Sermon Tone Analysis

I Peter 5:1-

We have been focusing on over the last few weeks, this week verse 5 will be our primary focus for our study, however, we need to hear verse 5 and the way it connects to verse 6 to understand the full force of the truth Peter is laying out in this text.

And to see the emphasis we must see at least verse six, which is connected to verse 7 so I figured we might as well read through verse 11.

But here verse 5 and 6 now on their own.

1 Peter 5:5-6

Now what is the focus in these two verses, what is the primary thrust, or proposition of these two verses?

The humility of the believer!

Peter proclaims this truth to two groups, the younger, and then all of you.

He begins verse 5 calling the younger Christians to,

I. Be Submissive to the Elders

5 Likewise,

I exhort…Peter here moves from the elders of the church to....He continues his instruction for the body, how they are to relate to one another.

He has just given the elders instruction on how they are to relate to the flock, now he is about to give the flock instruction on how they are to relate to the elders.

you who are younger,

Peter here is exhorting those in the church who are not as old, not as wise, who don’t have the experience of those who are older.

The word younger pertains to being in the early stages of life, Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000).

A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 669).

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Peter turns from the elders of the church to the younger members of the church.

He has just laid out how the elders should lead the church of God and now calls the younger members to follow the lead of the under-shepherds.

Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000).

A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 669).

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

He calls them to,

be subject to the elders.

Peter calls these younger members to be submissive to, subject, subordinate to and to place themselves under the leadership of the elders.

Why is it the Peter feels the need to write to younger, to call them to submit to the elders?

Is our tendency as younger men and women to naturally buck against the leadership of authority?

What is it about the young that causes them to know so much that they begin to rebel against leadership?

It is not just in Shepherd/Sheep relationships.

Children begin to fight the leadership of their parents.

Young employees often have a hard time submitting to authority at work.

College students often have trouble submitting to leadership in the classroom.

Consider, Paul’s charge to Titus...

Younger men and women often struggle with submitting to authority, because they often struggle with self-control.

If a person lacks self control more than likely they are not going to be one who willing listens to and submits to leadership of the church.

I am going to give you a little bit of my philosophical understanding of why the younger need this exhortation.

Young boys and girls are often taught and exhorted to act in a way that prepares them for manhood and womanhood.

We are taught to act like grown ups and rightly so, we want our children to reach maturity as soon as possible.

Part of the problem is if we don’t teach and model submission, and subjection as part of growing into mature manhood and womanhood, when we come of age, we believe we have got it all together, we believe we know all we need to know pertaining to life and godliness.

This in turn leads to prideful, arrogant, over confident young adults.

I believe this is a charge to us who are older as well.

We don’t only need to teach our children about godly subjection we need to model it ourselves...

Do you think that since Peter only calls out the younger in this text the rest of us are free from submitting to the spiritual leadership of the elders?

The author of Hebrews writes,

Therefore, when we teach our children, our teenagers, and our young adults the Scriptures we need to make sure our words and actions throughout the day don’t discredit our devotional time when we are walking through the Scriptures.

How do we keep from unintentionally teaching that submission to elders is unimportant?

Watch our words…We shouldn’t show disrespect or dishonor to our leaders.

If there is something going on where you have an issue with an elder/pastor - go to them - don’t bare your soul and thoughts in front of the younger.

Watch our walk…We need to ensure we don’t live contrary to the preached Word, especially in front of our children.

This discredits and cuts the authority not only from the elder but from the Word of God he is proclaiming.

We must remember what Peter said in,

If we fail to follow the leadership of those with the responsibility of caring for our souls, and live lives of hypocrisy and slander, the younger who are watching us will more than like model the same lack of disrespect and submission.

Do we model and teach our children to maintain unity, to be sympathetic, to love one another with a tender heart and a humble mind?

Shepherds must have this same heart and mind as they care for the flock.

Dan Doriani explains,

Good leaders are loyal to the whole church, even the people and policies they dislike.

Wise followers yield to the church and its leaders as a whole, even if certain decisions seem flawed.

Jesus loves both sides of us, the beautiful and the ruined.

We can do the same for each other and the church.

This brings us to or second point, Peter turns to the whole body and calls us to,

II.

Be Clothed in Humility.

Clothe yourselves, all of you,

Peter here turn to another metaphor to provide the Christian with how they are to related to one another.

He paints a picture of putting on clothes, covering yourselves, but here he is not speaking of covering ourselves with cotton, but covering ourselves with a specific behavior or attitude.

The Louw-Nida lexicon explains it means, “to make one’s essential characteristic”—whether in relation to brotherly intercourse among Christians or in relation to the attitude to God.

In both cases emphasizes that it determines decisively the religious attitude and conduct of Christians.

This idea of clothing yourself was used to explain the tying on of a servant/slaves uniform or apron.

Get the picture of a servant getting ready to start his work and putting on this white apron type garment with the tie strings in the back, and reaching behind himself to strap on his servants garment.

This garment would have marked who he was and what he was to do.

He would have been recognized as a servant of his master because he had put on this servants garment.

This is the way we are to wear humility.

We must make a conscience effort to clothe ourselves in humility, people ought to recognize that we are servants of the king, servants of our master the Lord Jesus Christ by our humility.

Notice Peter writes, clothe yourselves, we must by the power of the Spirit and the wisdom of the word learn how to dress ourselves in humility.

I love what Albert Martin said here he said,

“You can look like a whipped cur dog on the outside but on the inside have your feathers fanned out like a strutting peacock.”

In other words, we can also try to wear a superficial humility without being humble in heart which is useless.

This exhortation ought to grab out attention because he shifts from the younger to who? all of you,.

Peter here is speaking to the entire church, the younger, the older, the elders, the members, the men and the ladies, the servants and the masters there is no exemption from this call.

all of you,

Peter say’s younger submit to the older, now all of you clothe yourselves, relate to each other how?

with humility toward one another,

Consider what Peter is calling everyone of us to do.

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility towards one another.

What is the first thing you notice about someone when you see them walking towards you?

Their clothes, what they have on, what they are wearing.

Now at a distance it is not as obvious.

When I see one of the ladies walking down the hall,

I see she has on a dress, as she gets closer it is a blue dress, then the closer she get I see it has flowers on it.

When we see another man coming down the hall, we may say he has on a suit, a black suit, with pin stripes.

Our clothing covers us to the point it is what people see most of us.

Therefore, if we are to clothe ourselves in humility toward one another.

This should be one of the first things that we think of one another, the first way we respond to one another, and the attitude by which we recognize one another.

Now I want to take a minute or two and have you give me some signs or attributes of humility.

How do you recognize a humble person?

They listen well

They are slow to speak

They put others interest before their own.

They don’t argue about everything.