verses 1 down through 11. 1 Peter 5 verses 1 through 11. So find that and put something there
and that's where we're going to be reading, but also turn
if you would to Luke chapter 22. Let's bow and have a word of
prayer. Lord Jesus, we come now and we
ask that you might send your spirit to be with us today as
we gather this morning, as we've gathered in your name, as you've
brought us together, as you've guided our feet and our steps,
as you do with everything in our lives, as you do with everything
in your creation. But we ask Lord this morning
as we gather together that you would be with us by your spirit,
that you would teach us, that you would encourage us, that
you would edify us. Father, that you would give us
the enabling to worship and praise you. Father, that you might give
us eyes to see the glory that is Christ Jesus, that we might
have the experience of knowing the love of Christ in our heart. Lord, that you might give us
need of today to worship, to proclaim your name, to glorify
you, to worship you in truth, to worship you in spirit. Lord,
not in the flesh because we know that the flesh fails. We know
that the flesh can do nothing good, but we worship you, Lord,
in the spirit. In perfection, we worship you
through the gospel. Father, we just ask that today
that You might glorify Yourself, that You might glorify Yourself
before all men, those watching, those listening, those here today,
that You might make Yourself known, that You might reveal
Yourself, give us something today, Lord, that we may not have understood
before, that You might grow us in the grace and knowledge of
Yourself. Father, Lord, we just ask that
You just might grant to us today even some consolation, some grace
to know of your salvation, to know of your forgiveness that
we just sang about, to know of your taking on our sin, the imputation
of your righteousness. May we learn of that today and
may we find joy and peace and comfort in it. I ask you to be
with these brethren that are here, Lord, that you might open
up their understanding, that you might draw them to yourself,
draw them near to you, Lord, by your word. Lord, I pray for
any of your elect that may be among us that are yet to be converted. I ask, Lord, that you would give
them repentance to acknowledging of the truth, that you might
draw them to yourself, Lord, that they might confess you before
me that might be baptized, that might be part of the church.
Lord, I pray for those that are in this town. I ask, Lord, that
if there is any mourners of Zion that are in this city, Lord,
we pray that you would, by your providence, by your predestination,
that you might bring them our way, that you might bring us
into contact with them, that they might find a haven of rest
here to be able to fellowship and to rejoice in the things
of Christ Jesus, Who is their rest? Lord, I thank you for all
that you've done. And we thank you for the word
of God that you've given us. And Lord, I ask now that you
might enable me, help me, Lord, to expound the things that are
here. And Lord, that you just might bless it. For it's in Christ's
name that we pray, amen. 1 Peter chapter five, we'll be
looking at these 11 verses. And then we're gonna be looking
at also some verses in Luke. that I'll get to here in just
a second. I just wanted to mention by way of context on all of this
is the fact that one of the biggest problems of our flesh, one of
the biggest sins, I guess I should say, of our flesh is the sin
of pride. And with that being said, We
look at ourselves, we look at our history, we look at the beginning
of time, we look at before Adam fell, or when Adam fell, before
Adam fell I guess I should say, we find pride. Pride is the root
of almost every sin, just about. We find that pride is prevalent
in all that we think, all that we do. When you think about us
as Americans, we have pride in who we are. We talk about ourselves
that we should pride ourselves in hard work and providing for
ourselves, making something for ourselves, not depending upon
anybody else, although that's become a far unknown thing in
our culture and society today here in America. And there's
nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with working
hard. The Bible teaches us to work hard and to provide for
our own, to take care of our own and to not be dependent on
others or at the hands of others, which we often are. But a lot
of times we become prideful in that thinking that we can do
it all. We can have what it takes. We can do anything and we're
very prideful people, but we think back It was pride that
caused Satan to rise up as an angel of God and proclaim himself
to take over the throne of God and to be higher than God. It
was pride that was in Adam that thought that he could be like
God and that he could disobey God's command and just say, you
know, hey, I know God said this, but you know, if I can be like
God, then I'm going to go ahead and do this. half God really
said. He listened to the lie of the
devil who himself in pride was kicked out of heaven because
of his pride. And so we see that pride is something
that is in all of us. We don't want to admit when we're
wrong. Why? Because we're prideful. We don't
want to be corrected by somebody else. Why? Because we think we
know more than them. We don't want to admit that we're
sinful because we are proud and want other people to think that
we're not sinners, that we're righteous. We have pride whenever
somebody talks about us or the same thing about us. Why? Because
we think that we are better than we really are. We think that
we have to portray something to other people more than we
are. So pride is at the heart of almost every lust of almost
everything. You think about the lust of the
eyes whenever we lust for other things. I want this. Why? Because the pride of life says
I deserve that. I think that I ought to have
that. That's something that I want. I don't have it and I should
have it. That's pride. The lust of the flesh whenever
I want something. I desire a man or a woman whenever
they lust against each other. What is that? I don't have that.
I want that. I think that I should have that. Pride thinks that
I can't have that. Pride is in the mix of all that
we do. It is in the flesh and it, brethren,
is strong in all of us. And not one of us is exempt from
that. Every one of us has the problem of pride. The Bible speaks
very, very, very often of pride. The Bible says that pride cometh
before the fall. And what that means is someone
who is proud, someone who is haughty, someone who thinks they
are above it all, that always comes before the fall. Your flesh
is always going to show who you truly are. The Bible says, be
sure your sin will surely find you out. You think that you can
portray yourself as not needy, not fleshly, not sinful, not
ignorant, not foolish, not all this? You think whatever the
subject is, you think that you can rise above it or you're not
that in the flesh? Be sure your sin will surely
find you out. It will point you out. It will
show you. It will reveal and manifest you
as sure as the day is long, just like it did with Adam. Adam,
it looks like on the outside, was upright man who was just
had nothing there, but sin lied within him. And it wasn't until
God's law of don't eat that, you can eat of everything, but
don't eat of that, that the pride well within him, the lust conceived
and brought forth sin. In Satan, we see the same
thing. The Bible said until sin was
found in him, he was an angel, glorious, bright. But when sin
was found in him, he rose up and said, I can be higher than
God. I can raise myself above God.
And see, we think those same things. We think that we can
escape See, and we think that we can escape God's judgment. We can think we can escape the
consequences of our sins. But the Bible says, be sure your
sin will surely find you out. And listen, Satan knowing that
because he himself is the father of all lies. deception. The Bible says that he is the
father of all lies, that he is the the surplanter, he is the
the accuser of the brethren. Listen, not only is he the one
who initially believed the lie that he could be like God or
above God, but now he's telling it. He told it to Adam, he tells
it to us. He whispers in our ear, you try to be like God. And if he can't get us that way,
he does the exact opposite. He says, you're never good enough. God's not going to love you.
God's not going to accept you. God's not going to forgive you.
Look how often you sin. The Bible says that he is the
accuser of the brethren. And so we have quite a thing
to deal with whenever we are dealing with pride and we're
dealing with sin. And brethren, all of us are guilty. Not one of us is exempt. Every
one of you in here today have this problem just like I do. But yet we see something that
takes place in God's Word to give us consolation of this if
we are Christ's children. Now I want to begin reading in
Luke chapter 22 to give us a backdrop of what we're fixing to read
that Peter writes by the Holy Spirit in his epistle So let's
start in Luke chapter 22. And I'm going to start reading
in verse 23 now. Let me remind you,
this is right after Christ instituted the Lord's Supper. It was before
He went into Gethsemane to pray, before His arrest, before His
crucifixion. So right after they had the Lord's
Supper, they communed with Christ. Christ spoke to them of the things
of the kingdom. Explained to them the gospel
and the elements that He'd give them to partake of. The institution
of the ordinance of the Lord's Supper and how He told them to
take the bread and the wine and to commemorate or remember His
death because His body was broken for them. His blood was shed
for them. He preached the gospel in that
ordinance. That's why we continue those
ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper, is because it
preaches the gospel in visual form to others. It reminds us
of what Christ does. And right after Christ instituted
this great ordinance with the blood and the flesh being represented
in the ordinance there, we have this, verse 23, and they
began to inquire among themselves which of them it was that should
do this thing. And there was also strife among
them, which of them should be accounted the greatest. Here
we see, if you remember, right before he instituted the Lord's
Supper, Jesus knelt down and washed the feet of every one
of those disciples, save Judas. He knelt down and He washed their
feet. Here Jesus Christ, God in the
flesh, subjected Himself to washing the dirty feet of His disciples. Making Himself subservient, making
Himself submissive to them, taking on the dirty task of washing
their feet. I mean, all of us unless you're
some sort of a weirdo that just like feet, but most of us and
most people look at feet as probably the ugliest parts of the body.
Ugh, feet, you know. Nobody wants to mess with people's
feet, touch people's feet. It's the most uncommonly part
of people's bodies, is the feet. It's stuck in a shoe, it's usually
most dirtiest because it's always sweaty and if we walk outside
without shoes, it gets dirty. Jesus, and you think about back
then, they didn't have nice shoes like we have today. Okay? Their shoes didn't keep their
feet from being nasty like ours does today, even though we still
have nasty feet. We're talking about they walked
on dirt roads. They wore sandals. If they did have covered shoes,
it was some sort of a cloth or some sort of a leather wrapped
up. Their feet was nasty and Jesus washed their feet. And right after that, seeing
God wash their feet, there was strife among them,
which of them should be counted the greatest. Pride. Listen, we still see that in
today's Christianity. Christians trying to make themselves
better than other Christians. Pumping themselves up over other
Christians. We see it flooded throughout Facebook. Christians
running other Christians down. Preachers being put on pedestals. Other preachers putting down
other preachers because they want to make themselves look
better. Trying to make ourselves who
looks better and all it is is pride. Look at verse 25. And he said unto them, The kings
of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and they that exercise
authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not
be so. But he that is greatest among
you, let him be as the younger, and he that is chief as he that
doth serve. For whether is greater he that
sinneth at me, or he that serveth. It is not he that sitteth that
meet, but I am among you as he that serveth. Ye are they which
have continued with me in my temptations, and I appoint unto
you a kingdom as my father hath appointed unto me, that ye may
eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones
judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And the Lord said, Simon,
Simon. See, right after he said this,
he said, everybody, all of you needs to beware of this thing. You need to keep in mind that
you need to be a servant. The greatest that is among you,
to be great in the kingdom of God is not to be prideful and
thank yourselves more highly than you are. To be great in
the kingdom of God is to be subservient one to another, to think of yourselves
lower than everybody else. And if you think about it, brethren,
if you think that you are lower and undeserving more than anybody
else, if that's truly the disposition that God gives you, if that is
who you are, then you will gladly serve one another because you
think that they are worthy more than you are. Why do I do things
for my family? Why? Because I love them. And
I think they're worthy to be given things, do things, cherished. Whatever good things that I give
to my kids, whatever wisdom that I try to pass on, whatever fun
that I want to have with those things I do. Why? Because I love
them and I want to serve them in that way. And Jesus, who is
God, is saying that I have now done that to you Now that should be your example
to do with others. You look at yourself as the servant
because pride can rear itself up and in your heart it can make
you think that you're higher than you are. Whenever you think
that you are higher than you are, you are most easily susceptible
to the fiery darts of Satan because pride cometh before a fall. Pride
comes Right before the fall, whenever you think yourself to
be at your best, that's whenever God's going to humble you. He's
going to knock you down. And so he says that, and immediately
he turns to Peter, who if we know anything from the Gospels,
we know that Peter was pretty much the leader of the apostles. He was kind of the number one
guy. He kind of was the take charge guy. He was the grab it
and go guy. He was the go to. He was part
of the three that Jesus always, Peter, James and John. Those
were the ones that Jesus took. Above all the other disciples,
He always took Peter, James and John with Him to do all His special
things. Almost as if He favored Peter,
James and John more than the rest. But He took Peter, James
and John But Peter would seem to always be the leader. And
Peter was very prideful, very boastful, very boisterous. And
he turns to Peter and says, Simon, Simon, that's Peter's name, behold,
Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. Now notice that it says, Satan
hath desired to have you. That tells us, Jesus is telling
us, that Satan, not only is he real, but Satan actually does
desire to do bad to people. Satan does desire to do certain
things with certain people. Here, Peter was among many people,
and yet Jesus is saying, Satan has desired you, Peter, specifically
to sift you. Now, what does it mean by sift
you as wheat? This is winnowing. In the Bible, you'll hear the
term winnower's fork or winnowing. It's an old term. We don't hardly
know that anymore, but it's a term that whenever you winnow, you
separate the wheat and the chaff to sift it. You might take like,
you've seen in like Gold Rush and stuff like that, where they
put all that stuff in and they'll sift it all out and all the Fine
sediment will settle out and all the big stuff will stay on
top and everything will, all the junk will fall out and all
the pure gold will stay in there. Or in the wheat, they'll take
and they'll sift that wheat and all the fine stuff will go through
and all the bad stuff will stay on top. They clean it out. You
see your moms and your grandmas, what do they do with their wheat
sometimes, or with their flour sometimes? They'll put that flour
and they'll shake it through a sieve and that flour will become
real fine. They're sifting it. They're sifting that flour, separating
it. And it says here that Satan wants
to sift you as wheat. It wants to shake you up and
see if there's anything provable in you. See if there's anything
good. See if there's any validity to
who you think you are, Simon. You're a pretty proud man. You
said, hey, you know, I'm going to follow the Lord and he's been
the in charge guy all this time. Satan wants to sift you. Now
notice a couple of things. Satan did sift Peter, right?
We're fixing to read it here, but Satan did sift Peter and
God allowed it. That was God's will that Satan
sifted Peter. It was God's will that Peter
do what he did as we're fixing to read. Keep that in mind. that
nothing happens outside of God's will. Nothing happens outside
of God's determination. So we see here that Satan wanted
to sift Peter as wheat. But notice if you would, and
pay close attention to this word here because we're going to see
it again in our passage in Peter. Satan hath desired to have you
that he may But I have prayed for thee that
thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted, strengthen
thy brethren. Now notice here, he prayed that
his faith fail not, and when thou art converted, whenever
thou art turned, whenever thou art repented, strengthen thy
brethren. Jesus never promised that he
was going to keep him from the sifting. The sifting was going
to come. But he said, after it's over,
I've prayed that your faith would not fail. Now, did Peter sin? Yes, he did. So did that mean
Peter's faith failed? No, it didn't. For faith to fail
means to cease in trusting Christ. Christ converted or repented
Peter. His faith didn't go away, yet
the measure of his faith was held back for a season. But God always, always with his
children will sustain them and keep them from falling away.
Peter didn't fall away. He fell. down but didn't fall away. Look
what we see here. And he said unto him, Lord, I
am ready to go with thee both into prison and to death. Peter
was ready to go. I am not going to. Lord, let Satan come and do all
he can. I'm going to go with you, whether
it be into prison or whether it be into death, which, by the
way, happened both with Peter. He did go to prison and he was
executed. down. So Peter's pride welled up whenever
Jesus said Satan desires to sit thee but I pray to thee that
your faith fail not but after you're converted so God already
told him he was going to fail and that Satan was going to have
his way what seemed like his way with Peter and that Peter
would need to be repentant or would be repented of God would
grant him conversion, repentance. And Peter's like, well, that
ain't gonna happen with me. How many of us are like that?
How many of you young people, your parents say, watch this,
watch out for that, don't do this, be careful of this. Oh,
that ain't gonna happen to me. You have to find out it happens
to you. All of us are like that. And
so he says, Lord, I'm ready to go with thee both into prison
and to death. And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not
crow this day before thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest
me. And he said to them, when I sent
you without purse and script and shoes, lacked ye anything? And they said nothing. Then said
he unto them, but now he that hath the purse, let him take
it. And likewise his script, and he that hath no sword, let
him sell his garment and buy one. For I say unto you that
this is written must yet be accomplished in me. And he was reckoned among
the transgressors for the things concerning me having in." Now,
if you'll turn just over a page or so, we'll see what happened here. In verse 54, Jesus is now arrested. It says, Then they took him,
and led him, and brought him into the high priest's house,
and Peter followed afar off. And when they had kindled fire,
now, granted, hey, listen, this happened just shortly after this
conversation where Peter puffed himself up and said, hey, I'm
gonna go with you no matter where. Matter of fact, in the Garden
of Gethsemane, whenever they came to even arrest Peter, Peter
was the one who drew the sword and cut off the ear of Malchus. Malchus, always forgetting his
name. Cut off the guy's ear, the soldier's
ear. And then Jesus picked it up and
put it back on him and healed him. Peter was ready to go. Nobody's gonna make me do anything. I'm gonna follow you all the
way to death. This is just a few hours after
that. Peter followed afar off, and when they had kindled a fire
in the midst of the hall and were set down together, Peter
sat down among them. But a certain maid, that's a
young girl, beheld him as he sat by the fire
and earnestly looked upon him and said, This man was also with
him. And he, Peter, denied him, saying,
Woman, I know him not. So a little girl comes over and
says, you're one of the ones that was with him. He said, I
don't know that man. Just a few hours after he said,
I'm going to go with you to prison and go to death. After he cut
off the ear of Malchus and said, you know, hey, nobody's going
to take you. Nobody's going to come. You're
not going to the cross. Remember, he even said that to
Jesus. Jesus told him that the hands of wicked men were going
to take you. And Jesus and Peter said, no, I'm not going to let
that happen. That's whenever Jesus said, get thee behind me,
Satan. And he denied him, saying, Woman,
I know him not. And after a little while, another
saw him and said, Thou art also of them. And Peter said, Man,
I am not. That's twice Peter's denied that
he knew Jesus. And about the space of one hour,
after another confidently affirmed, saying, Of a truth, this fellow
also was with him, for he is a Galilean. And Peter said, I
know not what thou sayest, and immediately, while he yet spake,
the cock crew." Now, in the other Gospels, and I can't remember
off the top of my head which one it was, the Bible says that
he even swore with curses, with cursings. He cursed. I don't know that bleepity bleep
man. I mean, in today's society, it
may have been F.U. I don't know that G.D. person,
you know. He was adamant, saying, I don't
know, three times. Exactly as Jesus said. Now, was
Jesus a fortune teller? Did Jesus look ahead in the future
to see what Peter, by his will, would do? No, that was God's
predetermined plan, that Peter would do that. God has purposed the sifting
of His people. Why? That they might learn from
that. See, and we're going to get into this. This may be a
two-parter, but we're going to get into this. There is a purpose
in our affliction in the flesh to be shown our infirmity in
sin, and why God has left us in sin. God has not removed us
in sin, and these people that have the notion that we're becoming
more holy and holy and holy without sin, that we're sinning less
and less and less and less, is deceived. Because God uses the
sin of the flesh of His people to chastise His people. And the
reason that He chastises His people is because He loves His
people. And He loves His people, and
He does that by revealing Himself to His people. And how does He
reveal Himself? In the Gospel. And what is the
Gospel? You are sinners, but I am your
Savior. You cannot do nothing to gain
my acceptance, but you have been accepted in the Beloved. The
Gospel is about Christ loving us as sinners. While we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us. Though we were enemies or
enmity with God, God loved us, God shed His grace upon us, God
chose us from the foundation of the world to be imputed by
the righteousness of Christ Jesus that we would be before Him in
love. But yet we still, in Adam, in
our flesh, we are enemies of God, prideful, thinking that
we can be as God. And so people that think that
our sin should be something that should be eradicated and that
we should be getting more and more holy and less and less sinful. It's crazy because God is using
that actual battle or warfare between the flesh and the spirit
to keep our minds set on the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that's
what He's doing with Peter. Peter, Satan desires to sift
you and I'm going to let him because whenever I let Satan
do this, something is going to be shown
to you, and it's going to help you to show other people something. We'll see that here in a minute.
But Peter said, Man, I know not that thou sayest. And immediately
while he yet spake, the cock crowed. And the Lord turned and
looked upon Peter, and Peter remembered the word of the Lord,
how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny
me thrice. And Peter went out and wept bitterly. I can only imagine how Peter
felt after, with cursings, denied Jesus Christ. And listen, Peter
loved the Lord. He loved the Lord. He followed
the Lord. The Lord had called him. He was
saved. He had been quickened of the
Holy Spirit. He had spiritual eyes. He had spiritual desires.
But yet you fail, as do we all. All the people of God. We don't
claim to be perfect. None of us are perfect. We still
sin. We still battle with that. If anybody's listening, watching
here today, and you think that a Christian is somebody who doesn't
sin, that's not what this is all about. This isn't about that. This is about, though we are
sinners, we don't look to ourselves for hope in getting better But
we look to Christ who was perfect for us and that He has by free
grace given us that righteousness. Peter saw Jesus look at him and immediately Peter knew exactly
what Jesus said came true. Now turn with me if you would
to 1 Peter chapter 5. We now see the backdrop because
the very same man who failed, who denied Christ three times
with cursings tonight, after just a few hours of sitting at
the table and watching that God lower himself to the place of
washing his dirty nasty feet and telling him that I've prayed
for you that your faith would fail not. Of telling them in
the Gospel I've given my body to the smiters. I've given my
back to the ones who are going to flog me to death. Well, not
to death. They're going to flog me to almost
death. Who's going to nail me to a cross. And then I'm going
to die. I've given my body for you. My
broken body, my shed blood, I've given for you. And now me, the
one who's gonna do all that for you, I'm gonna wash your feet. And Peter denies him. How often,
brethren, have we, and I can speak for myself a lot, how often
have we sinned And we've indulged in whatever we know is wrong.
As soon as we do, it's as if the
Lord looks immediately at us and we know. And the weight of
that sin comes upon us. The Bible says that if we sin,
if we confess our sin, He is faithful, just, and will forgive
us of our sin. This is the Peter who is writing
this epistle. This is the Peter who is now
writing to the elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father and through the sanctification of the Spirit under obedience
and the sprinkling of blood of Jesus Christ. This is the one
who is writing to all the people of God, whether it be those who
were scattered during that time period, or by the preservation
of the Holy Spirit, this Word of God to us today, all of us
who are of like faith. Peter's writing. This is what he says, look at
verse 1, chapter 5. The elders which are among you I exhort,
who am also an elder, Peter's saying I'm also an elder, which
he was, he was an elder in the church. Now this isn't talking
about an older person, This isn't talking about an old person.
He's talking to the elders, those who are the ones who preach the
gospel, who have been called to proclaim the gospel within
the local church, amongst the people of God. They're called
elders. That's why we call our pastors
and teachers elders. Why? Because they're the ones
who God has called to preach and to have the oversight in the congregation. We're called
elders. We're not called reverends, by
the way. Reverend is not a title that is to be given to man. And
all those that are out there, if you call yourself reverend,
you need to stop. Because there's only one who
is to be revered, and that's God. It says, the elders which
are among you, I exhort. So He's exhorting the elders,
the preachers, the pastors, He's exhorting them because he himself
is an elder. And he says, and a witness of
the sufferings of Christ. And also a partaker of the glory
that shall be revealed. So he's saying, listen, I am
like you. I have not only partaken of the grace, partaken of the
glory that shall be revealed, but I am a witness to Christ's
suffering. Now, brethren, we haven't seen
Christ suffer on the tree, but we have seen it revealed in Scripture. We have seen it through the Word
of God. We have seen the suffering of
Christ on our behalf. The Gospel has shown us, just
like with Abraham, the Gospel was preached to Abraham, and
the Bible says, and Abraham saw him afar off. He saw Christ afar
off. What does that mean? By the preaching
of the Gospel, he saw Christ and what Christ did for him afar
off. Even though it hadn't happened
yet, he saw it. And even though it happened a
long time ago and we don't actually see it, Peter actually seen it,
we see and partake of the sufferings and behold the sufferings of
Christ through the Gospel. So he says, I exhort you elders,
those who have experience the sufferings of Christ and are
partakers of the glory that shall be revealed. Feed the flock of
God, which is among you. And I exhort all the preachers
that are listening, that is your highest and cheapest duty is
to proclaim the word of God, to proclaim Christ, the gospel
of Jesus Christ. It's not about our hobby horses. It's not about all the debates
and arguments around the world. It's not about creeds and confessions
and commentaries. It's not about an evangelistic
program building thing. It's about preaching Christ. We are to preach Christ. Feed
the flock of God which is among you. We are to feed them. How do you
feed the flock of God? Well, you feed them with the
food that nourishes them, which is the gospel. It is the preaching
of Christ and Him crucified. It is the preaching of grace.
It is the preaching of Christ's substitutionary work. It's the
preaching of Christ's imputed righteousness. It's the preaching
of grace over law. It's the preaching that we have
been given life, that we have been given salvation, not according
to our works, but according to what He has done. That's what
feeds the flock. But whenever we start preaching
other things, the sheep, the true sheep, Now the goats who
are among the sheep, the tares which are among the
wheat, they like that kind of food. And they'll eat it up. But brethren, the sheep, it won't
feed them. And he's saying, feed the flock
of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof. That's
one of the jobs of the pastor. That's one of the things that
the elder, the pastor does. They take the oversight. What
does that mean? Does that mean that we're your
bosses? That we're in charge of everything? That we are to
be the CEO of the church? No. The Bible says that we are
not to lord it over. Not to command over the Lord's
heritage. But we're to take the oversight.
We're to keep watch. To make sure that the flock is
being fed correctly. That the flock is being fed the
right food. that they're being warned, hey,
don't eat that. Okay? Don't eat that. That's not good food. That'll
kill you. That'll make you sick. We take
the oversight. Among the people of God, we're
the ones that kind of help keep the order, but we're never, never,
never, never the ones who are delorded over the church. Not by constraint, but willingly.
See, we're never to come into God's pulpit. We're never called
to be preachers by constraint. If anybody tries to get you to
be a preacher, listen, I know, and I've seen it, and I've even
felt the pressure of it. Growing up in a household where
my grandpa was a preacher, and had uncles that were preachers,
and cousins that were preachers, and friends that were preachers. Listen, you feel the compulsion
You know, well, I'm just naturally going to be a preacher too, you
know. And maybe at some point before
I was converted, I thought that's why I was going to be a preacher
is to follow in the footsteps to be like my grandpa. But listen,
we're never, never, never to follow after that because of
constraint. But we're to do it because God
has called us that, and He has given us the desire to will and
to do that. It says, not for filthy lucre,
but for a ready mind. So here, Peter is taking the
knowledge that God has given him, and the experience that
God has given him, and he's passing it on to the other elders, among
all these people, among all these flocks, and he's saying, Feed
the flock of God. Take the oversight. Watch the
doctrine that is being preached. Be strong in the doctrine because
it's very important that they know the Gospel. And we're going
to get to why. We're going to get to why. I know this is long. This introduction
is long. But we need to understand why
Peter was sifted. Why Christ allowed that or predestinated
that to happen. Peter now is doing what he is
doing. Remember, Jesus said, when thou
art converted, strengthen the brethren. Peter, after he done
what he did, after he denied Christ, if you remember after
Christ rose from the dead, Christ came to Peter and he told him
that he loved him. And he told him, he asked him,
he said, Peter, do you love me? And he said, I love you. Asked
him three times. He had him say it three times.
Why? Because he denied him three times.
He asked him, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?
And he said, Lord, thou knowest that I love you. Do people that love the Lord
sin against the Lord? Absolutely they do. To commit sins is in our flesh. But in our spirit,
we love the Lord and desire never to sin. We desire never to do
unrighteousness. We desire never to let down or
to, as I let down, to never transgress our Savior. And so Peter here now has went
through that. God has reinstated him and said,
if you love me, feed my sheep. three times, if you love me,
feed my sheep. If you love me, feed my sheep. And here, Peter is turning and
saying to the other elders, I was sifted by Satan, I denied Christ,
I felt the weight of my sinfulness, how low I could go. Listen, looking
upon a woman to lust, taking a little something that wasn't
mine, Lying just a little bit here and there. All of that is
bad things. But listen, I did the lowest of low. Well, as a
matter of fact, it's no more different than what Judas did.
The difference is Judas wasn't an
elect child of grace. He was a reprobate. And here
with Peter, he denied Jesus the same way. Judas went and he betrayed
Jesus. give Jesus up, told people where
he was at, and ultimately denied Jesus. But here Peter denied
Jesus, outwardly saying, I don't know him, I don't know him. Why?
He did that to keep from getting arrested. He was afraid of being
arrested. He was afraid of being known
as a Christian, being known as a disciple, as an apostle. He
was afraid to be linked with this man who was Now in trouble
with all the religious leaders. So really not much different
than what Judas did, but yet God granted repentance
to Peter. And now Peter, as Jesus said,
when you have been converted, or when you have been turned, said, feed my sheep. And he told him over and over
again, feed my sheep. And now he's telling us, as elders,
feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight,
not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of
a ready mind, not for money, not for gain, not for personal
position. We're not to preach to make ourselves
look good. Some preachers want to preach
so that they might look good. So they might be the great preacher
in the associations conventions that are out there. They want
to preach among men to be known. You know, they want to be the
men on TV and the radio that everybody hears, or on Facebook. They want to be the Facebook
theologian that everybody goo-goos and ga-gas over. But if you do it for that, it's
filthy lucre. If you do it for money, listen,
that's a That's one thing I see today at all these so-called
churches that are out there is preachers preaching and they
won't preach. They won't go. And listen, I'm
not saying this just by... I actually know specific examples,
people who have said, you know, I can't come preach unless you
give me so much money. I know singers that say, I can't
come sing for you the gospel unless you give me so much money.
This is how much it costs me to come sing for you. He's doing
it for filthy lucre. If a preacher says, I can't preach
the gospel to you unless you can guarantee me this much money,
then you're in it for the wrong reason. You're a hireling. And Peter is saying, listen,
if you're coming with any other motive than providing and exhorting
and encouraging and edifying the flock of Jesus Christ by
providing them good food, coming for any other reason than to
be subservient to one another, to serve them. That's what I'm
doing here today. I'm not here to lord over you.
I'm here to serve you. What am I serving? I'm serving
you sheep food. It's a service. A pastor, an
elder is a servant of the church, not a leader or a ruler over
the church. And anytime that I'm doing that,
I pray that the Lord would bring me to my knees on that. I pray
that you would be kind enough to say, hey, you need to step
back a little bit. You're trying to take charge
over everybody. And I pray that I'm doing just the opposite.
I pray that I'm feeding the flock of God willingly and of a ready
mind. It says, neither is being lords
over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock. And verse 4 says, And when the
chief shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory
that fadeth not away. Now, here we go. This is kind
of getting into really what I want to talk about. It says, Likewise,
ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Now, what does
it mean younger? Does it mean talking about children?
No, what does he mean? He's meaning those younger in
the faith. Submit yourself to the elder in the faith. He just
talked about the elders who are the ones preaching, feeding the
flock. Now he says, as the preacher is subservient to Jesus Christ
to be the overseer, to feed the flock with the words of God and
to serve them, likewise ye who are younger in the faith, you
serve the elder. Yea, all of you, be subject.
one to another and be clothed with humility. Humility is the
opposite of pride. See, I started this off with
talking about pride because pride is one of our biggest problems.
But to be in the service of Christ Jesus, it takes humility. Because you can't serve Christ
because in serving Christ means you're serving one another. You're
serving each other. And to serve one another, you
can't be prideful. Now brethren, I say all that
knowing that we can only be humble and have humility if God grants
it and gives it to us. It isn't something I can work
up in my flesh. Humility is something that the
Spirit does and works on the inside. It's one of the works
of God that He does inwardly. But this is by way of example
and showing this is how you need to understand these things. that
humility is the opposite of pride, to serve one another. And, as
we'll see here in a minute, to know yourself, you have to be
humble. You have to be humbled. He says,
Yea, all of you be subject one to
another and be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud and
giveth grace to the humble. God resisteth the proud. God
is against the proud. Why? Because God said, I am God
and there is no other. I shall have no other gods before
me. And I will not share my glory
with another. Meaning that no one else is going
to have the glory of God Himself. But what does pride always tell
us? That we are good enough. better that we can do it. We
are the ones. We have all the righteousness
that we need if we'll just buckle up ourselves and hang in there. We strive and do hard work to
obey Christ and then we'll have this righteousness that God will
be pleased with. Listen, humility is knowing that
in me there is no good thing. That O wretched man that I am, it is only Christ that is worthy. God resists the
proud and gives grace to the humble. As a matter of fact,
the very fact that somebody is humble is the fact that God has
given them grace. He's given them grace to be humble
because by nature we are prideful. And so he says in verse 6, look
at it with me, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand
of God or humble yourselves or consider yourselves low in light of the mighty hand of
God that He may exalt you in due time. Why is Peter saying
that? Because Peter, his pride was
paramount. Lord, I'm going to follow you
to prison all the way to death. Lord, they're not going to take
you. Here's my sword. I'm going to defend you. You're
going to the cross by wicked hands. They're going to take
you? Nuh-uh, not as long as I'm here. I'll fight for you. I'll
follow you wherever you go." Pride was paramount. But what
happened? The mighty hand of God humbled
him. And how did he humble him? He humbled him by showing him
his sinfulness. He showed him his pride. He showed him all this. Humble
yourselves therefore unto the mighty hand of God that he may
exalt you in due time. Now we see Peter feeding the
flock of God, being exalted as the elder of the church, not
in a place of prominence, but in the place of a servant. He
is exalted as a servant. What did Jesus say that we read
back there? to those guys who wanted to know
who was going to be the greatest? He said, who is going to be the
greatest in the kingdom? The one who is the servant. The
one who is the greatest in the kingdom is the least. The first shall be last and the
last shall be first, Jesus always preached. If you remember, He
said the ones who are greatest in the kingdom are the ones who
are the servants. The ones who are humbled by the mighty hand
of God and is serving one another in humility, esteeming others
more highly than himself, looking upon others more than their self,
thinking of others more than they think of themselves, in love serving one another. And he says, humble yourselves
therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you
in due time. Peter showed that the lesson
of pride and humility, of prominence and service, of sin and service, of sin and obedience,
is all by the hand of God. And he also seen that whenever
God does show us these things and teaches his people. And it
is God who teaches us. It's the Spirit that teaches
us. Peter didn't learn this lesson just out of hard knocks. Peter
learned it through the hard knocks, but it was the Spirit who applied
the knowing of it. How many times have you done
something and it took a few times before you learned to do that?
You know, we always have that saying, you know, Kid does something
like the mom would say, well, you better stop him doing that.
And the dad would say, eh, he'll do it once. He'll learn. Let
him do it. You know? You sit there, and you're taking,
and you're hammering the hammer, and you hit yourself on the thumb.
You know it hurts if you hit your thumb. What are you going
to do from now on? You're going to be a little bit careful how
you hold that nail when you start hitting it. You're going to tap
it aroo until it gets there, and then you can nail it on in.
Why? Because you learned from your sore thumb. Peter learned
from his sore thumb. Peter learned from his experience,
his experience of being sifted, his experience of affliction,
and therefore was able to turn around and be a servant, a humble
servant, to the flock of Jesus Christ. To be able to feed the
flock of God, we must be humbled. And to be humbled, our pride
must be shattered. And for our pride to be shattered,
the mighty hand of God must come down. He says, verse 7, casting all
your care upon Him, for He careth for you. Listen, whenever these
seasons of testing and trying humbling, calm. The Lord cares
for us. The Bible says that for His people,
He says those that He loves, He chastens. He chastens those
that He loves. He scourges those that He loves. Now what does that mean? Well,
that means that He takes us through and allows us to go through these
seasons of affliction because He loves us. And how is He showing
us love in that? Because it's teaching us. Not
only is it teaching us who we are, but it continues, as I've
been saying, to point us to Christ. We continue to see, I can't do
it, I can't do it, I can't do it, I'm unworthy, I'm unworthy,
I'm a sinner. And therefore, we are constrained
to see Christ alone as our salvation. Casting all your care upon Him,
for He careth for you. And brethren, listen, He does
care for us. He cares for you. So he says be sober, be vigilant. That be sober means to be mindful. It says to be alert. You know
when someone's not sober, drunk, they're not alert, right? Somebody's
drunk, half the time they're stumbling around, falling around,
their mind is blurred, they're not alert. He says be sober. be vigilant. When it says be
vigilant, that means to stand firm, to be watchful. To be vigilant means to keep
watch. So he says, to have your mind
right, to be watchful, because your adversary, the devil, as
a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."
There's that word may again. Remember I had you remember that
word when we were talking about Peter being sifted? The Lord
said, Satan hath desired that he may sift you. And now the Lord is telling us
that the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he
may devour. It doesn't say whom he will devour.
Have you noticed that? Has anybody ever noticed that? He says that whom he may devour. Satan cannot devour God's people. Can Satan sift them? He surely
can, but he cannot devour. See, Satan goes around, and I don't
know whether or not Satan knows who the elect are or not. I don't
know that. I don't know if he knows if I'm a child of grace
or not. I'm sure he does, but I don't
know. I don't know that. But he goes
around seeking whom he may devour. The only ones that he can devour
are the reprobate. If you remember, Jesus said that
those who are the reprobate are the ones who are the children
of the devil. And the Bible says that they are held captive at
His will, to do His will. See, so the only one that Satan
can devour is the ones who are the reprobate. He can't devour
the child of grace. The Bible says that whenever
we are tempted, that we are tempted and it's common to every man.
Every man is tempted. Ain't nobody specially tempted
more than another person. We're all tempted. But it said
that with each temptation that He has provided a way of escape.
Now that doesn't mean that we're going to cease to sin. That's
not what that's saying. The way of escape is not that
He's going to cease to sin. He's provided a way of escape
through Christ Jesus. The temptation is through Christ
Jesus. Though we may be tempted and
in our flesh we fail, Christ Jesus was tempted and He did
not fall. and He is our substitute. His righteousness is given to
us. We do not fail because Christ didn't fail. Whenever our sin
and flesh does fail, we have an advocate with the Father. We have forgiveness of sins.
We have justification. We have an imputation of righteousness
that stands in our place before the judge, that word adversary
there, your adversary the devil, that word adversary is a legal
term that means someone who is there to point out the law. I
mentioned a while ago that the Bible says that Satan is the
accuser of the brethren. He stands before God, accusing
us before God, telling God, look at your people, look how sinful
they are. He stands in front of us and
accuses us, telling, look how holy He is and look how sinful
you are. You can't imagine Him loving
you. There's no way that He can save you. You're not good enough.
You need to try harder. You need to keep this law. That
word is a law term. That word adversary means somebody
in a court of law who is there to uphold and to point out how
the law has been broken. We have an adversary, someone
who is who is accusing us of breaking God's law. Someone who
is accusing us and showing us our sinfulness. And he's accusing
us before God, he's accusing us before ourselves. What does
it say here? It says, Be sober, be vigilant,
because your adversary the devil has a roaring lion walketh about
seeking whom he made of our, He may be our accuser. And what
He says to God is most certainly true. We are sinners and we are
transgressing God's law. And what He is telling us that
we have sinned against God who is holy and that we are never
good enough and that we cannot ever be saved in God's favor
by what we've done and all these things. What He accuses us of
is all the time true. But it's a lie that it's applicable
to us. The lie is that it's applicable. He accuses us before God, but
it's not applicable because when God views us, he doesn't view
us as we are. He views us as Christ is. Whenever
he accuses us to us as who we are, it's not applicable because
we know that we are unworthy, but Christ is worthy. We have
a substitute in our place. The substitute Christ Jesus comes
between the adversary and the one that he is trying to devour.
The one who is the one trying to take the law and to put the
law over the person who has broken the law when the mediator comes
in and says, listen, this person is not guilty because all of
his debts have been paid. All of his fine has been paid.
The punishment for his crime has been paid. Therefore, He
is not guilty. All the accusations, all the
blame that you put on him cannot stick because he has a mediator
who is taking care of that on his behalf. So the adversary, the roaring
lion, cannot devour us because of what Jesus Christ has done. Are we going to feel the experience
of that? Absolutely. Do we actually commit
those sins that he's accusing us of? Absolutely. Do we feel
the weight of our sin? Absolutely. And are we deserving
of God's wrath on us because of that sin? Absolutely. But
brethren, he can only accuse us. But we, the Bible says, have
an advocate with the Father. There is only one mediator between
God and man, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan is not our
mediator. He's an adversary. He's an officer
of the court that is making the law, you know, pointed out, but
he is not our mediator. In our court systems, we have
a defense attorney and we have a prosecuting attorney. The prosecuting
attorney is there to take the law and to say this man's guilty,
he has broken the law and this is how he's broken it. The defense
attorney is there to turn around and defend that man saying that
this man should not be held to this law because of this. And
is trying to prove his innocence in the eyes of the judge that
that law has not been broken on this man's account. Jesus
is our advocate or our defense attorney. He is the one when
the accuser, who is the prosecuting attorney, taking the law and
saying, they're guilty, and the judge is saying, they're guilty,
they're guilty, they're guilty, they're guilty, but our advocate
is stepping forth and saying, that sin has been paid for, that
fine has been paid, that wrath that is deserving upon them has
been paid. A person is not guilty, is not
going to receive the just penalty for their sin. Why? Because He Himself took it from
us. Be sober, be vigilant because
your adversary the devil is a roaring lion, walking about seeking whom
he may devour. But the Gospel is the key. Look at verse 9. Whom resist? Who do we resist? Satan, the
devil, the roaring lion. But how do we resist? If you
watch TV and all the crazy preachers that's on TV and listen to them
on the radio, what are they telling you to do? Oh, we rebuke Satan
or the demons. We rebuke them demons, you know. How do they do it? They tell
them, you know, you watch Kenneth Copeland and guys like that.
nut jobs. You watch them, what are they
up there doing? They're pridefully, pridefully going up there and
saying, you know, that I command you, I bind you, I tell you what
to do, you do, you can't do this because I tell you, all that
kind of junk. Listen, listen, Satan is a roaring
lion and he can have his way with us any way he wants. What
did he do to Job? He took all that Job had and
took all of Job's health for the most part to the fact that
he almost died. Satan is an adversary and he
is a roaring lion and he is a powerful being. But he's still under God's
control. But you're not him. We think we can control anything
You think by just you saying something to the devil, he's
going to do it? No. We can't command the devil to do anything.
It says resist. Whom resist steadfast in the
faith. He didn't say resist with your
faith, although Faith is part of what we do here. He didn't
say, I with my faith bind you, Satan. No, he says resist him. The Bible says resist the devil
and he shall flee. How do we resist the devil? How
do we overcome the roaring lion? How do we overcome the fiery
darts of of Satan. He says, whom resists steadfast
in the faith. How do we resist? We resist in
the faith. Now that definite article, thee,
is there before faith, so it means we resist Him in the Gospel. That's how we resist the devil.
When the accuser comes to accuse us, how do we resist? Him with
the Gospel. You're right. I am guilty. But I have a mediator with the
Father. I have the judge doesn't see me as me because I have a
substitute. The judge doesn't look on me
and my sin because all my sin was placed upon my advocate. The law was kept. You say that
I broke that law, but I kept the law because all the law keeping
that he did, he gave it to my account. How do we resist the devil? When
the devil accuses us over and over and over again, we go to
him and resist him with the gospel. We keep our mind on the gospel. By faith, We resist Him in the
faith. We resist Him through the Gospel. We keep in mind that Christ is
our substitute. That we cannot be accused before
the Father anymore. The Bible says that who shall lay any charge
to God's elect? Look at that with me just real
quick. I don't want to get too far off here because I'm way
over but look at that. I forgot where I was at. Oh, here
it is, Romans chapter 8, verse 33. It says, Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who is He that condemneth? It
is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even
at the right hand of God, and who maketh intercession for us. When Satan comes to devour to
sift us, to show us how sinful we are, we resist by the Gospel. Resist what? Resist falling in
despair. Resist thinking that we need
to ramp up our righteousness. Whenever Peter was shown, when
Christ looked at him, he didn't say, oh man, I better start getting
better. Soon as Christ looked at him, he knew, I did what he
said I was going to do. I am what he says I am. I'm a
sinner. I am incapable of being strong. I am incapable of being faithful.
I'm incapable of being dedicated. I'm incapable of standing strong. Here I am, I thought I was the
strongest of all the apostles and was going to be the example
for everybody. I want to take charge and be
an example. Here I am, the very one who before everybody else,
I denied him. But what did he do? He showed
him. So how did Peter receive that? Well, whenever Jesus came to
him, he didn't try to make excuses. I just did that so I got to keep
alive to keep the doctrine going, you know. If they would have
killed me, what would have happened with all the rest of the apostles?
He didn't start making excuses. Whenever Jesus came to him, he
said, do you love me? Peter said, I do love you. He said, now feed my sheep. Preach
them this gospel because they're going to experience the same
thing you did. Satan's going to come and want
to devour them. want to make them to despair.
What did Peter do whenever he did that? He went, and the Bible
says, he wept bitterly. He was in despair because he
had went against his Savior, his friend. He had done something
to hurt him. Matter of fact, he had denied
him with curses. How would you feel if one of
your brothers or sisters, in front of somebody else, you were
out in a group of people, and someone said something, and they
say, well, ain't that your brother? And you're like, no, that ain't
my brother. and you heard that, how would you feel inside if
you heard one of your brothers or sisters denying you and saying,
that's not my brother. I don't know, I don't even know
them. Or how would you feel if you did that and as soon as you
said that and you seen your brother or sister look at you because
they heard you? How would that make you feel? We'll ramp that
up a thousand times because that's what happened with Peter and
Jesus. But he didn't make excuses. He came and whenever Jesus preached
the gospel to him. He said, Peter, I love you. Do you love me? He said, feed
my sheep. He didn't say after a few bits
of penance, after I run you down a little bit, after I put you
on hold for a while. He said, no, feed my sheep. When
you've been turned, whenever I've granted you repentance and
you turn and you see how sinful and wrong and how unrighteous
you are, whenever you turn and realize that you are not strong. He said, feed my sheep. Tell them the same thing. Tell
them that they're not strong to look to me. To look to me. That's what Peter is now conveying
to his brethren. He says, humble yourselves, therefore,
under the mighty hand of God. Why? Because there is a roaring
lion, an adversary that is going to keep pointing out your faults
and is going to try to continue to tempt you to sin, and whenever
you fail, and whenever you mess up, and whenever you break the
law of God, and whenever you transgress the law of God, He's
going to accuse you before God, but He's not going to devour
you, because there is the Gospel. Christ Jesus has died for you.
He has forgiven you. He says, knowing that the same
afflictions are accompanied in your brethren that are in the
world, What does that mean? That means that all of us are
experiencing the same thing. If we're a child of grace, we're
all experiencing the same thing. Those people who are never bothered
by that sin and they think they're becoming more and more holy and
sinning less and less and less and they just keep coasting on
and they're never brought back into the depths of their sin
and know the fullness of their sin and keep always going before
God saying, oh wretched man that I am, oh wretched man that I
am, but pump up and say, I'm glad that you've not made me
like that, or I'm glad you've delivered me from being like
that person, or that person, or that person. Those are the
people that have not been given the grace of God, that have not
been humbled under the mighty hand of God. They're still in
their prideful sin. But those who have been humbled
know the same afflictions of our sin. the same afflictions
over the accusations. We know the accusations are true,
but we resist the fiery darts of the devil. In one section
of Scripture, the Bible says to do that by taking upon the
full armor of God, by taking the sword of the Spirit, and
the breastplate of righteousness, and the helmet of salvation,
your feet shod with the gospel, and your loins girded up. And all that is like all these
pieces of armor, and we think, well, yeah, we've got to take
God's Word. Ha! We've got to take, oh, the helmet of salvation,
All of those things are pictures of Christ. The helmet of salvation
is Christ who is our salvation. The sword of the Spirit is the
Word of God. Who is the Word of God? Christ Jesus is the Word
of God. Who is the breastplate of righteousness?
Christ Jesus who is your righteousness. Have your feet shod with the
Gospel. Who is the Gospel? Christ Jesus is the Gospel. The armor of salvation The armor
of the Lord is Christ. To resist the fiery darts of
Satan is to take up Christ. Look to Christ. Acknowledge Christ. Resist in the faith. We're probably going to change
the title of that because that will be next week's title. But
we'll stop right there. Next week we're going to look
at verse 10, which I was really wanting to get to because it's
the glorious answer to everything that we see today. So anybody
got any questions or comments? Father, we thank you once again for this
day and we thank you for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the
salvation that's through him. We thank you for the testimony
of Christ today in these pages, and we ask for that you just
might have the Spirit of God apply them to our heart, that
you might teach us something of Christ. Through it, I pray
it's been of encouragement and edification to your people. May
you give them safety throughout this week until you gather us
again the next Lord's Day. And we ask it all in Christ's
precious name, amen.