May I please Almighty God to
bless us together this morning as we meditate in His Word. Let
us turn to the first epistle of Peter, chapter 5, and we'll
read verse 10. The first epistle of Peter, chapter
5, and reading verse 10. But the God of all grace have
called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have
suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle
you. It is a great and wonderful blessing
that we have a great God who is, as we have here, the God
of all grace, who is the God of all free unmerited favour
that any of us receive. It is a wonderful blessing to
think that we today, as small, insignificant People, adults,
boys and girls, are all subject to this free unmerited favour
of Almighty God. And it will be a great blessing
for us today if you and I can look in our little lives and
recognise that we are a partaker of the grace of God. all men in one sense are partakers
of it but it would be a great blessing if you and I have the
testimony through the blessed work of the Holy Spirit that
this favour has come to us with regards to our eternal state
with regard to the condition of our eternal soul, because
then that which follows will be true, who hath called us unto
his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. Well, just before we really consider
this 10th verse, let me just for a moment just drop back to
the previous verses, because this 10th verse does begin with
this word, and therefore it really has some reference to those verses
which are past and the Apostle Peter here gives very good direction
to us as he did to the people in the age in which he lived
and in verse 6 down to verse 9 we're told humble yourselves
therefore under the mighty hand of God Well, it'll be a blessing
for us to realize that there is a God who has a mighty hand. You know, if we look around today,
when this virus first showed itself, we preached from that,
considering that the finger of God, and it was indeed, and it
is the finger of God, which has been upon our nation, upon the
nations of the earth. But now we have a statement here,
humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God. What a blessing to realise that
God's hand is over us and that we are under the mighty hand
of God. And as Peter says, humble yourselves
therefore under the mighty hand of God. that He may exhort you
in due time. That means that you and I are
to acknowledge that we are under this great hand of Almighty God
and that therefore this mighty hand of God does control us. I suppose we like to think that
we can please ourselves and do what we want to do. we may think
in one sense we can but in another sense we cannot because God controls
us and you may have plans in your lives for tomorrow we may
all have plans in our lives tomorrow and the Lord may permit them
to come to pass and he may not permit them to come to pass and
we are therefore to recognise that we have a great God who
is one who controls us in every single thought, word or action. What a blessing, therefore, to
recognise it. And the Apostle goes on to say
that he may exhort you in due time. And if the Lord gives us
grace, which it is, free unmerited favour to acknowledge that this
is the hand of God in our lives, and therefore to humble ourselves. Sometimes we may not be very
happy about the path the Lord directs us in, and we may get
a bit jumpy about it, and we might be a bit upset about it,
and we may wish it would change. But God has control of our lives,
and we should always desire to bow down before it. And in that situation, what does
the apostle say? Casting all your care upon him. God knows all about us. God knows
our condition. He knows our situation. And we
are therefore to come in this way and to cast all our care
upon our God. You know, casting is really to
throw something, isn't it? And we are therefore to cast
all our care upon God. for everything, he doesn't say
we're just in this thing and just in that thing and that thing's
big and that thing's small and that needs it and that doesn't
he tells us here casting all all our care everything you young
people in your school days and in your college days and in your
exams and in your lessons and in your leisure time and the
things that you do you are to come and to cast all your care
upon God, not upon anyone else, and not to forget to do this. This is a gracious command from
Almighty God, casting all your care upon God. And then he tells
us his glorious reason, for he cares for you. And if the Holy
Spirit shows to us that this great, eternal, almighty God
cares for us. How very, very humbling it should
be to humble ourselves, therefore, under his mighty hand and to
desire that we may continually receive this grace to come in
our lives, in every detail, to cast all our care upon him. And
he goes on then to instruct us further. in our lives. Isn't it wonderful that God gives
us such wonderful instruction in the Word of God? And you know,
often we read it. We read it this morning. It may
have passed over our heads. We may have just read it. But
here is the Word of God to you and to me. And so he says, be
sober, be vigilant, vigilant in our lives, in all that we
do, in all that we think, in all that we say. We are to be
vigilant. We are to be sober in our thoughts,
in our statements, in our actions. Be sober, be vigilant. And then there's a warning, a
warning to remind us, because your adversary, how little we
perhaps recognize that we do have an adversary. An adversary
is someone who is against us. who is trying to stop us doing
those things which are right and to follow the things which
are wrong. And we're told who this adversary is. It's the devil
himself. Who is the devil? It's the devil
who fought against the angels in heaven before time began. Yes, fought with Michael and
his angels. There's a number of names for the devil. But here we have it very clearly,
he is a devil. And what does he do? In this
world today, as he's always done, as he did in the days of Adam
and Eve, and he will do right down to when time will be no
more, he goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour my
friends the devil wants to devour you and me so that we have no
hope so they have no prayer so that our souls are lost and we
end up spending eternity in hell that's what the devil's aim is
and let us never be under any false impression that it's anything
less than this. And that's why we have this very
strong statement. He goes about, the devil, as
a roaring lion, walking about, seeking whom he may devour. And
therefore, let us never underestimate his attention he gives to us,
the power he has. Let us never think that he is
something that we can ignore, We cannot ignore the devil. And that's why we are to cast
all our care upon God. Praying to God that he will keep
us in our lives day by day. And so the apostle comes and
tells us this. Whom resist steadfast in the
faith. We are to resist the temptations
of Satan. You know, Satan tempts us. We
might say every moment of our life. He's always ready to jump
at opportunity. The devil can create conditions
that bring us into these times of temptation. And therefore
we are to steadfastly resist his temptations. And those temptations
are in our thoughts, they are in our words, they are in our
actions and deeds. And we are to therefore seek,
we are to be vigilant in praying that the Lord will enable us
to be steadfast in the faith. That means in the hope to believe
the Lord will be with us and will enable us to do those things
which are right with their gracious words, my friends here of instruction
and warning to the whole Church of God. And let us take them
on board this morning. And he comes to say these are
accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. We all
suffer from this battle with the devil and we are all warned
about it. So, having just given this little
introduction, then you see the Apostle goes on to say, but the
God of all grace. And I suppose we should just
remember, and especially you young people who realise, that
these words were written by the Apostle Peter. And I hope you
know what happened to the Apostle Peter, because he thought he
was a strong character. And the Lord warned him about
doing those things which were wrong. He warned Peter that he
would deny the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet Peter rebuffed the words
of the Saviour and said he wouldn't. In actual fact, he would even
give his life for the Saviour and he would never deny him.
And yet, you see, in just a few hours, he was not only just denying
the Lord with perhaps turning his head the other way, but with
oaths and curses. He couldn't have gone any further.
And so there we see the, we might term it a tragic example, but
we should be thankful we have an example like that as the Apostle
Peter. And yet we know that God was
very gracious and very merciful to the Apostle Peter. And what
a blessing for us today, if God is very gracious and merciful
to us. And so, we have these words then,
but the God of all grace. And Peter knew the grace of God. And my friends, may you and I
today know the grace of God. May we have a very clear evidence
of it in our lives. and the evidence of it in our
lives is the work of the Holy Spirit within us. And that is
indeed a very great and blessed and glorious evidence of the
life of God in our souls. And surely we do want to have
the evidence that you and I possess the grace of God, the favour
of God toward us, to strengthen us, to enable us to do those
things which we've already read to you, casting all our care
upon Him, being vigilant against the devil because he walks about,
and to resist him steadfastly in the faith. All these things
are set before us. What a blessing it is, therefore,
if the Holy Spirit enables us to seek after these blessings
and to recognise the God of all grace. Well, there are many,
many words in the Word of God with regard to the grace of God,
and perhaps one of the best and most well known is the words
that the Apostle Paul spoke to the church at Ephesus in the
second chapter, we come down to the eighth verse when he tells
us, for by grace are ye saved. If you and I are to have our
souls saved from going to hell, it is by the grace of God. It is by his favor toward us
in coming to us and showing to us that He has saved us. And in saving us, what has He
done? He's taken away our sin. He's come into this sinful world
to die for us. We may have failed. We may recognize,
if we read down these descriptions, that we are a failure. We're
a sinful failure. Indeed, it's a blessing when
God shows us that. We can't claim that we're a great
person and we've done this and we've done that. It's a good
thing when the Lord shows us that we are failures and that
we're not able, just like Peter, to keep ourselves. We're not
able in and of ourselves to do things, even if we are perhaps
very sincere. We are dependent. upon the grace
of God. And so that's why the Apostle
Paul was able to write also in this way. The Apostle Paul knew
the favor of God to him because he'd been such an enemy to God. You know, you and I, by nature,
we are enemies to God. And I wonder today if you and
I are an enemy to God. You may say, well, I don't think
I am. Well, I hope you're not. But
you may be and you may not appreciate you are. You see, the Apostle
Paul, he thought he was doing God's service. What was he doing? He was condemning the Church
of God. He was speaking against the Church
of God. But God looked upon him and God
called him. And God spoke to him and God
poured forth His grace into his heart. And that's why therefore
the Apostle is able to write in such a positive way. And it would be a great blessing
for us today if the Lord speaks to us in a positive way and shows
us our weakness, our sinful propensity. That means that we have a condition
that goes after sinful things, a propensity to sin. And yet
God, in his love and mercy toward us, has blessed us with his grace,
his unmerited favour, so that we can say tonight, yes, or this
morning, by God's grace, I am saved. What a mercy it is. And you and I need to be there.
We need to know God's grace. We need to know that we are saved.
And it is only through God's grace, and the apostle goes on
to say, through faith. He's given us faith to believe. And that none of ourselves, it
is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We
are very sinful. And if we had ability to save
our souls, we would boast about it. crow perhaps over other people
and say well I've done this and I've done that well the grace
of God shows us that we have no ability to save ourselves
but we're thankful therefore for the grace of God but the
God of all grace and it is by grace therefore that we are saved
through faith that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. Well, says the Apostle, for we
are his workmanship. Well, just think of that, put
that in the back of your mind, that we are his workmanship,
as we carry on with the comments in this verse. To think that
it's God's work in our hearts that has produced a change, that
it's God's work in our hearts that produces that desire to
pray unto him, a desire to come and to confess our sins, a desire
to plead for his mercy. It's his workmanship by the Holy
Spirit in our hearts. It's not something that you and
I have produced at all. but the God of all grace. So with workmanship and grace
before us, to realise here what the apostle says, who hath, this
God of all grace, this glorious God, who has caused his grace
to come upon us, who hath called us, called us, It's a wonderful
thing to know that God comes and calls his people and he calls
his people. And what a wonderful blessing
it is when you and I have heard God calling us. You may say,
well, I don't think I've ever heard God call me. Well, Perhaps
not in a very clear voice, as it were, but it may be the Lord
has called us in this way. He's touched our heart to think
about the things of God. He's touched our heart to think
where we shall spend eternity. He's touched our heart to show
us that we are a sinner. that we've offended God, that
we've disobeyed God, that we've turned to our own way, we're
relying upon our own strength. Yes, and therefore we may not
have realised that God in fact has, or perhaps God is, speaking
to us. The Apostle Paul is able to tell
us And when he wrote to the Ephesians in the first chapter of the 15th
verse, this is what he tells us. But when it pleased God,
you see, it did please God to call the apostle Paul. What a
mercy if you and I in our lives have the evidence that it pleased
God who separated us as the Apostle
separated me from my mother's womb. He was a separated person. And it's by God's grace that
you and I are separated. We are called by the grace of
God, through his mercy, through his love toward us. We are a
separated people. The Lord is preparing us for
our eternal home. Well, the apostle tells us who
called me by his grace. He was able to say that. And
every one of the children of God are able to say it called
by his grace. Well, let us look carefully into
our hearts to see whether God has called us when He's brought
to our attention our need, our sinfulness, and directed us then
to none other than the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. But the
God of all grace, who has called us, and He tells us what it's
to. God hasn't just called us for
no reason. The Apostle spells it out here
very wonderfully. It's called us unto his eternal
glory by Christ Jesus. Called us unto his eternal glory
by Christ Jesus. So two things here. It is by Christ Jesus. and we shall be brought to His
eternal glory. To spend eternity, not in hell,
as our sins deserve, but by His grace, by His free unmerited
favour, to spend eternity in glory. And it's being brought
about by Christ Jesus has been brought about by his wonderful
work that he did upon this earth in doing his father's will, in
becoming a curse for us, in bearing our sins, in taking our sins
away. And the price that was required
to do that was his life. And the evidence his life was
given was by his shed blood, the atoning blood of the Saviour. So this morning, what a great
mercy. If you and I can enter in to
something of the truth of these words, that it's by God's grace
He's called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, the blessed
God Himself. How condescending of Almighty
God to look upon sinful wretches like you and me, deserving endless
hell, but are saved by His grace. who hath called us unto his eternal
glory. Oh, my friends, the eternal glory. Do we indeed rejoice at such
a wonderful prospect as that is? You know, the Apostle, in
the first chapter of his epistle, he speaks to us and He tells
us his verses, which are probably familiar. I often quote them
because they're so wonderful and so glorious. He tells us,
commencing in the third verse in the first chapter, Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. What a mercy.
The Apostle Peter could say, Blessed be God. And when the
Lord shows to us his grace and mercy and love toward us, It
is then that we say also, Blessed be God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten
us again. That means we've been born again unto a lively hope. That means
a hope which is alive forevermore. It's not a dead hope, it's a
good hope, alive forevermore. By the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, the Lord Jesus rose from the dead a conqueror.
He conquered hell and death for us who are kept by the power
of God through faith. What a mercy if we've been kept,
we may have been left sometimes to fall, but what a mercy if
we've been kept through faith, under salvation, ready to be
revealed in the last time. Well, that's when we pass out
of time into eternity or when the Lord returns in all his glory. Wherein ye greatly rejoice. It's a reason, is it not, to
greatly rejoice. Well, I hope today that you and
I have greatly rejoiced. What is this? It's the work of
the Spirit. What is it? It's the evidence
of God's grace toward us when we greatly rejoice. What a mercy if you and I have
had a time in our life when we greatly rejoiced And he goes
on to say, though now for a season, if need be, you're in heaviness
through manifold temptations. Yeah, there are temptations.
There are times when the Lord brings us low, but nonetheless,
what a blessing if you and I can remember the time or times. And
may we earnestly seek after it, covet earnestly the best gifts
that you and I might greatly rejoice that the trial of your
faith, being much more precious than the gold that perishes,
though it be tried with fire, might be found under praise and
honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having
not seen ye love, yet though now ye see him not, yet believing,
ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. These are very precious words,
they're very real words, which are attributable and applicable
to the true Church of God, who have been the possessors of the
wonderful work of grace within, and are possessors, therefore,
of this grace, who have been called unto His eternal glory
by Christ Jesus. And then he just gives us a little
background to this. To not expect that you and I
are going to roll on day by day, walking along in wonderful glory
and wonder. But no, the Lord tells us this. After you have suffered a while,
yes, our life on this earth is one of suffering. It's one of
suffering. The Lord brings us in the times
of suffering. And the reason for that is to
cause us to pray unto God, to cause us to seek unto God, and
to recognize that this blessed work of God creates in us the
evidence of His work, the evidence of His mercy, the evidence of
His wonderful blessing towards us. And in the second epistle
of Paul to the Corinthians, the Apostle tells us, he says this,
verse 11, for we which live are always delivered unto death,
for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest
in our mortal flesh. So then, death worketh in us,
but life in you. We having the same spirit of
faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have
I spoken. We also believe, and therefore
speak. Again, it's good you know when
we recognize the truth of these words, because the apostle is
saying, When God gives us grace to believe, we speak, we're not
silent. It's the evidence of God's work within, his wonderful
grace. Knowing that he which raised
up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, the evidence
of this work within and shall present us with you for all things
are for your sakes. Then the abundant grace The abundant
grace through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory
of God, for which cause we faint not. But though our outward man
perish, our natural man, our life, our natural flesh, doesn't
live forever. It gradually decays. Yet the
inward man, This is the new creature. This is a new life of God. This
is the evident work of the spirit within the inward man. Well, bless God today, if you
and I can look into our hearts and see there a new nature, an
inward man, the work of the spirit. Praise God for it. But though
our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by
day. And then he says, for our light affliction. Light affliction. Here we have this, after you
have suffered a while. Well, the Apostle categorizes
it like this, your light affliction, which is but for a moment. And
he's comparing it, you see, with eternity. Eternity is what it
means, never ends. Our life is but just a fraction,
just a very small bit, if you like, of eternity. It's very
difficult to explain it in that term because in the things of
life we're in time, in the things of eternity there is no time.
So to compare the two is quite difficult. But the reality is
that you and I live today in time, when we die or pass the
Lord returns we shall be out of time into eternity and so
we're told here the light affliction which is but for a moment that
obviously is a time element working for us a far more exceeding an
eternal weight of glory to direct us to the eternal state And we
should always be very concerned about our eternal state. You
know, we're all naturally concerned, aren't we, about our natural
state. But that'll perish, it'll soon
pass away. You young children, you won't
live forever. You won't live forever, you'll
soon die. What a blessing then to have this good and wonderful
hope of eternal life. And to know, therefore, that
there will be, in this life, suffering for a while. But in
this suffering, there is an end in view. And the end in view
is to be that work of the Spirit to perfect us. You know, I never
come to a perfect condition in this life. But the Lord in this
life does bring us to a condition where we are being made ready
to leave this world and to enter into that heavenly state of glory. And you may well say, well, perhaps
you could explain that a little bit. Well, I'll try in this way.
When we're young, generally speaking, we have our life before us, our
career before us, and all the things that we hope will occur,
that we'll get married and have children and have our own homes
and enjoy the things that God has prepared for us and we spend
perhaps our time thinking about these things but the reality
is that all these things will just soon vanish away and the
Lord as he deals with us and as we grow spiritually in the
Word of God classifies it like this. It's a growth in grace. That means that you and I have
a greater knowledge of the unmerited favour of God toward us. It's
a spiritual growth and that spiritual growth leads us more and more
to Christ and more and more to think about and to consider the
end of our life and to ponder the blessing of our eternal state. That would be a very sad thing
if we don't have the evidence of this spiritual growth. We
don't want to be concentrating on the poor things of time. We
should be very thankful for all the things that God has given
us to enjoy. The Lord tells us He's given
these things to enjoy. But my friends, may our heart
be established on heavenly things. And may we see the work of God
within us, turning our hearts, turning our thoughts, calling
our attention more and more to the things of God, and less and
less to the things of time. And this surely is why the Apostle
comes and tells us here, make you perfect. Make you perfect. Well, we should never be perfect
in this life. but we shall be perfect when
we get to glory because there's no sin there therefore there's
nothing to bring about any imperfection everything will be perfect what
a wonderful thing therefore to look forward to and then the
Apostle tells us to not only enjoy this wonderful blessing
but to be established established You know, we can often be moved
about, especially when we're young. Many things, many temptations
can come into our lives. And don't forget, the devil goes
about as a roaring lion. He wants to, you might say, de-establish
us. He wants to move us away from
the truth of God. But what a blessing when the
Holy Spirit does indeed come and bless us with the wonderful
favour and wonderful grace and wonderful mercy. Well, the Apostle
Paul, again, when he writes to the church at Thessalonica, in
the second letter that he writes and in the second chapter, the
end of that chapter, he tells us this. Whereunto he called you by our
gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast
and hold traditions which you have been taught, whether by
word or our epistle. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself
and God, even our Father, which has loved us and has given us
everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your
hearts. and establish you in every good
work, good word and work. What a blessing, therefore, if
the Holy Spirit establishes us, establishes us in the things
of God, so that we're not moved about by every temptation from
Satan, but that we're established in the truth and we know by the
grace of God that we stand upon the rock, the rock Christ Jesus,
that he is our foundation. And we can say humbly, truthfully,
honestly on Christ, the solid rock I stand or other ground
is sinking sand. What a mercy it is then to be
established in the truth. And therefore he says, establish,
strengthen, Well, you and I need to be strengthened, don't we,
in the things of God. What a mercy it is that the Lord
enables us to come to that situation by His grace. And in the third
chapter of the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, we have a little
a little view of this site of strength and he tells us in the
third chapter of the third chapter of the Ephesians and from verse
16 we'll read that he would grant you according to the riches of
his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the
inner man so he's speaking about our spiritual life that He would
grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened
in might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell
in your hearts by faith, ye being rooted and grounded in love. This is a place of strength.
May be able to comprehend, may be able to understand, with all
saints. This is the common privilege
of the Church of God. What is the breadth and length
and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which
passeth knowledge, you might be filled with all the fullness
of God. What a wonderful blessing, my
friends, if that is our lot and our favour. And then the Apostle
also encourages us in the Colossians, rather, first His epistle to
the Colossians in the first chapter, he comes down to verse 23 and
he says this, if ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled,
that means strengthened and established, grounded and settled, and be
not moved away from the hope of the gospel, that good hope,
which I trust you have, that good hope, not moved away from
it, lay hold of it, which ye have heard and which was preached
to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made
a minister. So there we are. We have this
here set before us in this wonderful statement. But the God of all
grace, may we know then the grace of God in our hearts. It's essential. Don't think you can get to heaven
without it. You won't. You need to know God's free unmerited
favor toward you. and you know what his call has
called us God has spoken to us in one way or another unto his
eternal glory by Christ Jesus you have a good hope that through
his grace it's well with your soul and you can look forward
that eternal inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that after
you have suffered a while suffering as you and I pass through this
world many afflictions which by God's grace will bring us
nearer to him make you It's the work of God. It's the Spirit
of God. Perfect, established, strengthen, settle you. And as
the Apostle then says, to Him be glory and dominion for ever
and ever. Amen.