If you will, turn back with me
now to 1 Peter chapter 5. I've got many things on my mind this
morning. I know that some of you are going
through heavy trials, and all of us go through these
little mediocre trials, daily trials. and then some with other
kinds of trials. And I thought it might be a good
thing to do a verse-by-verse study
here in 1 Peter chapter five that has to do with God's care
for his people. God's care for his people. And
I wanna talk a little bit about his care, or cares, and our cares. He said, casting all your cares
on him, for he careth for you. Peter begins the chapter with
a word to the elders. Look with me here in verse one.
And I want to remind you that Peter is writing not to a specific
assembly of believers, but congregations scattered throughout Pontus,
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. He's talking to men
and women that he's never met. He's talking to men and women
who congregate in these little assemblies here, there, and yonder.
Paul, as an apostle to the Gentiles, had established churches all
over the place, and Peter now writes to them. If you look at
the title of the book of 1st or 2nd Peter, it says the general
epistle. He's talking not to a specific
congregation, but to all congregations in general. He's addressing many
churches, some of them with pastors and some without. And it begins
with the elders. And elders here is just another
word for pastors, which Peter tells us he is also. He was a
pastor and a witness of Christ and also a partaker of the glory
that shall be revealed. He was more than just a preacher,
he was an apostle. And he's telling us that he was
not an elected official, He wasn't just simply a person holding
an office, but one who had a personal interest in the promises of God. They didn't hire him to do a
job. One assembly said to their pastor, we hired him, we can
fire him. You can't hire God's pastor.
You can give him gifts, you can support him, but you can't hire
him. And you can't fire him. To his own master he standeth
or he falleth. You can run him off from a spot.
You can do that. You can separate yourself from
him. But his office was given to him
of God, and that's what he's telling these elders. He's one son of God. He's the
ambassador of God. And as an apostle of Christ,
it was Peter's calling to be involved in and have authority
over all the churches and congregations and pastors alike. And then in
verses two and three, he exhorts these pastors to do what God
himself had called them to do. What does a pastor do? What do
we expect from a pastor? Well, here's what he says. Feed
the flock of God which is among you. That's what pastors do. You know, you look over there
in Ephesians 4, and he's talking about these gifts that he gave,
and he mentions apostles and prophets and evangelists, and
then he says pastors and teachers. Pastors and teachers is not two
separate offices. That reads in the original, pastor-teachers. Pastors are teachers. In fact,
that's in the Great Commission in the book of Matthew, that's
what he tells them to do. Go into all nations and teach
them. Teach them. So here's the duty
of the pastor. He's to feed the flock of God,
which is among you, taking the oversight thereof. And that's
the primary duty of the pastor, is to feed his congregation. And then he says, God has set
him in authority or given them the oversight. They are under
shepherds watching for your souls as they that must give an account.
And when he says that, he's not talking about the judgment. All
our sins have been paid for. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ. He's not talking about judging
his pastors in some future day. He judges his pastors as they
live, hour by hour, minute by minute. He can put a pastor in
over a congregation or he can remove him. We've seen this in
recent days, haven't we? We've seen pastors who were established
and pastors who their ministry was taken away from. They must give an account. Sometimes, like Demas, Paul called
him his fellow laborer. He was a preacher. He went with
Paul. He assisted Paul on his journeys, Demas did. Talked very
favorably about him in places. And then he said, Demas hath
forsaken me, having loved this present world. And sometimes,
God sits these men down like He did Demas, and He simply gives
them a heart for the world. I've seen that in my lifetime.
I've seen preachers who, boy, they were gifted men. They were very smart, very intelligent
men, and just quit the ministry altogether to sell insurance,
or quit the ministry altogether to go do this, or go do that.
He just gave him a heart for the world. My heart for the world. And sometimes they must be removed
from preaching because of heresy or rank immorality. Very dear pastor to me when I
was first beginning to preach back in my 20s, left his wife, left the church,
run off with some young woman, moved out to California, never
to be heard from again. After nearly 30 years, I got
a friend request from him on Facebook. I went click. They're all going to answer to
the Lord who controls their destinies. And then when he talks about
taking the oversight, you can't take what's not given to you.
If God doesn't give you the oversight, I don't care what you do. I've
got friends who went to seminary. I don't know of anybody, even
myself as a preacher, I didn't burn like he did to be a pastor. Oh, he wanted to pastor, that
was his life's ambition was to pastor. But he wasn't called
to be a pastor. You can't take what's not given
to you. And somehow we got to come to
that understanding. If God doesn't give me the oversight,
I can't take it. But if he gives it to me, I'm
to take it. Understanding where I got it. And by whose authority I'm here.
Pastors don't campaign for office. We don't pressure folks into
it. Nor is it done through oversight committees or denominational
councils. I certainly appreciate the recommendations
of fellow churches and their pastors, but in the end, it's
between a man and that assembly and God joining them together.
You take the oversight if God gives it to you. And you accept
the oversight if God gives it to you. And if you don't, I wouldn't
move there for a thousand dollars. I just wouldn't do it. I wouldn't
do it. We're not to do it by constraint,
but willingly. The congregation willing to submit
and willing to support and willing to defend and willing to hear. And a preacher willing to deny
himself, to give himself to this office and to these people. And
not for money. The thing you'll learn about
God's preachers, Paul said, I have learned to be content in whatever
state I'm in. I know how to abound. And he
said, I know how to be abased. And you give a preacher a comfortable
salary, and then something happens, and the church starts to go downhill.
Go downhill, well, it gets under a certain amount. The pastor
said, well, I'm sorry. I got to move on. I can't live
on that. Not if he's in a God he won't.
He'll go find him something to do, and he'll keep right on preaching
to that congregation. Or he'll do without, and he'll
keep right on preaching to that congregation. It's not for filthy lucre, that
means money, but he's to do it of a ready mind. Don asked me,
When I first come down here, he said, would you be willing
to go down there and pay? He said, it's just a little group.
They're just a handful. I said, Don, I'd be willing to
stand on my head till the Lord comes back, but I have to know
that God's sending me. I have to know. Would I go? I'll go anywhere
he sends me. But I gotta know he's sending
me. Now, what's these preachers to
do? They're to feed the flock of God. And every prayer and
every lesson and every sermon, it's geared to that end, to feed
that flock of God. Now, what's he to feed them?
In 1 Peter 4.10, he said, as every man hath received the gift,
even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of
the manifold grace of God. What does the flock of God hunger
for? They hunger for Christ. They
hunger for wisdom, the wisdom of God. They want to know something
about God. They want to know what's going
on. What are you talking about? What is this thing of coming
here to worship God and gathering here to worship God? What is
this thing I see when I see men baptized, when I see men profess
faith? What's going on? What's going
on? I want to know. What's the flock of God hunger
for? The sincere milk of the word that they may grow thereby. The appetite of God's flock is
Christ. Grace and truth comes through
him. You wanna know something about
grace? Study Christ. Listen to what Paul says over
here in Colossians 2.6. He said, as you have therefore
received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. Now listen,
rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you've
been taught. Our ministry, Ephesians 4.12,
is for the edifying of the body of Christ that we all come in
the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.
Unto a perfect man, he's not talking about you, he's talking
about Christ in you. That's the perfect man. We say you got to be perfect
to be accepted. We're perfect in him. We're perfect
in him. Unto the measure of the stature
of the fullness of Christ. We preach Christ crucified. Unto
the Jews, that is unto the religious man, the legalist. This is a
stumbling block. And unto the Greeks, that's the
wise man. Unto the Greeks, it's foolishness. But unto them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom
of God. What is it to feed his flock?
It's to feed them with Christ. We're to study to show ourselves
approved of God, not to stand up and just spit out words, but
with a solid knowledge and understanding to rightly divide the word of
truth, to show you Christ in every passage, if it's possible. Verse Peter 5.3, neither is being
lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock.
We're not dictators. Every preacher I've ever known
that God used for the edifying of the body of Christ were themselves
examples of what they preached. Henry Mayhem was my pastor. I
never met a man who loved people more than him, never. He was
an amazing person. Paul told the Thessalonians that
he knew their election of God because his gospel came not in
word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost. And he said,
you become followers of us and the Lord, now watch this, so
that you become examples. Examples to all that believe. And that's what he's telling
these elders, you be examples. You be examples to the flock.
And likewise, you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Now
elder here is a little different word from elder in verse one.
This is just talking about older folks is what this is talking
about. You submit yourself to the elder. Yes, he said, all of you be subject
one to another. Somebody's gonna tell you something
Just learn to be quiet long enough to let them speak. Don't cut
them off. I know, I know, I know. Don't
cut them off. Just be quiet and listen to what
they got to say. Might surprise you. Might surprise
you what they got to say. Maybe God give them a word. He
spoke to one through an ass, didn't he? I think he still does.
I think he still does. Be subject one to another. Be
clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud and giveth
grace to the humble. My friend, a proud believer is
a contradiction in terms. Isn't it? A proud believer. Everything we have is a gift
of God. It's not owing to anything likable
or meritorious in us. But it's in spite of what we
are that he gives us what he gives us. Listen to these scriptures. By
grace are you saved through faith. And that, that faith, not of
yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not of
works, lest any man should boast. If we had this much, this much
to do with our faith, we boast on it for all eternity. We stand
up there with our thumbs in our suspenders and say, one thing
I can say. No, God's arranged it so you
don't have one thing you can say. Be ye kind one to another, forgiving
one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven
you. We don't have anything that God
hadn't given to us. And we certainly have nothing
in ourselves to be proud of. You got something you can be
proud of? Huh? We're beggars. That's what scripture
pictures us. We're beggars. Like old blind
Bartimaeus sitting on that old stinky blanket outside of Jericho.
And our Lord walked through there. He didn't have anything to say
to anybody. He had no gifts to give. He didn't
do anything until he got on the outskirts of Jericho. And the Lord, the Spirit of God,
put it in the heart of that old beggar to start calling, Jesus,
thou son of David. And the Son of God stopped. Can
you imagine? Satan couldn't stop him. A third of the heavenly host
couldn't stop him. Pilate couldn't stop him. Nobody
could stop him. But one blind beggar calling
on his name for mercy froze him still. And he stopped. And he listened. And he said,
what would you have me do? What do you want from me? My sight. I want to be able to
see. Ain't that what we want? I want
to be able to see. I don't want to go through life
blind, deceived, doing Satan's will, letting that We walked according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience. I don't want to go through life
like that in that darkness and deception, only to wake up in
hell. I want to see. I want to see. We're just beggars holding the bread of God that
he's given to us. Old Mephibosheth seated at the
king's table in the king's house because of a covenant that was
made on his behalf. But what happens is folks mistake
the restraining hand of God for self-righteousness. I never did this. You reckon
that's owing to you or the restraining hand of God? But we want to take
ownership of it, don't we? Folks mistake the restraining
hand of God for self-righteousness, and they walk around as though
they had preserved themselves all them years. Paul was an apostle,
but he also knew he was the chief of sinners. You know what the Lord said?
He said, I hate a proud look. I hate a proud look. Perhaps the hymn writer said
it best. He said, boasting excluded. Pride, he said, I base. I'm only
a sinner saved by grace. Now that's the story of every
believer. And so he says, he said, this
is my story. For God be the glory. I'm only
a sinner saved by grace. So he said, 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. Verse six, verse Peter five. Believers, according to Romans
9.21, are clay in the hands of the potter being made into vessels
of honor. Vessels of honor. It's his work,
not ours. Our struggle is not so much in
trying to make ourselves into something as it is to humble
ourselves under the mighty hand of the potter who's making us
vessels. It wasn't the clay that helped
him when he created these vessels of wrath. He gives us the picture.
Here's the potter. Clay just doing this. And he's
got one big lump of clay, and he just breaks off a chunk. And
he said, I'm going to make a vessel of honor. And he puts it on the
wheel, and he begins to shape, and he makes that vessel. That's
what he does with us. In Christ Jesus were new creatures
in Christ. Vessels of honor. Where would
we be without him? What would we be? Just worthless
sinners all. But all in his hands and by his
grace and in his son. Heirs and joint heirs. Sons of
God, redeemed by his blood, clothed with his righteousness, kept
by his grace. Verse seven, 1 Peter 5. Casting
all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Now that verse is as wide as
your need. I don't know what your need is,
but this is as wide as your need. casting all your care upon Him. A believer should never carry
an anxious care in this world. Will he? Yes. Or he wouldn't
have wrote this scripture. But he shouldn't. He has no reason
to. There's nothing to justify his
anxious cares. We have a Heavenly Father who
has set His love upon us. When from all eternity he set
them apart from other men, treats them differently than he does
other men, made provision for them, he's
ordained all things and worketh all things together for their
good and his glory. He's appointed his son as their
representative and substitute. He put into place an everlasting
covenant of grace and made his son the surety of it. David said,
although it be not so with my house, yet hath he made with
me an everlasting covenant. Now listen, ordered in all things
and sure. This is all my salvation, all
my desire. He has predestinated us, Paul
said, unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. He so arranged his providence
that nothing is left to chance and circumstance. Well, wasn't I lucky I got to
hear Henry Mahan? No. No, I wasn't lucky. That's God's providence. That's
God's providence. Paul said, I'm so thankful for
you Thessalonians. 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. He arranged for
you to be here and for me to be here at the same time. Nothing's left to chance and
circumstance. Rather, he worketh all things
after the counsel of his own will. And when the Jews and Gentiles
gathered themselves together and took all their secret counsels
and hired all their false witnesses and all of these things that
they did, here's what they did. They did exactly what God's hand
and God's counsel determined before to be done. When Jesus
Christ came into this world, He came to accomplish the Father's
redemptive will. And this, John said, manifested,
listen, manifested the love of God toward us because God sent
His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through
Him. I'm talking about our Heavenly
Father and His love for us. When He rose from the dead, was
about to begin his ascent into glory, he charged his ambassadors
to preach the gospel to all men. Every man and woman he chose
from eternity and died for in time will hear that gospel and
believe. As the gospel was preached, their
election was made known. Our Lord said, all that the Father
has given me will come to me. And him that cometh to me, I
will in no wise cast out. All that the father had given
to the son came to him, embraced him, believed on him, found rest
for the souls. But his love doesn't end there.
He put his spirit in them. He wrote his laws upon their
hearts. He gave them an appetite. He
made them willing in the day of his power and is even now
keeping them by the power of God through faith. In Jude verse
one, he writes that we're sanctified by God the Father, set apart
in divine election before the world began, chose us in Christ.
And we're preserved in Jesus Christ. God put us in his Son. We're one with his Son. The only reason that final judgment
doesn't reign in terror in our hearts and minds right now is
because God put us in Christ. We're preserved in Jesus Christ
and then we're called. We wouldn't hear, we wouldn't
even get the call were it not for the Spirit of God. Oh beloved, listen to this. He
that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Everything you have is the gift
of God, and God, who has nothing for us but love and goodness
and kindness, disperses these gifts according to our spiritual
welfare. Sometimes his gift to us may
come in the form of a loss. Sometimes we have things that
need to be taken away, don't we? Job did. Job had everything. He was the
richest man in the East. Billionaire by today's standard. God took it all away. Finally,
his wife come out and looked at him, and there he is, he's
covered with bowls, and he's sitting there in the ash pit
with a piece of glass, and he's scraping his bowls, and his wife
said, why don't you just curse God and die? He said, you talk
like one of those foolish women. Naked, came I into the world.
Naked, I leave. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Oh, my soul. Sometimes his gift
is to take it away. But he gave him twice as much
in the end. Casting all your cares upon him,
for he careth for you. Now then, verse eight, be sober. What's that mean? That means
be alert. Vigilant, because your adversary,
the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he
may devour. I'm gonna give you something
here, and I want you to remember it, especially you young children
here this morning. I want you to hear me, I want
you to listen to me. Satan's work is in religion. That's where it's at, it's in
religion. and religious deception. He is called that man of sin. That man of sin. When Satan deceives,
when Satan works, he works in religion. He's not talking here about being
temptations of drunkenness or vileness or any such thing. He's talking here about our adversary,
Satan, who works in religion. And he goin' about like a lion. He hides, and then he pounces
at the right minute. Right at the right time. Boy,
his timing's perfect. Timing perfect. He'll catch you
at an all-time low, and then he'll throw this religious jar.
Our Lord was out there fasting, tempted for 40 days and 49. You
think about that, out in that wilderness. And then Satan comes. What'd he tempt him with, drunkenness,
prostitution? No, no, religion. Religion. Our enemy moves in the realm
of religion and he seeks only to deceive. Verse nine, whom
resist? How you gonna resist him? He
takes us captive at his will. How you gonna resist him? Whom
resist in the faith. What's that talking about? That
talking about Christ in you. The Lord rebuked that. The angel,
when he was disputing with Satan over the body, Moses, he didn't,
He didn't stand up there, he probably could have, he might
have been Satan's equal, I don't know, but he didn't rebuke Satan
by his own name, he said the Lord rebuked him. That's what
faith does. We resist him in the faith knowing
that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren
that are in the world. We're not the only ones tempted,
we're not the only ones with a problem. We're not the first
to lose something. Or maybe it's the other way.
Maybe it's a great gain. We're not the first to gain anything. But never imagine that you're
a match for Satan. He can only be resisted in the
faith, knowing this, that greater is he that's in you than he that's
in the world. And then Peter sums it all up
in verse 10. but the God of all grace. My
friend, if you're saved, you're saved by grace. Grace is, it's
a word that appears from beginning to end in the testimony of every
believer. It's all grace, it's all the
gift of God. Unmerited, undeserved. But the God of all grace who
hath called us unto His eternal glory. Can you imagine? John gives us a picture in the
book of Revelations, and he said he looked. He looked. And in his vision, he saw all
these people in these white robes, and they're all standing there
with the Lamb of God. God's in their midst. The Lamb's
in their midst. The Glorious One's in their midst.
Who are these people? How'd they get there? Where'd
they get them robes? These are they that come up out
of great tribulation, great trouble, and wash their robes in the blood
of the Lamb. Can you imagine what kind of
honor it'll be and glory to stand with the Lord Jesus Christ? And
people talk about heaven and talk about cabins and streams
and lakes and fishing and who knows what. You think those things
are going to take preeminence over the Son of God? Well, they do here sometimes,
but they shouldn't. They shouldn't. The God of all grace who has
called us unto eternal glory by Christ Jesus. Now listen,
after that you suffered a while, make you perfect, that is complete. establish, strengthen, and settle
you. Persecution is not the only form
of suffering. We suffer as we do things and
learn that these things were contrary to the will of God.
We suffer. We suffer when we doubt His love,
only to see that rebellion in us, whom he loved. You see, real conviction of sin
is not just seeing your sin against the law, it's seeing your sin
against love. It's seeing your whole being
as a rebel to God. Everything that you've received,
he's given you. And we suffer when we doubt his
love, only to see it transgressed in ourselves. And we suffer when
we don't find rest for our souls. We're anxious, upset, worried,
stomping the floor, spitting out words we ain't got no business
saying. We suffer when we don't find
rest for our soul. What situation is there that
you can't rest in Christ? Huh? No situation. No situation. Paul and Silas
was put on the inner prison after they were beaten. You know what
they did? They went in there and, oh, I
didn't deserve this. No, that ain't what they were
doing. They went in there and sang hymns and worshiped God. They're not a situation that
you can't find rest for your souls in Christ. Not any situation. Your husband leaves you. All
right, he's gone. Praise God. We suffer when we don't find
rest for our souls. Beloved, there's nothing outside
of Christ. There's nothing out there. I
don't care what this world promises, there's nothing outside of Christ. There's no rest, no peace, no
assurance, no hope, no faith, no comfort, no confidence outside
of Christ. May the Lord be pleased to to do for us what we cannot do
for ourselves, and to be to us the God of all
grace as he enables us to trust him. Trust him. If we have one
word to say to another, let it be this. Trust in him. Trust in him. He's able. He's
able. All right, come here.