Good evening. If you will, let's
stand together and sing hymn 226 out of the hardback hymn
226. I am not skilled to understand
what God hath willed, what God hath planned. I only know at
His right hand, He is one who is my Savior. I take Him as His Word indeed. Christ died for sinners, this
I read. For in my heart I find a need
of Him to be my Savior. That he should leave his place
on high, And come for a sinful man to die. You counted strange,
so once did I, Before I knew why. Know that He fulfilled, may see,
The travail of His soul in me, And with His Word contented be,
As I with my dear Savior. Yea, living, dying, let me bring
My strength, my solace from this spring, That He who lives to
be my King Be seated. Thank you, Adam. I love the first stanza of that
hymn we just sang. I am not skilled to understand
what God hath willed or what God hath planned. I only know
that at his right hand is one who is my Savior. Let's open our Bibles together
to Psalm 142. Psalm 142. Notice the inscription before verse one is that this
is a prayer of David that he offered when he was in the cave. And this is a reference back
to 1st Samuel chapter 22 when David was hiding from Saul in
the cave of a dulem. And a dulem translated means
justice. And so David is hiding in a cave
waiting for God's justice. And we hide in Christ trusting
that the Lord has satisfied his justice in the sacrifice that
Christ made on the cross. And so this is our cry, just
as David cried in his circumstances We cry in hours. I cried unto
the Lord with my voice. And with my voice unto the Lord
did I make my supplication. I poured out my complaint before
him. I showed before him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed
within me, then Thou knowest my path. In the way wherein I
walked, have they privately laid a snare for me. I looked on my
right hand and behold, there was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me. No man cared
for my soul. I cried unto Thee, O Lord. I
said, Thou art my refuge and my portion. in the land of the
living. Attend unto my cry, for I am
brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors,
for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison,
that I may praise thy name. The righteous shall come pass
me about, for thou shalt deal bountifully with me. Robert had an MRI I think or
a CAT scan Monday and found out today that he has pulmonary fibrosis
And they're trying to figure out what treatments are going
to be best for him for that but actually, they were hoping to
get here tonight, but didn't get finished with the doctor
until late and so they weren't able to get here, but said they
were hoping to be here Sunday. So he's doing better, but he
does have pulmonary fibrosis in one of his lungs. So Jennifer's
home recovering from her treatment on Monday and is having a lot
of nausea as a result of what they put in her body. pray for
Robert and for Jennifer. Let's pray together. Our heavenly
father, we find your comfort and your grace to meet us in
our time of need. And we're so thankful for the
revelation of that work that you've given us in your word
We're thankful that our brother David found you to be sufficient
for his need while in the cave. Lord, we know that you put us
where we are, that we would cry out to thee and find ourselves,
Lord, to be without strength, looking to our right and looking
to our left and having no man to help us. And then you cause
us to look up and find our help. Lord, we are in need of you to
rend the heavens even again tonight. We pray that you would come down
and meet with us. We pray that you would speak
truth and peace and hope and light and reveal yourself to
our hearts. Send your spirit in power, anoint
your word, make it effectual. Lord, we looked in your word
Sunday of the effectual word. Lord, we desire for you to make
it effectual to us tonight. We pray for Robert and ask, Lord,
that you would continue to strengthen his body, enable him to return
and worship and fellowship with us. And we pray for Jennifer,
the same thing, Lord, that your hand of strength and mercy and
healing would be upon her and, Lord, that you would enable us
to fellowship and worship thee together. We ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. We'll stand again and sing from
the spiral hymnal, this time number 32. In Christ we are free. All children of wrath in bondage
and sin We helplessly lay, condemned and unclean God's law in its
infinite justice and wrath Demanded we suffer an eternal death But long before time had ever
begun One stood in our place, God's glorious Son He offered
himself to go live among men And gave his own life to atone
for our sins A great substitute, behold he
has come The price has been paid, the work is all done Christ took
on himself the great load of our sin We poured out his blood
and we put away sin God's justice and law are now
satisfied, and all who believe have been justified. Through faith in the blood of
the Lamb we are free from sin's condemnation, eternally free. Be seated again please. eternally free. There is now,
therefore, no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. The threats of the law are silenced
and we're free, free to worship, free to love, free to forgive
and free to be humbled. That's what we're going to look
at tonight. If you'll open your Bibles with
me to 1 Peter chapter five, 1 Peter chapter five. We saw last Wednesday
night in the first four verses of this chapter, the duties and
responsibilities of the elder. And we were especially encouraged
to see that Peter identifies himself as a witness of the sufferings
of Christ. And as a witness of the sufferings
of Christ, that's what gave him the hope of knowing that he would
partake in the glory of Christ that was to be revealed in heaven. And that is the prerequisite,
the prerequisite for having the hope of partaking in the glory
of Christ for all eternity is to be a witness to his suffering. Not that he suffered, but why
he suffered. To have the spirit of God take
the effectual word of God and give us the faith to rest our
hope in the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who
put away all the sins of his people, satisfied God's justice,
and established our righteousness in himself. That's what it is
to be a witness of the sufferings of Christ. And those who are
witnesses to his suffering have the hope of knowing that they
will be partakers of his glory. Now in verse five, the Lord turns
our attention away from the elder, the pastor, the bishops, those
who lead as God's under shepherds, and he addresses the younger
and the entire congregation and encourages us, admonishes us
to humility. Let's read the next three verses.
Likewise, in the same manner in which these elders have duties
and responsibilities, and in the same way in which these elders
are witnesses to the sufferings of Christ and therefore have
the hope of partaking in his glory, likewise, ye younger submit
yourself unto the elder. Yea, All of you be subject to
one another and be clothed with humility for God resisted the
proud and giveth grace to the humble. Grace to the humble is
the title of this message. Casting, I'm sorry, verse six,
humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he
may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him, for he
careth for you. True humility is a work of grace
in the heart performed by God. Men can pretend to be humble. They can put on an outward appearance
of religious piety and false humility, but men can see through
that. And I'm certain that God can.
I don't want anything to do with that sort of humility. I want
a genuine God-given humility that is in the heart. It's not natural
to us. What's natural to us is to be
proud, self-righteous, arrogant, independent. Humility is the result of having
been humbled. Just like the ability to forgive
is the result of having been forgiven, the ability to love
is the result of being loved. The ability to be merciful is
the result of having received mercy. And so it is with humility,
true God-given humility is the result of having been humbled,
humbled before God. So the Lord's telling us here,
all of you be subject one to another, be clothed with humility
for God resisted the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.
You see, these things are from grace to grace. We receive them by grace and
we live in them by grace. We don't see humility and meekness
in ourselves. We look to ourselves, we see
so much. We see so much pride and self-righteousness
and fear, unbelief. We don't see humility in ourselves. A man believes himself to be
humble, he's not. A man pretends to be humble,
he knows nothing of the humility that comes from God as a result
of being humbled. We see humility in our brethren.
We see the beauty of it. We love it. We desire it. We want to be humble. But as
soon as we try to find humility in ourselves, we see nothing but our pride
and lack of humility. It is the way we want to be, and we certainly don't want to
manufacture some outward appearance of false humility. That all having been said, look
with me to our text again. Be clothed with humility. For God resists the proud and
gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore,
unto the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due
time, casting all of your care upon him, for he careth for you.
Let's just look at that last verse. The only person that you would
cast your care upon is a person who cares for you. A person who's
not interested in you or a person who has no sympathy for you,
you wouldn't cast your care upon him. You cast your care upon
the one who cares for you. How do I know that he cares for
me? Well, the Lord tells us in this
verse, he gives grace to the humble. He cares for those who
cannot care for themselves. And though we don't want to present
a false humility, and though when we try to look for humility
in our own hearts, we find nothing but pride and self-righteousness
and unbelief, There is a sense in which the child of God can
see themselves as humble if we understand that humility is our
inability to care for ourselves. You see, Lord, I can't have faith
if you don't give it to me. I can't care for myself. I can't
believe God unless you do a work of grace in my heart. That's
humility. And the opposite of that is for
a man to think that he can drum up faith or that he can make
a decision or that he can pray a prayer that would obligate
God to save him. That's the opposite of humility. So I would ask you as I ask myself,
are you humble? If it means that I can't have
faith, if God doesn't give it to me, yeah. Yeah, I've got to
cast myself upon him who cares for me because I can't care for
myself. I can't drum up repentance. I can't change my mind and change
my heart and I can't feel sorrow for my sin and I can't resist
the devil. God doesn't give me these things.
I can't do it. I can't do it. I must cast myself
upon him who cares for me because I cannot care for myself. That's
humility in the context of what we're looking at here. That's
God-given humility. Only by grace will we ever see
ourselves as unable to believe and unable to repent aside from
the grace of God. God gives grace to the humble. Lord, I've got to cast myself
upon you who cares for me because I can't produce a righteousness
that would be acceptable to thee. Lord, I can't care for myself
in terms of offering up to you anything that would be acceptable
in thy sight. I must cast myself upon you and
upon Christ for my righteousness. I have no righteousness outside
of Christ. Everything about me is sinful.
Everything about me falls short of your glory. That's humility. So if these
things describe you, then you're clothing yourself in humility
and you're humbling yourself before the hand of a mighty God,
casting yourself upon Him who cares for you. Because you've
got no place else to go. Lord, I won't know anything about
the love of Christ if you don't give it to me. If you don't do a work of grace
in my heart and cause me to set my affections on things above
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, if you don't
give me the grace to have a taste of your love for me, I'll never
be able to love you back. And I'll never be able to love
people. And I'll never be able to love your word and love your
gospel. Lord, I'm dependent upon you
to care for me. I can't manufacture love. That's
humility. Lord, I can't, I can't manufacture
humility if you don't give it to me. Anything
I pretend to come up with is just gonna be a self-gratifying,
self-righteous religious piety, it's not gonna be God-given humility. Lord, I can't atone for my sins. I can't atone for one of my sins.
I must cast myself upon him who cares for me. I must humble myself
under the mighty hand of God. that I might find grace in my
help of need. God, I've got nothing that would
recommend me to thee. I can't come into thy presence. I can't walk into the presence
of a holy God. Lord, I must cast myself upon
thee. and trust that you care for me
because I can't care for myself. I can't care for myself. Lord, I can't. This is life eternal
that they might know thee the only true God in Jesus Christ
whom thou hast sent, but I can't know God unless you reveal himself
to me. I can't know God. I don't have the capacity to
know God. I don't have the ability to know
him. And yet, in casting myself on him who cares for me, I can
say, I know whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day. I'm not able. That is humility. And you see, these are the evidences
of grace that the natural man will never come to. He'll believe that he's got some
contribution to make. to his righteousness, to his
repentance, to his faith, to his love, to his ability to know
God, he's got something that he can offer. And when God gives
us grace, we realize, I've got to cast all my care upon him. Because if he doesn't care for
me, I have no way to care for myself. That's faith. Lord, to whom shall we go? To
whom shall we go? The Lord said, aren't you going
to leave? Everybody else is leaving. Why
don't you go with them? To whom shall we go? Thou alone has the
words of eternal life. We believe and sure that thou
art the Christ, the son of the living God. Lord, you have shut
us up to yourself. That is humility. humbling yourself
under the mighty hand of God. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
five. Have you ever heard the Beatitudes
referred to as the attitudes that ought to be? That's the
way we used to define them in religion. These are the attitudes
that ought to be. Let us develop these attitudes
and then we'll be blessed. That's what we thought. If we
could manufacture these attitudes, then we could obligate God to
bless us for what we now have. That is just the opposite of
what the Lord is saying in Matthew chapter five. What the Lord is
saying is the blessing is the attitude. You don't get blessed
because you have this attitude. If you have this attitude, it's
because you've been blessed. What are these attitudes? Well,
look at the first one, verse three, blessed are the poor in
spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Poverty stricken, that's what
that word poor means. I don't have two red cents to
rub together. I've got nothing. I'm a naked
beggar before God. I have nothing to offer him.
I'm completely dependent upon him to clothe me and to give
to me all of my blessings by grace. Left to myself, poor in
spirit. Look at the second one, verse
four. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Well, if I can just mourn enough, if I can feel sorry enough, if
I can be repentant enough, then God will bless me. Oh no, no. The mourning over sin is the
blessing. It is the blessing. It is the
work of grace. And what is the promise here?
They shall be comforted. So the Spirit of God makes us
to be sinners, and that is the blessing. And we acknowledge
our poverty before God. We have no righteousness. We can't justify ourselves. We
have nothing to offer. We're completely dependent upon
his grace. We're humbled. in the presence
of God, and the hope of that is that that's the necessity
for the kingdom of God. Christ came to save sinners.
That's who he came to save. He has to make us a sinner, and
that's what he does when he saves us. Blessed are they that mourn.
The spirit of God has to give us a desire for Christ, a mourning
after him, Zechariah chapter 12, they will
mourn after him as one mourneth after his only son. And when
the spirit of grace and supplication is poured out upon the house
of Israel, upon the children, upon the sons of David, that'll
be the result of that. This is humility. And then verse
six, Verse five, I'm sorry. Blessed are the meek, the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth. Everything in the earth will
be subject to them. Now, I'm I'm comparing meekness
with humility because they're both the same thing here. Sometimes
we might refer to a person who's extremely insecure, a person
who's shy, or a person who's weak, or a person who's an extreme
introvert as a very meek person, but that is not what the word
meekness means. Meekness is not weakness. It is a gentleness of spirit,
it is a mild disposition. Here's what the Lord said in
Matthew 11, verse 28. Come unto me, all ye that labor,
we're laboring to establish a righteousness, we're laboring to get to heaven,
we're laboring to, to, to, to, produce something that would
atone for our sins, we're laboring to know God. And yet we wanna know the God
who we assume is not the God who, no man seeketh after God
at any time. If we're to know God, he's gonna
have to reveal himself to us. And so the Lord says, all you
that labor and are heavy laden. There's a whole lot of people
laboring in religion, trying to earn their salvation. But
there are very few that are heavy laden. Heavy laden means that
your labor has crushed you. You've labored to the point to
where you can't labor anymore. The weight is too heavy. You
are heavy laden. You see, the religious and the
self-righteous and the proud, they just keep laboring, thinking
that at some point I'm gonna labor enough to where God's gonna
reward me for my labor. But when God makes you to be
a sinner, then your labor becomes, the weight of sin becomes so
strong and the Spirit of God shows you, you can't fix this
problem. You can't care for yourself.
You can't save yourself. You must humble yourself before
the mighty hand of God and you must cast yourself upon him who
cares for you. And that's exactly what our Lord's
saying here. All you that labor and are heavy laden, come unto
me. Come unto me. I will give you
rest. That which you're trying to achieve
by your labors, you can't get there. This is what it is to humble
yourself under the mighty hand of God. I will give you rest. Take my
yoke upon you and learn of me. I labored and bore the weight
of your sin, and I put it away by the sacrifice of myself once
and for all. Take my yoke upon you, for my
yoke is easy. It wasn't easy for me, but it's
easy now. It's easy now because the price
has been paid and sin's been put away. And so get in the yoke. This is a double yoke here. And the Lord has bore the burden
of the yoke and he's saying, come on and get in the yoke with
me. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. You're gonna find rest for your
soul. Rest for your soul. Humbling yourself, being meek. Being meek means that we are depending and trusting in and
relying upon and rejoicing in Christ. I said earlier, you know, we
sometimes look at a person who's very introvert and very weak
in personality and say, well, that's a meek person. Meekness is Spiritually speaking,
I was identifying somebody in a physical sense, but meekness
is spiritually speaking, total weakness. When we were yet without
strength, Christ in due time died for the ungodly. So we're,
this is what meekness is. This is what humility is. It's
coming before God. It is to believe. that our God
controls everything, everything. And he does it all according
to his purpose. He does it all for our good.
And it's resting in that, it's relying upon him for that. And
I believe that's what the Lord meant when he said, the meek
shall inherit the earth. In other words, whatever's happening
in the world, in the large scheme of things or in the particular
events of your life. Whatever's happening in the world,
meekness is able to say, humility is able to say, my father owns
that and he's in control of it. And there's no reason, there's
no reason for me to worry about it. There's no reason for me
to be disquieted. There's no reason for me to be
anxious. There's no reason for me to be angry. There's no reason
for that. My father's in control. He's
in charge. That's what it means to inherit
the earth. Nothing in this world, nothing in this world can cause
a meek and quiet spirit, which is of great price, the scripture
says. before God, paid for with a great
price, the precious blood of Christ, a meek and quiet spirit
before God. Nothing in this world can disrupt
it. And so the Lord says, clothe
yourself with humility, humble yourself under the mighty hand
of God. Is that a one-time thing that we do? Obviously not, why? Because we are disquieted and
we are anxious and we are fearful and we do get angry over our
circumstances. And as soon as we do, we must
humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God again and be reminded,
now wait a minute, my father owns that. My heavenly father
owns that, he's in control of that. He's ordered that and purposed
that. And he has nothing for me but
good. Let's look at a passage of scripture
that we've looked at before, but it's so glorious. Philippians chapter four. Is this not humility? Does God
not use the The sinful responses that we
have to His providence to humble us again and again and again
and again, and to make us meek again and again and again and
again. How often does this have to happen? Every day, many times a day. The Lord knows how to humble
His children. He knows how to make them meek. He knows how
to cause them to be dependent upon him for everything. Philippians
chapter 4, look with me at verse 4, rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice. Now
there's, you know, meekness is not being fatalistic. Meekness is not just, well, you
know what, we'll be, we'll be, and we're just, you know, we're
just going to resign ourselves to the circumstances as they
are. That's not meekness. Muslims do that. They believe
in the, they've got a doctrine of God's sovereignty and God's
power, Allah, you know. It's not resigning yourself to
those things. And it's not, it's rejoicing. It's resting in Christ. It's being brought again to that
place where we're able to say, Lord, you own this. You said
the meek would inherit the earth. This is all yours. I'm casting myself upon your
care because I cannot care for myself. Let your moderation. Meekness doesn't have extreme
responses to circumstances, whether it be, you know, extreme emotional
jubilance or extreme emotional anger. No, meekness, the Lord
said moderation in all things. Why? Well, he tells us why. The Lord's at hand. My father's doing this. My father's
in control of this. He's given me a meek spirit to
know that he's over all things. And this is what it is to inherit
the earth. Be careful for nothing. Now, the world's philosophy is,
you know, don't worry, be happy. God doesn't say that. Be careful
for nothing does mean don't worry. But look what the Lord says.
He doesn't say don't worry, be happy. He says, be careful for
nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving, let your requests be known to the God. Prayer and thanksgiving. Lord,
you're gonna have to supply me with what I cannot supply for
myself. This is humility. Humility prays. How oftentimes
we, you know, take control of things and we don't pray and
the Lord lets us fall flat on our face, doesn't he? Now here's the verse I want you
to see. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Now I used
to think that that verse meant that the peace of God can't really
be understood. The peace of God passeth understanding. Understanding can't grasp the
peace of God. But that's not what that word
passeth means. The word passeth here means excels or is better
than. Why do we get anxious? Why do
we get proud? Why do we, you know, get, we're
not moderate as we ought. We're not humble as we ought.
We're not meek as we ought. Why? Because we don't understand
what's happening and we're trying to get control of our circumstances
so that we can be in charge. And here's what the Lord's saying. Let your request be known to
God. Let your moderation be known to all men. Humble yourself before
the mighty hand of God. For the peace of God, which will
keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus, is better than understanding. You see that? How much effort and how much
suffering we cause trying to understand and control our circumstances. And here's what the Lord's saying.
The peace of God is better than what you're trying to get. You're
trying to get control of everything so that you can, you know, peace of God's better. Humility. before God, meekness
before God. Looking to Him for all of your
needs and casting your care upon Him who cares for you is better
than you trying to understand what you can't understand anyway.
If you get any understanding at all, it's just gonna be a
little bit. It's the first line of that hymn
you led us in, Adam, earlier. These things are beyond our understanding.
What God is doing, who can know? Who can tell? Who can tell what
the hand of God's doing? Maybe the Lord's bringing all
this thing to an end right now. We don't know what God's doing. Go back over into our text. Let's
just read these verses one more time. I know that whatever God is doing,
it's good, it's right, it's best. And that he's doing it. Whatever's
happening, God's doing it. No question about that. Nothing
outside of his control. And I know that my heavenly father
does what he does because he loves me. Likewise, ye younger, verse five, submit yourself unto the elder
Yea, all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with
humility, for God resists the proud. When do we lose sight of God?
When do we lose our peace of God? When do we lose our comfort,
our joy? When pride takes place of humility,
when we Try to take control of things rather than trusting him
who's in control. He gives grace to the humble. And he gives grace to be humble. Humble yourself therefore into
the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time. And that doesn't mean you're
going to get a raise or you're going to get a promotion or you're
going to get a better house. Being exalted in due time may
not come in this world, but we know one day it's going to come. One day we're going to see him
in the fullness of his glory. One day we're going to hear him
say, enter into the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the earth. Well done, my good and faithful servant. Humbled before the mighty hand
of God. Exalted. Oh, there's no place
of exaltation higher than that. Casting all your care upon him. Why? Because you can't care for
yourself. He cares for you. Our heavenly father, thank you
for your word. Forgive us Lord for our pride and self-righteousness
and unbelief. Thank you for the spirit of grace
that causes us to be humbled under the mighty hand of God. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 24, 224, 224. I know not why God's wondrous
grace to me he hath made known, nor why unworthy Christ in love
redeemed me for his own. I know whom I have believed and
am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. I know not how this saving faith
to me He did impart, For how believing in His Word
Brought peace within my heart But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded That He is able to keep that which I've permitted
Unto Him against that I know not how the Spirit moves
Convincing men of sin Revealing Jesus through the Word Creating
faith in Him But I know whom I have believed in And am persuaded
that He is able To keep that which I've committed Unto Him
against that day I know not what of good or ill May be reserved
for me A weary laser golden rays Before His face I see But I know whom I have believed
in And am persuaded that he is able To keep that which I've
committed Unto him against that day I know not when I or they
come At night or noon, day or day Or if I'll walk the veil
with him Or meet him in the air But I know whom I have believed
in And am persuaded that he is able To keep that which I've
committed unto him