blame Him for our problems while simultaneously refusing to accept His solutions. We carry our box around with us and it is indeed a heavy burden. Occasionally we stop and open it and try to fix all the things inside. We turn a wrench here and sow something together over there, but the next time we peer in we find our work undone or wrong to begin with. The only real solution is to let someone else carry the box.

His grace enables us to cast our cares on Him because He cares for us.

Let that sink in, God cares about you.

Not because you are worthy of His care, but because that is who He is. He is the God who cares.

Practically what does this look like? It means doing our best to make biblically sound choices now and trusting God with the outcome whether that is now or in eternity to come. This is standing firm in the grace of God.

The Enemy Without

Satan is actively trying to devour you.

Satan’s greatest deception is convincing you that he either:

Doesn’t exist

Get you to live as though he doesn’t exist

Peter warns us to be both sober and alert.

The Devil is very real and he is actively trying to rob God of glory by getting you to follow his plan rather than Gods.

Satan want’s to take God’s place in your life and in so doing he will devour your spiritual usefulness. He will rob you of your joy and contentment in the long run by convincing you to accept fleeting pleasures in the moment.

Satan and your flesh will appeal to your pride more than you know as a means to devour you. Humbling yourself under the care of God is our chief weapon against him.

Satan will flee from those who oppose him in Christ.

James 4:7 “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

Resisting is not something that can be done passively. We are not just avoiding the Devil. As he is actively hostile toward God and us so too are we to be actively opposed to him and his purposes.

How do we resist the Devil? By doing God’s will God’s way.

Read your Bible

Pray

Fellowship with the saints

Evangelize

Worship in spirit and in truth

Love the Lord with all your heart and soul

We are told that Satan will flee from us if we are submissive to God, standing fast in the faith together.

The Omnipotent Ally

Grace enables humility

Humility and grace are in a sense cyclical.

The grace of God enables us to humble ourselves and the more we humble ourselves the more we will recognize our every growing need for grace.

Peter has already stated that when we humble ourselves it is God who will lift us up. v. 10 describes when that takes place.

After we have suffered for a while then the God of grace will lift us up.

Grace enables spiritual victories through sanctification

Restoration

Strengthening

Establishing

God’s grace and our humility glorify God

At the end of all of this it is Christ to whom all the dominions belong

Trust me when I say that you want to be a part of this plan. So pray and ask God to reveal to you the ways in which you need to humble yourself before him.

It is much easier to humble yourself than to be humbled.

The enemy within is strong and the enemy without is even stronger but our ally Jesus Christ is omnipotent. Humble yourself before and let him lift you up that you may be restored, strengthened and established in him. Together we can live for his glory even if we suffer in the here and now for a little while because there is coming a day when his glory will be manifested in such a way that all pain and every tear will be wiped away. And when I think about it like that, He is a God to whom I will willingly bend the knee.