These verses from 1 Peter chapter
five, verses five to seven are verses which I think are important
verses and full of blessing to us. So let us take a moment and
reread them and think carefully of the things that are said here.
Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. 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. Humble yourselves, therefore,
under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due
time, casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Of all the qualities demonstrated and exemplified
by the Lord Jesus Christ during his time here upon earth. Of all the qualities that we
see in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ here upon earth, I wonder if his humility was
not the most striking and the most wonderful. He was good. He was kind. He was gracious. He was gentle. He was faithful. He was loving. He was patient. He was wise. He was bold and
courageous. And perhaps I am foolish to try
and rank these qualities of the God-man as if I am any judge
of these things. And yet Jesus Christ, our Lord,
is the God-man. He is God. in human flesh. He is God. He is the all-glorious
God. And it's that very fact of His
infinite glory, His divine sovereignty, His kingship, His majesty, His
omnipotence, His excellence, that makes the earthly appearance
of the Lord Jesus Christ so amazing, so wonderful, so astounding,
so remarkable. And the Lord Jesus Christ, in
order to come into this world, the Apostle Paul tells us in
his letter to the Philippians, humbled himself. He humbled himself
to come into this world. and we may consider his birth
and the meanness of the circumstances of his birth, the dirty stable,
the unhygienic surrounds, the way in which that child was born
so far away from home in a nighttime, in that situation. I will say what a transformation
between that scene and the realms of glory that he had left. Or we might think about his childhood
and what they commonly called despised Nazareth. That was its
name. That's what people called it. They didn't say Nazareth. They
said, oh, despised Nazareth. We have We have lots of little
chaffinchies, little birds back in the UK and we used to see
these birds flying around and we'd try and identify them and
such was their quantity that you would see them and you'd
say, oh, it's just a chaffinch. And after a while, people thought
that just a chaffinch was its name. Despised Nazareth. Despised is
where the Lord Jesus Christ chose, chose to be raised. Why? It was
a picture of the humiliation into which the God-man had come. It was impoverished as a place. It was backward. The people that
lived there were common people, and we won't aggravate the poor
reputation that they had by enlarging upon it, but it was despised
for good cause. And the Lord Jesus Christ, for
30 years of his 33, lived in that surrounding. and labored
as a carpenter. Now carpenters kind of sounds
a little bit prestigious these days. We might call him a chippy
or a joiner. He worked with wood and it wasn't
that he was creating beautiful objects. He was building tables
and chairs and doors and gates. The kind of thing that despised
people that lived in Nazareth would be able to afford. Such
was our Saviour, such was the God-man, such was Jesus Christ. We're told in Philippians 2 that
he made himself of no reputation and took upon himself the form
of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. And it seems that at the end
of his life, at the end of 33 years, The only thing of value
that he possessed was a single piece cloak. A single piece cloak
was all that he had to show for all the labour of his years. And somebody stole it when he
was crucified. He was denied and betrayed by
his friends. He was left alone. He was despised. He was mocked. He was slandered. He was insulted by his enemies
without any right of reply. And he said of himself in Psalm
22, I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men
and despised of the people. That was Christ's statement of
himself. In death he was crucified and
a cursed and horrific execution. Philippians again tells us, and
being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself. Okay, we
read before that he humbled himself to come as a man. And now Paul
tells us in chapter two, verse eight, in that despised state
of manhood, he humbled himself again. He humbled himself. and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. And angels watched in awe and
wonder as God was crucified. And the Saviour entered willingly. purposefully into that state
and that condition of abject humiliation. Now I say all this
because I want us to know that this is the Jesus that we follow. This is the Jesus that we worship. This is the Jesus whose example
we are to emulate and to pursue. This is the Christ. And yes,
we can think of him as God and the creator of the world, and
we can think of him in all of his majesty and glory, but it
is a man, a man who sits in the throne of heaven now, and a man
with marks in his hands that shows where he's been. and what
he's experienced and what he has gone through. And not one
of you here in this congregation today are better than he is. And I'm definitely not. And there's
no reason why I shouldn't be lower than Christ ever came in
his humiliation. For all I am, if Christ could
call himself a worm, what am I? a sinner before a holy God
under just and righteous condemnation. He is our example. He is the
way, the way that we walk therein. He is the door through which
we are to travel. the access by which we will reach
heaven, it's Christ. And that example teaches us as
his servants to expect no better. When Peter calls us to submission,
When Peter calls us in these verses to subjection, when Peter
calls us to humility, that's the kind of attitude that he's
talking about. That's where we have to be in
our own estimation and in our own thinking. And that's not
a form of false modesty. Oh God help us from hypocrisy. This is not false modesty. It
is a purposeful identifying with the saviour. It is a genuine
renouncing of self, owning his service, owning his
lordship, owning his goals, and being who we are. in Christ,
not what we wish we were in the flesh, because we all put on
an act and we all aspire to being better than we really are. It is exercising the gracious
gifts that the Lord has given us. It is practising that love
to God, which he has implanted and called forth from us. It is exercising love to the
brethren, to esteem one another better than ourselves, to look
around us and think to ourselves, God has been gracious to me and
I didn't deserve it. and I will be gracious to these
and I will be forgiving to these amongst whom he has placed me. It is seeking occasion to do
each other good and to lift each other up, supposing it's by them
standing on our backs. Pride does not befit a believer
in Christ. It does not suit a man or a woman
who knows something of their own heart. And far from assuming that we
get grace for showing humility, rather, let us see that grace
is essential to resist the flesh in the ongoing war that exists
in our hearts and lives against our own nature. These verses
are very short, there's only three of them, and what I'm going
to do is give you three points, one from pretty much each verse,
and just leave you to think about it this morning. They're delightful
verses, they're verses of hope, they're verses of comfort, they're
verses of encouragement. And I want to show you this.
First of all, in these verses, there is promise. There's promise
in these verses. We're told God giveth grace to
the humble. He gives grace. He gives grace
for today. Grace for today. Now this is
not saving grace that is being spoken about here. This is what
we might call added grace. This is more grace for the children
of grace, more grace for the people of God, more grace for
the demands of the day that we face and the challenges that
will be brought to us in this day. And we may say, as the people
of God, every morning when we get up, we, upon the basis of
God's promise, shall have sufficient grace for this day. Tell yourself that in the morning.
Let that be a little phrase that rolls around in the back of your
mind every day when you get up. The Lord has promised sufficient
grace for today. In 2 Corinthians chapter 12,
verse 9, we read, he said unto me, this was Paul, my grace is
sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. And so it is that the more that
we trust Christ for that grace that we need, the more that Christ
is glorified. The strength of Christ is perfected
in our weaknesses. There is a value in humility. There is a benefit in humility. For thereby we glorify the Lord
God, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose strength is evidently perfected
in our needs. God promises exalting to come. So he promises grace for today,
he giveth grace to the humble, and he promises exalting to come.
He may exalt you in due time. May there doesn't mean possibly. It's another usage of the word
may. When we say we may do something,
we mean, well, we might do it. We'll possibly do that tomorrow.
We may do it. But that's not what the word
may means in this context, in this sentence. It's an expression
of purpose, an expression of expectation and anticipation. that he may exalt you in time. The Lord uses the expression
a lot. I'm not going to take time to
read it, but if you want to, a little bit later, you can look
back in Luke chapter 14, verse 10 and 11, and you'll see an
occasion there where the Lord uses this expression. He used
it a lot, actually. He repeated this idea of an exaltation
to come to those who were humble. And therefore the apostles, they
also. You know what I'm gonna do? See
what's happened there? I told you Luke chapter 14 and
you're all turning to it. So I'm just gonna have to read
it now. So that's your fault, right? If I'm five minutes over
my time this morning, it's because you looked at your Bibles. So
Luke chapter 14, verse 10. Okay, so the Lord says, he's
telling his people, he's telling his disciples, when thou art
bidden, go. Verse eight. When thou art bidden
of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room,
lest a more honorable man than thou be bidden of him. And he
that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place,
and thou begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when
thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room, that when
he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go
up higher. Then shalt thou have worship
in the presence of them that sit at meet with thee. And this is a little verse that
the Lord repeats often. For whosoever exalteth himself
shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. And we find that the apostles
undoubtedly repeating and re-echoing the sentiment from the Lord in
his teaching to them, repeats this phrase and this sentiment. He calls us to be humble amongst
the Lord's people, that there will be an exaltation yet to
come. So not only are we told that
there is grace for today, there's exaltation to come, but God promises
something else. He promises something for the
future. He promises to be careful for
us. And I think that's a beautiful
sentiment. We see it there in verse seven. At the end of verse seven, he
says, he careth for you. He careth for his people. Now,
who is there in need, does not desire to be cared for. It's such a basic and a natural
thing in this world to feel a need and to appreciate being cared
for. What it means is that we're the
objects of his special attention. The Lord cares for his people.
We are the objects of his special attention. When the Lord looks
down in this world, when he looks down in this town, when he looks
down in this congregation, he sees that people who are the
objects of his care, the people that he loves. And yes, he gives sufficient
grace for today. And yes, we are assured of future
glory and exaltation, be it in this life or the next, for sure. But we also have this promise
that there is an ongoing special care for his people every day. And the Lord holds us in that
place of cherished attention. He sees his people, and that's
our promise. That's the promise that the Lord
gives us. Now, a promise is only as good
as the power to perform it. If I say to you, I promise to
do something, if that's not in my power to do, that's a vain
promise. But there is power in the mighty
hand of God. So I don't know whether you're
following my structure here, but my first point was that these
are the promises that God has given to us. He promises that
he will give us grace. He promises that he will exalt
us in the future. And he promises that he is caring
for us every day. These are the promises of God.
And here's why those promises are meaningful. Because there
is a power in the promiser. because it is God himself who
promises these things. And we read that also in these
verses. We're told there that the mighty
hand of God is at work in this matter. The mighty hand of God,
what a beautiful phrase that is. It speaks of his omnipotence. Now, that's a little bit of a
mouthful, I grant you, but that simply means complete and absolute
power, omnipotence. And this is the mighty hand of
God. The one who made this promise is the one who has the ability
to fulfil it. It's expressive of his sovereign
power, his absolute dominion, his directed strength, a power
that comes to those to whom he is gracious, to whom he has promised
exaltation and to day by day have his directed care upon them. That same hand has the power
to crush and it is the power to protect.
That same hand condemns or comforts and those who are in Christ are
safe in the palm of the mighty hand of God. When Paul heard these things,
the mention of the presence of Christ with him, He says in 2
Corinthians 12, verse 9, Paul's reaction was this, that the power of Christ may
rest upon me. That's what we're talking about
here when Peter says that we are to humble ourselves, that
there is a graciousness and humility one amongst the other. I glory
in my infirmities, my weakness, that the power of Christ may
rest upon me. The power of Christ is the mighty
hand of God. And what kind of God do we have?
Is he a weak, frustrated, pretend God that we've kind of conjured
up in our minds because of all the various influences that we've
had since we were little children and maybe heard hundreds of people
putting in their three pence worth as to who God is and what
God is? Huh. I'll tell you what. The vast majority of professing
Christians worship at the Temple of Rimman because they have manufactured
a God of their own making. The God of the Bible is the Lord
Jesus Christ, the God-Man, and it's the mighty hand of this
humiliated Christ that is our preservation and our protection
and all our salvation. He's not weak and frustrated.
He does what he wills in this world. He is the mighty Saviour. In Daniel 4, verse 35, it's a
go-to verse at this point in a sermon. So let me read it to
you, and then we've gone to it and we've heard what the Word
of God has to say on this matter. All the inhabitants of the earth
are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth. And none can stay his hand. None can stop him from
doing what he wants to do. That's the mighty hand of God
that we're talking about right there. None can stay his hand
and say unto him, what doest thou? God's not answerable to
any man. God does exactly what he wills
to do, exactly what he pleases, and nobody says to him, well,
what are you doing that for? There's gotta be a better way
than that. There's gotta be a different method. No, that's the God that's
in the house of women. That's the man-made, manufactured
God, not the one true God. So we've seen that there is promise
in these verses here in the book of Peter, and there is power
behind that promise. And finally, the promise, the
power, and the passion. Let us think about the love of
God towards us at this moment. The love of God undergirds and
supports every reassurance that comes to us by grace in the gospel. Every promise is undergirded. The foundation upon which all
the promises of God are built is this little phrase, He careth
for you. He careth for you. Who does? God the Father. God the Son and God the Holy
Spirit. The Triune God, the Majesty on
High, the Holy One, the Omnipotent One, the One in whom all this
power is versed, the One who humbled Himself and came into
this world in order to die upon the cross, to redeem His people,
to save His people, to gather His people to Himself. That One,
He cares for you. What fears do you have? What
doubts do you harbour in your heart? What losses have you experienced? What pains have you borne? In your body? In your mind? In your soul? What pains and
losses have you carried? Cast them on Christ. Cast them on Christ. Cast them
on Christ. Take it, put it in a bag and
throw it at Christ. That's what Peter's telling us
to do. That's what you do when you're
casting. Who's the fisherman here? You don't just drop it. You get it out there. You get
it cast. We cast our care upon Him. There's a vigor, there's an intensity
about this. There's a purposefulness about
this. We are encouraged to take these
cares, these things that drag us down, these things that hold
us back, and lay them at the feet of Christ. Why? Because
He cares for us. because He cares for you and
your circumstances and your situation and He cares for me. Brothers and sisters in Christ,
God loves you. God loves you. He loves your
body. He loves your mind. He loves your soul. So much so that God has made
all provision for our good in time and in eternity. He says
of his people, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. And
you say, but we fell in Adam in the garden. So what does God
say? Well, I don't care for you anymore.
No, that's not what he says. He says, I love you still. And you say, well, but I've wandered
far away from God. I've done things I should never
have done. I've been places I should never
have been. I've said things I ought not to have said. and I have
thought things that I should never have thought. And what
does God say? I don't love you anymore? No,
no. He says, cast your cares on me
because I care for you. Malachi chapter three, verse
six says, I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob
are not consumed. He says, I will make you a way
of escape. I will make you a way of redemption. I will bring you into that place
of reconciliation and peace. Remember Naaman, go in peace. I will bring you to that place
of peace. A way of forgiveness is open
to sinners like you and like me. A way of freedom, a way of
cleansing, a way of salvation, a way of life is found in the
Lord Jesus Christ because he humbled himself and came from
the realms of glory to despise Nazareth. and went from despised
Nazareth to the curse of the cross, and laid down his life
and interposed himself between God and man for the salvation
and deliverance of his people. He carried our sins, he bore
our sorrows, and he calls us to cast our cares upon him. Why? Because I love you. Because I love you, I always
have, and I always will. He careth for you. For I am persuaded,
says Paul, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Friends, You have many cares
this morning. I know it to be so. I know you
have many cares this morning. Many concerns, many problems,
many anxieties. I know you've got concerns for
your bodies. I know you've got concerns for your minds, and
I know you've got concerns for your spirits. Cast them on Christ. That is the injunction. That
is the advice. That is the direction that Peter
gives us. I repeat his words. I trust. I am faithful to them. Cast them
upon Christ, for he careth for you. May the Lord enable us to
do so to our eternal comfort and joy. Amen.