I've enjoyed the preaching. I've
enjoyed the fellowship, the food. Y'all have done a very good job. Thank you, Brother John. Thank
you for everything. Y'all's hospitality. I appreciate
it so much. Let's go to 1 Peter 5. If you
read the first four verses, Peter's speaking to the elder,
to the pastor, and he's telling him to feed the flock of God
and take the oversight, willingly, not for filthy lucre of a ready
mind, to be an example to the flock. And he mentions the chief
shepherd. When the chief shepherd shall
appear, you'll receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
Then Lechi starts verse 5. Likewise, Ye younger, submit
yourselves unto the elder. That says that everything he
just said to the elder, he was saying, submit to the chief shepherd. That's how the elder submits
to the chief shepherd. He feeds the flock. He takes
their oversight. He does it willingly, following
the chief shepherd, looking to the Lord. And he says, now likewise,
ye younger, Submit yourselves unto the elder. Now listen to
this. Yea, all of you be subject to one another. Submit to one
another. The key to harmony amongst believers
is submission. You know, when you preach the
gospel, the Lord's going to use His earthen vessel to preach
things that you fail at. He first rebukes you with the
Word before He's going to rebuke His people with it. And these
things you fail at. Think of who's writing this.
The Apostle Peter's writing this. This is a man who on one occasion
was bragging on who's going to be the greatest in heaven. But
he knew what he was talking about because the Lord uses those things
to teach His people the better way is to be subject to one another. Be subject to one another. God
has to give us humility to submit and prefer our brother to be
honored over ourselves. That's what He means. Be kindly
affection one to another with brotherly love in honor preferring
one another. Let each esteem other better
than themselves. Got two believers looking at
the way they're going to do something, and one says, I believe your
way, let's do it your way. Instead of, no, my way is better.
No, let's do it your way. You're right, let's do it your
way. Submission to a brother, though, is first submission to
Christ. This is how we were saved, brethren, was by submission.
The Lord Jesus Christ came down, humbled Himself, took upon Him
the form of a servant, and was obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross. He saved His people by submitting
to the Father in our room instead. You and I can't have righteousness
by doing these things because we fail miserably at these things. But Christ did these things perfectly.
He had perfect submission. And His submission is our salvation. His submission is our righteousness.
What He did in the room instead of His people. If we really believe it's God
working in His church, in you, both to will and do of His good
pleasure. We don't have to try to make something happen, we
can submit. Because doing so, we're submitting
to God who's ruling everything and working everything in the
midst of his people and in the hearts of his people. I want to look at this, what's
involved in this submission to one another. And first of all,
there's going to have to be humility. The Spirit of God has to give
this, has to create this. Secondly, there has to be faith
in Christ. Trust in Christ alone, who's
the head of his people, the head of his church. And then there
has to be some vigilance, some steadfastness. And there has
to be some patience, some patience. Let's begin here, the Spirit
of God calls His people to humility. He says here in verse 5, He says,
1 Peter 5, 5, He says, Yea, all of you be subject one to another,
now listen, and be clothed with humility. For God resisteth the
proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore
under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due
time." That He may exalt you in due time. When he speaks here
of being clothed with humility, it's the same as saying, put
on the new man. Because that's the new man's
created in humility. The new man's Christ in you,
the hope of glory. And this new man, this humbled
man that's been created in his people, is of great value in
God's sight. Go back to 1 Peter 3, and he
says here in verse 3, he's speaking to the women, but he's talking
to all of us once he gets down here to this hidden man of the
heart. But he says, don't let your adorning be the outward.
The adorning of plaiting of the hair and of wearing of gold and
putting on of apparel. And that's a good picture too
what you see in religion. It's all outward. It's an outward
show. It's outward dress. But he says, God looks on the
heart. Look, let it be the hidden man
of the heart. in that which is not corruptible. When a man's born of the Spirit
of God, he's born of incorruptible seed. There's a new man created
in the righteousness and true holiness of Christ. It's a new
man that will be with Christ forever, be with God forever.
In that part, he said, that's not corruptible. That's the ornament
of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great
price. That's what he means when God's
told, when they were calling, he was calling his servant, David. And Jesse brought in all the
big boys, all the big, tall, muscled up fellows, you know.
And the Lord, they kept doing it, kept doing it. Finally, the
Lord told Samuel, don't look on the outward appearance. The
Lord doesn't see like man sees. The Lord's looking on the heart.
He's not looking on the outward. And see, this thing about subjection,
about humility, if we're not careful, we'll get to looking
at the outward and what we see in the outward. And if we start
examining our brother and looking for sin in our brother, you know
what that does? That starts lifting us up in
pride, thinking we're better than him. So we have to remember,
God's looking on the heart that He's created. that He's made. He's looking on His workmanship.
He's not looking on this outward atom nature and this fleshly
nature that nothing but sin and rebellion and death and enmity. He's not looking on that. He's
looking on that new man He's created. That new heart He's
created. We have to be born again of God
to have this Spirit. We can't make this Spirit. We
can't make ourselves humble. A man who talks about humility
or goes around acting like he's humble is the proudest man there
is. You can't create this. God does
it. It's a broken heart. A contrite
heart. Until we're given that, it says
here, God resisted the proud. And that's what we are by nature.
And there's an old man that's in you, an old Pharisee in you
and me that's proud. That's all he is. And God resisted
the proud. Aren't you glad He does? That's
what keeps us from falling away in our pride, in our self-righteousness. God keeps resisting the proud
man. And He gives more grace to the
humble man. He's going to put down the old
man that's proud and selfish and self-righteous and self-exalting,
and while he subdues that old man, he's going to give more
grace to the new man, the humble man. This is going on in one
believer. He's doing this in one believer.
False humility is an external mortification of the body. You
know, taking on a certain posture and a certain ceremony and a
certain look, that's false humility. Our sinful nature loves that. Loves that, loves to mortify
the body. Pride though, will not submit. When we came into this world
proud, rebels against God, we would not submit to God. We came
forth crying out from a heart of death, I will not have this
man reign over me. We would not bow to Christ. We
would not bow to His crown rights. We would not bow to His authority. We would not bow to Him as the
sovereign Lord, as the sovereign Savior, as the only one who could
work out a perfect righteousness for His people and present us
to God. We wanted a part of it. We wanted a glory in it. Pride will not confess sins and
will not confess wrongs. When you take two people and
there's one that is broken hearted, is confessing their wrongs, and
you have another that's saying, yeah, I agree with you, you are
wrong. And I'm right. One of them's proud and one of
them's broken hearted. If there's going to be a union
there and some communion there, they're going to have to be both
broken hearted. When we're all worms, We can't
exalt ourselves over one another. We gotta be made the least before
we can esteem the other as greater. And this is what God's gonna
do. Don't you hate it brethren when that old proud Pharisee
rears his ugly head in you? God alone can bring us down and
He does it by continually reminding us who He is. Making us see who
He is. Holy! Go to Isaiah 6. This is
what had to happen. Isaiah experienced this. Isaiah chapter 6. He said in the year that King
Uzziah died, remember what happened to King Uzziah? He was a good
king until he got lifted up in pride, and then he tried to bypass
the priest and go in, and it's like the same as trying to bypass
Christ. And God made him break out in leprosy, and they separated
him out of the camp, and he died. And Isaiah said, when that happened,
I saw the Lord. I saw the Lord. He says, I saw
him sitting on a throne. I saw him high and lifted up,
and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims. Each one had six wings. With
two, he covered his face. With two, he covered his feet.
With two, he did fly. And one cried unto another, saying,
holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth's full
of his glory. That's what we got to behold.
That's why we come here to this gospel constantly, because what
we're hearing is God is too holy to receive sinners like us. We
have to come in one that is as holy as God is. We have to come
in one that's as righteous as God is. And that one's God's
Son. We're not holy by nature, we're
sinful by nature, and we can't come to God. And when He makes
you see how holy He is, He said there, holy, holy, holy is the
Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory. The posts
of the door moved at the voice of Him that cried, and the house
was filled with smoke. And then said I, woe is me, I'm
undone. I'm a man of unclean lips, and
I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Why do you say
that, Isaiah? For mine eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of hosts. That's what's going to do it.
Same thing happened to the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus.
He's marching along, breathing out slaughter and threatenings
and hates Christ, hates his people. He's going to try to kill every
believer he can come across. And Christ arrested him on the
road to Damascus and put him in the dust. And the next thing
you know, he went from being this proud rebel to being in
the dust saying, Lord, what would you have me to do? God gives grace to the humble. When Christ is entered in in
Spirit, and He's broken our heart, He's given us, He's made wisdom
unto us, makes us to see God is holy, and we're undone. And
He breaks that proud heart, and He breaks that stony heart, and
He gives you a new heart. He gives you a heart of flesh.
He gives you a heart that is contrite and broken. and he keeps
giving you more grace. He doesn't ever let you get too
big for your britches. Thus saith the high and lofty
one that inhabiteth eternity, the high and lofty one whose
name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place. With him
also that's of a contrite and humble spirit. You see the Off play of that, here's the
high and holy one that dwells in the holy place. And I also
dwell with the contrite one, with the lowly one. To this man
will I look even him who's of a broken and a contrite spirit.
So when he creates this humble heart, humility submits to the
mighty hand of God. Humility comes under the mighty
hand of God and waits on God to exalt us. Before, We're trying
to exalt ourselves. When we're looking on the outward
and we're proud and we're trying to earn a righteousness to come
to God, we're looking at ourselves and we're trying to exalt ourselves.
Remember after the Lord gave the parable of the publican and
the Pharisee? He said everybody that exalts
themselves, He's going to abase them. And those that are abased,
He's going to exalt them. He's got to abase us. And when
he's done that, brethren, he says, humble yourselves under
the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time. There's just one mighty hand.
That's the hand of God. He's mighty to establish His
own righteousness and save His people through His Son. He's mighty to bring down proud
rebels like us. He's mighty to make full provision
for His people. He's mighty to destroy our enemies. and He's mighty to exalt you
in due time. That's God's time. That's the
right time. He doesn't operate in our time,
on our timetable. He does it in due time. He does
it in the right time. Pride wants to be exalted in
our time. God's going to do the exalting
in His time, in due time. When God creates humility, he
makes his child submit under God's mighty hand. He makes us
wait on God to exalt us in his time. That's a resignation to
God's will. Where we are brought from saying,
I'm going to do what I will. I will ascend into heaven. I
will ascend above the clouds. I will, I will, I will. And he
brings you to say, Lord, what will you have me to do? Not my will, but thy will be
done. So first of all, he calls us in calling us to submission.
We're going to be called to humility. We're going to be given a humbled
heart, a broken heart to be brought down. But then also, it's a call
to faith. I like how this is just really
all one sentence right here in 1 Peter chapter 5. He says there,
humble yourselves unto the mighty hand of God that He may exalt
you in due time, casting all your care upon Him for He cares
for you. This is all part of submitting. It's being brought down in humility
with a broken and contrite heart and at the same time casting
it all into Christ's hand. When we behold our insufficiency,
our total insufficiency in our sin, and we behold that Christ
is full sufficiency, we have no righteousness. He's the Lord
our righteousness. We're unholy. He's holy. We're
foul and wretched in His sight. He's God's. Beloved Son, His
Only Begotten, His Well Beloved, the One God says, Behold My Servant
whom I uphold. And when we see His sufficiency
and our insufficiency, that's what is going to make you cast
your care on Him. He careth for you. Cast your
care on Him. He careth for you. Those two words are different.
Casting all your care upon him for he careth for you. Those
two different words there for care. The first word is our care. It's concerns and worries and
anxiety. It's what burdens us down. It's
what makes us wring our hands. It's what makes us get tight
in the neck and our shoulders tense up and we don't know what
to do. But the word there that's translated,
he careth for you, that's one, the word of a shepherd who cares
for his sheep, who has the full ability and the power and is
not anxious about anything. He can do it. That's why, go
to Psalm 55, here's what he tells us. Verse 2. I'm sorry, Psalm 55
verse 22. He says, cast thy burden upon
the Lord and He shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the
righteous to be moved. Everybody that He's made righteous,
everybody that He's laid down His life for, He won't suffer
us to be moved. He won't suffer us to be moved
off of Christ the rock or separated from Christ. He won't suffer
that. Is He big enough to carry the burden? Brethren, in eternity,
when God the Father chose a people and gave them to His Son and
laid out the terms of the covenant, that the Son of God is going
to have to go down and He's going to have to take flesh and be
made under the law and live and die for these people and suffer
and bleed and bear their sin and their shame and that despised
shame and bear the wrath and condemnation of God. He said,
cast their care on Me. And he's been caring for his
people from eternity. Everything that's ever took place
in this world, he's been working it all together to bring you
right here to where you are right now because he's been caring
for his people the whole time. He went to the cross caring for
His people. He took the care of our justification
and He accomplished it for His people. He took the care of our
sanctification and He accomplishes it for His people. He took the
care of redemption and the price was His precious blood and He
cared for His people. Paid the price and bought us
completely. Now here's what He said. Look
at Psalm 37 verse 5. Now brethren, I'm talking about I'm talking about when you don't
know what to do and there's nothing you can do. When you can't defend
yourself without just making it worse. When you can't see
how it's going to turn out for good. When you can't do anything
to make it good. Verse 5, commit thy way unto
the Lord. Cast your burden on Him. Cast
all your care on Him. And not only do that, trust also
in Him. Leave it with Him. Trust it with
Him. And look, and He shall bring it to pass. What's He going to
bring to pass? He shall bring forth thy righteousness
as the light and thy judgment as the new day." I'll tell you
what He's going to do. He is the righteousness. And
He's going to bring forth our righteousness one day and represent
every one of His people before God in the great judgment day. And He's going to say, I'm their
righteousness. He's going to bring forth our
righteousness as the light and our judgment as the new day.
And if He's going to do that then, He already did it at Calvary,
and if He did it at Calvary and we know He's going to do it in
that day, then today, when some proud rebel is tearing me down,
and got me in a corner and got you to where you don't know what
to do, you don't know what to say, there's nothing you can
say, there's nothing you can do, you can't defend yourself.
I can commit it to Him. I can trust Him. He's already
taken the big burden. He's already taken all my sin.
He's already taken the wrath of God in my place. How shall
He not with Him? freely give us all things. Did
y'all ever hear Brother Doug give that illustration about
the rich? He said after his daughter, he gave his daughter away to
Doug, his son-in-law. He carried him, you know, and
showed him his garage, and showed him everything in his garage.
And he said, everything here is yours. You just come in here
and get whatever you want, anytime you want it. And said he just
mouth fell open, he looked at him and thought, you mean really?
I can just come in here and get anything I want. He said, I gave
you my daughter, you don't think I'll give you a wrench? God gave
his son, you don't think he'll give you this piddly stuff that
we think is so important in this life? This stuff's not even the
important stuff. He'll provide. He said, seek
first Christ Jesus, your righteousness, the King, and the Kingdom. Seek Him. And He said all these
other things will be added to. So we have to be called to cast
it all onto Him, the care, all the care. For some reason, I
think we have more trouble casting our daily care on Him than we
do our eternal care. Yeah. You take somebody that
sits and they hear the gospel preached and they believe it
and they rejoice and then go out here, and I'm guilty. I'm guilty. Go out and the first
little thing that happens, it crosses you and you act like
the world's out of kilter. Like everything's just coming
apart at the seam. He's got to care of that too.
He's got to care of everything. He said a sparrow don't fall
to the ground without his consent. It's all being ruled by him from
the leaf falling off the tree out there to whatever the most
powerful man in this world is doing. He's ruling it all and
he's doing it just for his people. Because He's justified us. He's
got to provide. He's got to. He can't lose one.
Brother John just said it. So then next, look at this. A
call to vigilance. Once we cast our care on Christ,
Always be casting your care on Christ. That's what he's saying
here. The only one way to resist the devil, he says, verse 8,
be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil is a
roaring lion walking about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist? How? Steadfast in the faith,
casting all your care on Christ. It's the only way we can resist
it. If you ever, you know we talked about guile last night.
Our nature being full of guile, that's deception. Deceit. Hearts deceitful above all things.
Desperately wicked. Who can know it? We can't. Talking
about the nature in us. And what does the devil do? He
beguiles. He tricks us. And you know, somebody
that says, I'm not going to be beguiled by the devil, they already
are tricked. Anybody that has that attitude,
they're tricked already. The thing about being tricked
is you don't know you've been tricked. And the man who stands proud
and says, I'm not going to be tricked by the devil. And that's
what Peter did. Peter knew this. He's speaking
by experience. These might forsake you Lord,
but I'm not going to deny you. The devil was already sifting
Peter at that point. And the only reason his faith
didn't fail, when he says here, be sober, he means, you know
how when you hear the gospel, and you come out of here, and
your heart's on fire, and you're comforted, and you're strengthened,
you see Christ, and you see it all so clearly? Then you get
out here, and I mean just so fast, we start talking about
politics, sports and just whatever other meaningless insignificant
thing and next thing you know we forgot what we heard and then
we get out into the cares that we have and we get bombarded
with the cares and it's our minds not sober anymore It's like a
man getting drunk. Your mind's not sober anymore
because you just got all this stuff clouded in it and you have
to come back to this oasis and sit and hear it again and have
your mind sobered up, set on Christ. Well, that's what he's
saying. Be sober, be vigilant. That means vigilance requires
some doing. It means Anytime anybody's ever
called me with trouble and tell me they're in a trial, I've always
told them this. Just go to God's Word and stay
in it. Go get you some, see His Word
being preached by faithful men and listen to those messages.
Because I've been in trials. It's hard to do. It's hard to
do that when you're in the trial. But it's the only place we're
going to find comfort. The only place. And he continues
to comfort his people here. That's what he said, be sober
minded, be vigilant, keep yourself looking to Christ. And he says,
because the devil's going about like a roaring lion. And we know
match for a lion. Think about a roaring lion. You
couldn't tangle with a roaring lion. Well, the devil's worse
than that. But here's the good thing about it. He's only seeking
whom he has permission to devour. God's got him under control. And so don't be worried about
the roaring lion. Don't be thinking you can tangle
with the roaring lion. Instead, he says, resist him,
steadfast, look into Christ, trust in Christ, cast in your
care on Christ. That's what he's saying, steadfast
in the faith. Now look here, at this next thing. As you suffer, know that your
brethren are suffering too. He says there in verse 9, knowing
that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren
that are in the world. You know what? This is a very
deceptive form of pride right here. To think, nobody suffered
like I'm suffering. And that's all of it. We will
take pride in our weather being worse than somebody else's weather.
We will. We'll take pride in having a
stumped toe that's stumped worse than the next fellow. You think
that's bad, let me show you this. That's what we do. And he's saying
here, know that while you're being afflicted and while you're
suffering, your brethren are suffering too. The same afflictions,
and I love this word, they are accomplished in your brethren
too. There's a purpose for them. There's
a need be for these trials. These things are appointed for
us, Paul said, and they're sent by God just for us. They're just for us. And God's
accomplishing His will in each one of them. He's keeping you
looking to Christ. He's teaching you something about
yourself. He's teaching me that I can't
trust Me. I don't have any strength. I
don't have any sufficiency. The grace of God is my sufficiency. Christ is my strength. I don't
have any. That's what we're learning through
the trial. You get so attached to somebody or something. And we ought to love one another,
we ought to do everything we can for somebody. But if we become
too proud or something starts coming between us and the Lord,
it's a great mercy for God to take that away from us. That's
a mercy. And keep us looking to Christ.
Reminding us who our life is. And keeping us on Him. And that's
what these afflictions are for. And the same things are happening
to our brethren. And here's another thing, you
know, ours is so much more severe than another person, but look,
when you're suffering a trial, I don't care what you're suffering,
when you're suffering it, it's the worst thing you ever suffered
while you're suffering it. And that young believer, who
you look at him, you may be older and look at his and think, that's
just not really that big a deal. Well, it was when you weren't.
His age in the faith. And yours right now, somebody
might be looking at yours going, that don't seem like that's all
that bad. But to you it is. But the devil wants us to get
puffed up in pride over our affliction and miss the lesson. Thankfully
God won't let us miss it. He's going to teach us through
the affliction and He will not let us miss it. Lastly, since
this is the case, since we're waiting on God's time, and He's
going to do it in due time, we have to have some patience. We're
called to humility. If we're going to submit to one
another, some humility. We've got to be called to faith.
We've got to give us faith to cast it on Christ. And he's got
to give us faith to keep looking to Christ. Vigently, steadfastly,
not anywhere else. And he's going to have to give
us grace to be patient and wait on God's time. Now here it is,
verse 10. But the God of all grace who
has called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus. And it
is all grace. He's the God of all grace. And
it's eternal glory. So He's not going to lose us,
brethren. Don't think He's going to let
His child fall away. He's not going to do that. He's called
us to eternal glory. But Christ satisfied God. That's our security. He satisfied
justice. That's our guarantee. seated
at God's right hand. But remember, we're talking about
His time. He says, the God of all grace who called us unto
His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you've suffered a
while. We have to suffer a while. We don't want to miss out on
the suffering. Did you know suffering is a grace?
Suffering is the grace of God. That's given to you by God's
grace. It really is. And we don't want to miss out
on it. James said, let patience have her perfect
work. Wait on God so you'll be entire and wanting nothing. We
have to be in the fire for an appointed time for the dross
to be consumed and the gold to be refined. We have to be in
that fire if we're going to learn what God's teaching us. But that trial won't last forever.
He said, after that you've suffered a while. In due time, in God's
time, He'll bring you out of it. He'll exalt you out of it,
whatever it is. And what will He accomplish through
it? Make you perfect. That word means united together,
fit, sound, fully equipped. He'll establish you. That means
set fast, turn you resolutely in a fixed direction. Make you
constant. Strengthen. That means just what
it says, make you strong. When I'm, oh you mean I'm going
to be able to take everything on myself? No, when I'm weak,
then I'm strong. That's how it's going to make
you strong. Make you see you got no strength, it's crying.
And then He'll settle you. All of this is bringing you to
be settled. You know where it's all at? Our
perfection, our establishing, our strengthening. We're all
settled. He'll bring you to be settled
on Christ. On the rock. Now this happens
in every trial in this life. From the very first one, when
He's converting you for the first time, There's where you end up
when that trial's done, he's shown you your sins and he brings,
finally he exalts you out of that fire and you sit on Christ.
But we have to keep on being turned because we keep turning
away. And he brings you back and he puts you through some
more fire and some more trial and when he, after a little while,
you sit back on Christ. And you keep doing this all through
our life. All through our life. And I hear
my older brethren describe it as this. You just keep seeing
that you don't have anything in you to commend you to God. And you see yourself as worse
and worse and worse. And you see Christ as better,
better, better. That's growing in grace. The
world don't know a thing about that. The world's not talking
about that when they talk about their so-called growth. This
is true growth. I'm growing down in my estimation
of myself and growing to behold Christ is truly all. And when it's all said and done,
when the trial's over, each one of these trials, tell me this
is so now, when you come out of that trial, and you are set
on Christ and you see what God's done, you look back and you say,
I wouldn't change a thing about that. No matter how many tears
you cried, no matter how your heart was broke, I wouldn't change
one thing about it. Why? Because I'm set on Christ. I see what matters. And this
is what he brought out of it. And in each one of those trials,
and then all the way to the very, when the whole trial's over,
And the last one's finished. We're going to be set right here,
where we are, each one of these little tribes. We're going to
be set on Christ. Established, strengthened, perfect,
settled. And we say this every time. And then that day we're going
to all sing it together. We're going to say, to Him be
glory and dominion forever and ever.