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April 27, 2003 |
"1 Peter" Series |
Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Standing Firm in God's Promise"
1 Peter 5
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| While visiting a local family this week, I was asked to pray through their home.
As I came into the kitchen the 20 something daughter was there. She has not had a good witness to the faith in her life. The only words have come when the speaker was intoxicated. She has a kind of mocking attitude toward the faith. As I came through the kitchen, on impulse, I placed my hand upon her head and said, ‘And Lord, touch Sarah today, bless her significantly.’ She looked up surprised and said, without any mocking; ‘Thank you.’
A touch had encouraged her.
Peter says at the end of the book his purpose for writing was twofold:
1. Peter wrote to encourage his readers-- I experienced this!
2. Peter wrote to testify to them about the true grace of God available to them, and tells them "Stand Fast in that grace!"
Peter saw that people in all kinds of trials needed to remember the true Grace available to them. We need God's grace. Peter tells us that we will not be receiving His grace if we are trusting in ourselves.
That's why he says: Humble yourselves beneath God's mighty actions of deliverance -- Jesus' cross and resurrection. And walk in humility or service with one another. Then, we will be standing fast in God's grace.
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| I. |
Join me at verse 8 as we hear Peter's last instructions to us. His first command is: | | |
"Be self controlled and alert."
A. These words are fit together by Paul in 1 Thessalonians, and alluded to in multiple places in Scripture. "Be self controlled" is a word that literally means to be sober - don't be intoxicated. Keep your head.
I have been working some with a local man who has frequent bouts with liquor. When he gets drunk, he comes to see me, at all hours. One day he arrived in the middle of one of anna's Piano lessons. The little 7 year old at the piano was shocked at the drunk at our door asking for me. I was at the office. I got a whispered phone call with Anna saying: "Dad, Larry's here. And I have a piano lesson. Grace is talking to him at the door. Can you come, quickly?" I did.
He was sober for a whole week after that until last Friday night. I was so disappointed. It is hard to work against 55 years of alcoholism. It will take a miracle. I am trying to get him to connect with the brethren at AA as well. But the deception of the drink is that feeling of being more powerful when drunk. He is more spiritually verbal when drunk as well, talking about Jesus. The reserve is gone. But the corollary is that he also does not think straight. "I have the Lord powerfully in me," he'll say, "feel my arm." When drunk, Larry staggers down the street. He lacks self-control.
Do you do anything that keeps you from thinking clearly? Do you do anything which hinders your ability to be self controlled?
B. The other thing that Peter says here in the text is to "be alert" or as it is also often translated: be watchful.
"Watch and pray" Jesus told his disciples in the garden. But they fell asleep. "Could you not watch with me for one hour?" He asked them.
A man on "watch" is a man awake. The 16 man guard at Jesus' tomb had to stay awake all night to guard against foul play! If they failed, as the Jewish leaders fabricated, they would be subject to execution.
The church of Sardis addressed in chapter 3 in the book of Revelation is reprimanded for it has fallen asleep. "You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead," Jesus says to them. "Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die…"
In Revelation chapter 16 when Jesus speaks of his 2nd coming, he says, "Behold I come like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake…"
C. God wants us his people to be a sober people -- self controlled, and a watchful people, spiritually alert, aware of spiritual foul play. The reason for this is that there is an enemy, the devil.
Peter uses the imagery of a lion seeking its prey, and says "He is on the prowl, looking for someone to devour." Satan wants to swallow you whole.
I think of the skit we are working on for the Peru mission. We are reenacting the three little pigs. But they do not have pigs so we are making them llamas. Wolves are scarce too, so we have a lion. Gary Gaffney is our roaring lion. He is scary, snarly, angry, and wild! The llamas run one house to the next. We are going to talk about this verse in conclusion.
In the wild the lionesses hunt for the pride in the darkest and coolest hours of the morning. Spiritually the enemy too is prowling around in the dark: either the dark of our own mistaken beliefs or the dark of our sins. The image of a roaring lion is fearful. Lions roar to frighten intruders out of their kingdoms. Satan roars to frighten us out of resisting. A lion's roar can be heard up to 5 miles away. In Peter's experience with the arena in Rome, he had likely heard many roaring lions; roaring with anger in cages waiting to be unleashed upon victims in the Coliseum.
In Luke 22, Jesus said to Peter: "Satan has asked to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that when you return you will strengthen your brothers."
Jesus was letting Peter know, Satan was on the prowl. He wanted to take Peter out, to kill him. But Jesus' prayer modified Satan's request. It says in Scripture that Jesus is always interceding for us. Good thing!
Satan was on the prowl in the dark of Peter's self-confidence and pride. Watch out for the darkness of faulty beliefs.
"And do you still believe?" Father Hadane asked.
"Believe? Yes…. I think so." Caleb answered.
This was the beginning of a conversation between a wise old sage named Father Hadane and a 25 year old main character named Caleb in a book written by Bill Bright and Ted Dekker entitled: "The Man called Blessed."
Father Hadane continues describing Father Matthew, a monk who had raised Caleb, saying: "I knew your father. I have spent my life trying to love God as he loved God. … He was very proud of you, Caleb. He told me once that you had a belief so pure that it put him to shame. That you took Christ at his words, without question." He paused. "I think that you have lost your first love. You have misplaced your belief."
Caleb lowered his head and fought to keep from crying….
"But I do still believe!" He said.
Hadane hesitated and looked deep into him. 'Do you? You believe what?"
"I believe in the power of Christ. I may not be living up to those beliefs, but I do believe."
Father Hadane smiled sympathetically. 'I am going to tell you a few things, Caleb. If you are willing, they will change your life, but you must open your heart."
"My heart is open." Caleb answers.
"We will see. But your beliefs are wrong and so your love is gone…. You say that you may not be living up to your beliefs, but by definition, this is impossible. We always live up or down to our beliefs. Beliefs are the rails which govern our lives. Our trains roll on them whether we like it or not. If your train is not rolling on the set of rails, which you claim are yours, it's because you have diverted your train to another set of rails -- these are your true beliefs now, not the rails you left. Unless you first understand this, you can never find what you seek."
"If I say I believe, but do not follow, then I do not believe at all," Caleb said, more to himself than to Hadane. The brother of Jesus had said that, James.
Hadane nodded once. "It is the greatest misconception in Christianity today. That what you once believed, you will always believe. That to profess is the same as to believe. That a profession made 20 years ago somehow trumps what you really believe today." (endquote) (P 139-140 A Man Called Blessed Bill Bright/Ted Dekker 2002 Wpublishing group, ubp.)
For Caleb then, that prowling lion had devoured him -- leaving him with beliefs not matched by behavior.
For Peter his haughty confidence let him stumble. Within hours of proudly telling Jesus: "I will die with you," he had denied him three times. He was in the mouth of the enemy.
What about for you? How does the enemy try to trip you up. Are you aware of his plans against your life? Are you living at a place beneath what you claim to believe? Test yourself to see if you are in the faith, Paul advises. Be awake to the roaring schemes of the enemy.
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II.
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Let me tell you today, church, although Satan's plans are for your
destruction, God's are far different. |
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Satan planned to destroy Joseph by having the brothers sell him into slavery, but God's plans were through this sin against Joseph to redeem Israel.
Satan's plan was to derail God's plan for redemption through Moses by having Moses kill and bury an Egyptian. But God planned a 40 year period of refining to burn away the self confidence of Moses' military upbringing and forge in him a strength of powerful trust in God.
So, although satan may have plans against you. And I promise you, he does. God's plan is for your life not destruction.
A. So, Peter says: "RESIST" the enemy. Stand against him.
1. Stand in what you know is true rather than the lies flung at you.
2. Stand in the Word of scripture-- if nothing else pick a verse and say it aloud. For me, I read the whole book through those 5 times!
3. Stand in trust in Jesus. Psalm 56:3 says: "When I am afraid, I will trust in you." It does not say, I will never fear!
John and Janet Towne last year were confronted with the cancer diagnosis. They stood their ground. They resisted the enemy who wanted them to fear, to doubt, to give up, to despair. And they encountered all these feelings, but under them all was a stand of faith. They entrusted themselves to God's plan. I wanted God to zap John with an instant healing. They wanted to trust God with His plan for healing. God's plan was better than mine.
Because they stood and trusted, Doctors and nurses were witnesses to the power of God in this healing process. John did better than the other 50 some patients their surgeon was seeing.
B. Why should we resist the enemy? Peter tells us in v 9:
"because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings." (v9)
1. Resist because you are not alone in encountering sufferings
Not being alone is significant. The believer in China is suffering in a different place, but similar kinds of hardships: testing his faith, challenging her trust, asking him to boldly walk out his faith, forcing her to her knees in prayer.
2. And in v 10, Peter tells us another reason to resist Satan is the
promise of God. The God of all grace -- grace enough for all of us is at work. After you have suffered for a little while, He will act. It is the picture that God knows how to restore the years the locusts have eaten. God knows how to redeem what was lost. And God will.
i. God will RESTORE you, Peter writes.
Have you ever broken a bone? When a bone is properly set, this is the word that would be used. IT is restored.
Peter was a fisherman and would have been familiar with this word from that business. For when a net tore and needed to be mended, this was the word used for mending a net.
So when your life gets ripped and torn in the hardship -- God will mend you, making whole what was lacking or wanting.. That's a good reminder. Is there anyone here today who needs mending?
ii. Not only that, but God will make you strong, the NIV says.
-- as firm and solid as granite -- a rock that is formed under extreme pressure.
I grew up climbing granite rocks in Yosemite Valley. Those buggers are hard! I have scraped more than one knee on them. God uses the rigor of suffering to train into us a new toughness of fiber, a staying power. I think of that verse in Romans 5 that tells us suffering produces perseverance.
iii. Then, Peter tell us, God will make you firm.
Meaning God will fill you with strength!
A life with no effort and no discipline becomes flabby. When we went to get Peru shots this week, one of the ones Grace and I had to have went in the flabby part in the back of the arm. The nurse had trouble finding fatty tissue on either of us. That was good news. We have exercised some.
To be filled with strength, is also like a bonfire, which burns hotter when there is a wind. The wind will extinguish a weak flame, but the wind will also fan a strong flame to a still greater blaze.
There is something doubly precious about a faith which has come through pain and sorrow and disappointment and loss, for it is a faith burning more brightly than ever before.
iv. Finally, Peter says, God will make you steadfast. When Mike Durham was building the house behind us, he began by laying in the foundation. We would have considered it a great lack of wisdom if he had built without laying in that foundation.
To be made steadfast means to be founded upon rock. It is to lay in the foundation.
Paul's prayer for the Ephesian Christians is that they "be rooted and established in love" -- that the love of Christ would be their bedrock, their foundation.
Jesus says the house founded upon the rock will stand against the storms, even the roars of the enemy.
So faith that has come through the testing of trial, is faith that has been proved genuine, that is founded upon what cannot be shaken.
God’s goal is to produce more than just a thumbnail sketch through your life. He wants to create a masterpiece. To do so, suffering is an instrument. As you and I stand against the wiles of the devil, God will restore us, and make us strong, firm and steadfast. Hold out for the masterpiece!
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