Turn with me this morning to
1 Peter chapter 5. This morning's lesson should
complete our study in the book of 1 Peter. And our lesson will
be about the God of all grace. Both Peter, Paul, John, all of
them, when they concluded their books, they always paid all the
glory to God and His grace. Last week we talked about subjection
and the necessary graces that accompany subjection. Trust,
you're not going to subject yourself to someone that you don't trust.
Trust is involved in it. Love is involved in it. Humility and understanding. Subjection in the spiritual realm
is nearly impossible without understanding. You have to understand
that God has ordained all of the authority in the world. He's ordained these things. And
understanding that helps us to subject ourselves to it. And I want, before I get into
today's lesson, I want to say just a word or two about verse
7 from our study last week, casting all your cares upon Him for He
careth for you. Now, I went all around this verse. but I forgot to apply the verse. And so I wanted to go back and
do that before we get into the study. This verse is usually,
and without explanation, applied to a wide range of anxious cares
and applied like Romans 8.28. That's where God said all things
work together to good for them that love God and so on. Like
Romans 8.28, 1 Peter 5-7 is applied in a universal sense, and it
offers comfort when it's done that way, where comfort was never
intended. You can't take a man who's lived
as a gross sinner all his life,
who's an unbelieving rebel, And he's done nothing but curse God
and go against God his whole life. And then you get down to
the hospital and say, now, you're going to comfort this man. And
the preacher comes in. He said, now, you know all things
work together for good. Well, that verse is not written
to him. You're offering that man comfort
where comfort was never intended. And they do the same thing here
in this, talking about casting all your cares upon him, for
he cares for you. So this verse is usually and
without explanation applied to all kinds of cares, and it's
applied like Romans 8.28 in a universal sense. 1 Peter 5.7 and Romans
8.28 are not blanket promises given to all men, but given to
the sons of God who are called according to His purpose. They
apply to God's elect, chosen out of every tribe, kindred,
people, and tongue under heaven. So these verses could, they could
apply to any man, but not necessarily. You see what I'm saying? There's
a difference. Whosoever will, let him take the water of life
freely. Anybody could take advantage
of that. But everybody won't. And so that verse, although it
throws itself wide open, but it's open to those chosen out
of every tribe, kindred, nation, tongue under heaven. Peter's not writing here to every
man, woman, boy, and girl on the planet. but them of like
precious faith who are elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience,
that is, unto faith in Christ and the applying of His blood
to the conscience. They were in the apostles' own
words. Listen to what Peter says earlier
if you've missed those studies. He said, in time past, not a
people, but now. are the people of God. In time
past, you had not received mercy, but now have obtained mercy. So I'm not saying that this promise
is not given to any man or woman. I'm simply saying that you have
no assurance that it is until God calls you out of darkness
into his marvelous light and leads you to repentance and faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the second thing I left
out of last week in this verse is the context of the verse.
Now this verse, while it has a broad application to many cares
experienced by all of us, is given here by the Apostle Peter
concerning subjection. Read with me verses 6 and 7. Humble yourselves, therefore,
under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due
time. Now watch this. Casting all your
cares on him, for he cares for you. I wrote a follow-up article,
I think it's in next week's bulletin, which I labored to point out
that most of our anxiety is distrust in our God who ordains authority. That's what it boils down to.
It's not a matter of distrusting a man or distrusting a government.
We distrust God, who established the government and ordained the
man. You follow what I'm saying? Colossians chapter 2, verse 10
says, ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principalities
and power. So what is it that we worry about?
We worry about the leaders of our country, the president, our
lawmakers, our military. Listen to this, Romans 13, 1.
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there
is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained
of God. He goes on in verse 4, for he
is the minister of God to thee for good, but if thou do that
which is evil, be afraid. The sword's in his hand. God
put the sword in his hand. And I'm going to say something
here. If you think the rise or fall of this nation is dependent
on Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, you need to read Romans
13 again. Now, I don't know what God's
going to do with this country. He may be going to tear this
country down. If he does, he'll put somebody
in there to tear it down. He may be going to save this
country. If he is, he's going to put somebody in there to bring
that to pass. But in the end, and I'm not saying
don't vote your conscience. Go vote your conscience. That's one of the freedoms of
this country. You go vote your conscience. But I'm telling you
this, when everything's said and done, whoever's in that office,
God put them in that office. The Bible teaches and declares
that the invisible God rules over all kings, presidents, powers,
seen and unseen. And these men in authority are
very, very rarely believers. I have found in the history of
some, some sense of the truth of the gospel, but very, very
few. But these people are not put
there to be spiritual leaders. They're put there to keep the
peace and punish evil men. And so it is with all God's designated
authority, both natural and spiritual. And that's why we're to pray
for these men. We're told over and over to pray
for these men in authority. But I believe this is especially
true of pastors. Why should I submit myself? I've
heard people ask this question. Why should I submit myself and
the well-being of my soul and the souls of my children to a
pastor's care? Why should I do that? Well, I'll
give you three reasons. First, because he's a minister
called and ordained of God. If he's not, if he's not, if
he don't have God's gospel, if God's providence has not put
him there, If this man by self-promotion has found him a spot and rallied
the people to elect him, like Saul, old King Saul, then don't
subject yourself to him. But if he's God's minister, he's
ordained of God. And you do well to submit yourself
to him. And then secondly, because God
has given them a heart to watch for your souls. God told Ezekiel,
he said, son of man, he said, I've appointed you to be a watchman. A watchman. He equipped him to
be a watchman, to watch for men's souls. Now, I can't save your
soul, but I can watch for it. And I can warn you. And then
thirdly, because like all authority designated by God, they're accountable
to God. And then we talked last week
about our adversary, the devil. His work is the work of antichrist. By any means, any situation,
any circumstances, always ready to exploit, twist, and take advantage,
like a roaring lion on the prowl for his prey. That's how Satan
is described in the scripture. How can he be resisted? One way,
by faith. By faith. 1 John 5, verse 4 says, For whatsoever
is born of God overcometh the world. And this is the victory
that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh
the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? And I really hope after all these
studies that we've done and all of these different various epistles
that we've gone through that there's not anyone here who thinks
he can overcome Satan and the powers of darkness by his own
works and will. That's an impossibility. Satan
drug a third of the angels out of glory. One confrontation with
humans in this earth caused the fall of mankind. And I don't
suspect it took very long. His power is the power of deceit. It's described this way in the
scripture, hidden things of dishonesty, walking in craftiness, handling
the word of God deceitfully. That's how he works. He works
through men. The God of this world, Paul says,
blinds the minds of them that believe not. And then here in
1 Peter 5, 9, he said, Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing
this, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren
that are in the world. What's he talking about there?
He's saying we all have the same nature. We all have a common
enemy. We all suffer the same temptations,
the same snares, the same things. It's not something new. It's
not something just given to you. But it's something experienced
by all believers everywhere. 1 Peter 5.10. And I thought this
was a very fitting verse. This begins today's lesson. I
thought this was a very fitting verse to sum up everything that
he's been talking about. He said, but the God of all grace,
who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after
that you suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen,
and settle you. Now, let's begin with this, the
God of all grace. Strictly speaking, God alone
is gracious. All grace comes from him. Grace
is who he is. That's who he is. It's not just
that we catch God on a good day or we catch God under a certain
circumstance. That's how religion describes
God's dealings with him. That's not it at all. God himself
is gracious all the time, eternally gracious. Now, you just think
about that. He never gets ungracious. He's
gracious. He's gracious. Just like we breathe
all the time. We breathe if we're mad. We breathe
if we're happy. But we breathe all the time.
God graces all the time. God is gracious. And grace is
as much a part of his character as love, justice, or righteousness. And as gold comes from deep in
the earth, so grace is found deep in the character of God.
That's where it's at. And the manifestation of this
grace, I believe, is threefold. I don't think you can talk about
this grace and not talk about the threefold manifestation of
the grace. The first way in which the grace
of God is manifested is through the Father. through the Father. The Father purposed in Himself
the salvation of an elect multitude before the world began, and He
made on their behalf an everlasting covenant of grace. And because
of this arrangement, His election is called in the Scripture an
election of grace. Even so at this time, He tells
us in Romans 11, even so at this present time, there is a remnant
according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then
it's no more works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace.
Secondly, the mediatorial channel of grace. Here, God the Father
is the source of this grace. He's the wellspring of it. And
then secondly, the mediatorial channel of this grace, this grace
being manifested to men has to have a channel because man's
a sinner. Man's opposed to God. His mind is enmity against God. And so this grace has to have
a channel. The mediatory channel of grace
is the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and truth came by him.
The word was made flesh, John said, and dwelt among us, and
we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. He's the surety of
the covenant of grace. And he's the mediator of the
redemptive will of God. He's the mediatorial channel
of all grace. All grace comes through Christ. If a man has grace, he found
it in Christ. No other way to have it. There is no grace revealed, given,
or applied apart from Christ. And then thirdly, the Holy Spirit
is the bestower of all grace. The prophet Zechariah speaks
of the word of God and he says this, he said, I'll pour upon
the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the
spirit of grace and of supplications and they shall look upon me whom
they have pierced. Brian and I was talking about
this not too long ago. How is the spirit of God made
manifest? How is he made manifest? He made
manifest because He reveals to us the mediatory channel of grace. He shows us the Lord Jesus Christ. And when this spirit of grace
was poured upon God's people, upon God's Israel, they looked
on Him whom they had pierced. They saw Christ crucified. All right. Go back to 1 Peter
5.10. But the God of all grace who
have called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus. The elect of God are all manifested
in this world by divine and holy calling. Is that right? That's the only way you know
who they are. God calls them out of this world. I preach to
everybody. Anybody that listens to me, I preach to them. But
God's elect are made manifest. from this world and out of this
world. His elect are all manifested by a divine and holy calling.
And this calling is not in audible words. God doesn't say, hey you,
come here, come here. The salvation of sinners is to
manifest the glory of God. The calling of God is to see
the glory of God. That's how they're called. They're
called to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The salvation of sinners is to
manifest the glory of God. And the salvation of sinners
is not a desperate act on God's part to salvage something precious
in the sinner. I get so tired of hearing that
on television and radio. You know, oh, this precious thing
is going to be lost. God sees it and He wants to salvage
it, but you won't let Him and all that. That's not what salvation
is. And I don't want to burst your
bubble, but the Scripture says all the nations before Him are
nothing. That sound like you saw something
precious out there? He said there is nothing before
Him. And they're counted to Him less
than nothing. and vanity. God said all the
inhabitants of the earth, all of them put together are grasshoppers. You don't even watch to be careful
you don't step on a grasshopper, do you? Or hit one with your
car. I don't see anybody jerking their
steering wheel trying to miss a grasshopper. That's how this world appears
before God, as grasshoppers. Salvation is not the last desperate
act of God to salvage something precious in man. It's to manifest
the glorious character of God. And all of God's elect are called
to glory and virtue. Turn with me over to 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2. This is a verse I quote to you
all the time. Most of you can probably just
quote it. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse
13. But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. Because
God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Whereunto He called you
by our gospel. Now listen to this. Called them
to what? He called you by our gospel to
the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what you're called to. You're called. He's going to
manifest His glory in His Son, and He calls you to see that.
Paul tells us that if we would examine our calling, we'd discover
that God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise. He's chosen the weak things of
the world to confound the things which are mighty and base things,
and things despised, and things that aren't even considered to
bring to naught the things which are. Why? 1 Corinthians 1.29,
that no flesh should glory in His presence. That's why. But
of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, that according
as it is written, he that gloweth, let him glory in the Lord. And then Paul says this, for
God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The gospel of God is the message
of grace To the wise and prudent, it's foolishness. And why is
that? Why is it that this glorious
gospel of God's grace is foolishness to this unbelieving world? Why is that? I can tell you why. Because there's nothing in this
gospel to gratify the pride of man. That's why. Nothing in it. He just keeps
waiting, keeps waiting for something, for you to say something to gratify
His pride, and it's not there. It's not there. All right. Go back to our verse here in
1 Peter 5, verse 10. But the God of all grace, who
hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after
that you suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen,
and settle you. All of our suffering, large or
small, is for the glory of God. All of it. If it weren't for
that glory, and I don't know how to say this, this glory is,
it's seen, it's laid hold of, it's followed after, it's declared,
This glory that we see. And because it is, suffering
is going to follow. Suffering is going to follow.
You cannot be a believer and not suffer for the glory of God.
That is, for the truth of it, the declaration of it, the hope
of it, and the reign of it. And the end of this suffering
is to make us perfect. What in the world is he talking
about? I've never met a perfect man. Have you? How is He going
to make us perfect? That word means complete. It's
often substituted in the Scriptures. Same word, complete. In Him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead, and we are complete in Him. We're perfect in Him. So believers are established
in Christ. He said not only to make us perfect
after we've suffered a while, He's going to make us perfect,
He's going to make us complete, and He's going to establish us.
We're going to be established in this hope. Believers are established
in Christ. He's the foundation upon which
their hopes are built and upon which they rest. And He's going
to strengthen us when I'm weak. Then am I strong. That's what
our Lord told Paul. He's praying to have that removed,
that whatever it was, that thorn in the flesh. And the Lord said,
my grace is sufficient for you. Because in your weakness is my
strength made perfect. When I'm weak, then am I strong.
In our weakness, his grace is manifested as sufficient, and
his strength is made to shine in our weakness. And after we
suffered for a while, he's going to make us perfect, and he's
going to strengthen us, and he's going to settle us. We're going
to settle down. I've settled down, ain't you?
I used to run to hear this and run to hear that and talk about
this and talk about that. I've kind of settled down. I've
settled into this thing. And after we've suffered for
a while, we begin to settle. We settle in Christ and we settle
in the grace of God. And then verse 11, to Him, that is to Christ, to
our God, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. And all this objection that he's
talked about here and all this suffering that he's talked about
here is because our God, has dominion. He rules over all things,
and it's a loving rule. It's a loving rule. And this glory He's going to
show to all His elect. He's going to show that marvelous
glory of God.