1 Peter 5:5-11
Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Subject: Be humble, watchful, and steadfast.
Compliment: And God will perfect, establish, strengthen, and settles you.
Complete thought: Be humble, watchful, and steadfast; and God will perfect, establish, strengthen, and settles you.
Intro: Have you ever felt depressed, or felt lonely? I know that I do. And I tend to hold everything in. But God reminded me of his faithfulness here in this portion. And as we look through God’s word, my encouragement to you guys is to be reminded of God’s faithfulness in our lives.
I. V.5-7
(ア) Humility - The quality or condition of being humble
① Humble – not proud
(イ) “Be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility”
① Why?
1. “for ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble’” (Prov.3:34)
2. God is our Heavenly Father, who cares about us
(ア) However, if we become prideful and not walking in humility, we are rejecting the God’s kindness.
(イ) God wants to help us in our every situation.
① Everything was made by God, even ourselves
② There is nothing that we can do without the help from God
③ Without God, we are helpless
(ウ) How to be humble?
① “casting all your care upon Him (God)”
1. Because God cares about you.
2. That is God’s love toward us
3. David Guzik “True humility is shown by our ability to cast our care upon God. It is proud presumption to take things into our own worry and care about things that God has promised to take care of.”
II. V.8
(ア) Sober – to be calm and collected in spirit; temperate, dispassionate, circumspect (to be on guard)
(イ) Vigilant – to be cautious, watchful not to fall into sin
① Why?
1. because “your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour”.
2. David Guzik “For Christians, Satan is a lion who may roar but who has been de-fanged at the cross (Colossians 2:15). Yet the sound of his roar - his deceptive lies - is still potent and he has the power to devour souls and rob Christians of effectiveness.”
(ア) Satan’s roar, the deceptive lies, can take our tiny problems that we have and make it look humongous.
① And when we tend to believe in the lies of Satan, fall into his deception, it is possible to lose our effectiveness as Christians.
III. V.9
(ア) What we need to do?
① This is a spiritual warfare, and we need to;
1. Resist him, be steadfast in faith, and know that you are not the only one who are going through this suffering.
(ア) When we are steadfast in our faith, we are able to resist the devils lies, his threats, and his intimidations.
(イ) Chuck Smith “The Bible never tells us to yield to Satan or to give up, but to resist him in the faith (James 4:7).”
(イ) And I know that I do go through this suffering, but as Peter states, I am not the only one who are going through this.
① Like Elijah, when he was fleeing from Jezebel after the great victory at
1. He thought that he was the only one (1 Kings 19:14)
(ア) And he said, "I have been very zealous for the LORD God of hosts; because the children of
2. but God comforted him (1 Kings 19:18)
(ア) "Yet I have reserved seven thousand in
② And I think we all can take comfort by knowing that we are never alone in our spiritual warfare
1. but what is more comforting to know is that every sufferings that we faced or going to face, Jesus went through all of it. (Hebrews 4:14-16)t
IV. V.10-11
(ア) Ultimately God of all grace is the one who “will perfect you, establish you, strengthen you, and settle you”.
① As we walk in this world, we will struggle and suffer, it is not a easy road
1. But as we are in our suffering and in our struggles, God will use that to perfect you, to establish you, to strengthen you, and to settle you.
2. Remember Joseph in Genesis?
(ア) He went through a lot
① Joseph was sold as a slave by his own brothers and also was accused falsely and put into jail
② But God used his suffering and he became the second strongest man in charge of
(イ) And Peter concludes by praising God for his wonderful, great works that he is working in each one’s lives.
V. Conclusion
(ア) Peter stated for us to be humble, to be sober and vigilant, and to be steadfast.
① We show our humility by casting all our cares to God
② There is a necessity to be sober and vigilant because Satan walks like a roaring lion, speaking deceptions and lies
③ And because there is the possibility for us to fall into the deception of Satan, we need to continue to resist the devil and be steadfast in our faith
(イ) And all of this suffering is not in vain
① God will use our suffering to perfect us, establish us, strengthen us, and settle us.
(ウ) And as we can see in the life of Elijah and Joseph, we can trust God to be faithful all the time.
① And I know that I tend to forget his faithfulness, but God is still faithful no matter what happens.
