We'll open, if you would, to 1 Peter chapter 5. We're circling back to the text we looked at last Sunday morning. Peter describes not only what elders are supposed to do, he also describes how the rest of us, who are not elders, are supposed to benefit from the elders. Or I shouldn't say those who are not elders, how everyone should benefit from the elders. What to do if you have faithful elders. The elders who are among you I exhort, I, who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed, shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by constraint, but willingly, not for dishonest gain, but eagerly, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. Likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. May the God of all grace, who called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would help us to submit ourselves to our elders, to be submissive to one another and clothed with humility. Give us the grace that comes to the humble and obedient. Give us the blessing of the man who fears Jehovah. We pray that you would help us to listen, help me to speak clearly and powerfully with the anointing of your Holy Spirit, so that we might be transformed by the image of your son from one degree of glory to the next. We ask it in his name. Amen. So we saw last Sunday that Peter was not afraid to exhort the elders. The elders who are among you, I exhort. There's no clericalism here or sense that if somebody has achieved a status and a rank within the church structure, they're good. Whatever they do, by definition, is the right decision. Not at all. Peter says, elders, you have a job to do and you can mess it up. You can do it by constraint. You can do it for dishonest gain. You can lord it over those entrusted to you. Three ways elders can go wrong that Peter lists right off the top of his head. Don't do that, elders. Then he turns to the rest of the flock and he's not afraid to exhort the rest of the flock either. Likewise, you younger people. And the rest of the chapter really deals with how to benefit from your elders. It may seem like he's moving on from the theme of elders after verse six, but we're supposed to read all of this in context with the first five verses of the chapter. Elders shepherd the flock, and the flock needs to submit to that shepherding. Elders teach humility. Elders lead resistance to Satan. Elders help you endure suffering. We as the flock benefit from the work of our elders in all these ways. So the fisherman has been letting the elders have it for the first four verses. Then he turns to the rest of the church. He's got that glint in his eye. Same one that when he was younger used to mean he was about to shoot off his mouth like at the transfiguration and say something that didn't make any sense. He doesn't do that anymore, not after being taken down a peg or two in public, first by Jesus saying, feed my sheep, and then by Paul saying, you have to eat with the Gentiles. Yes, we're Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. You have to eat with them anyway. Peter has that glint in his eye. He tells you he's about to tell you something profound. And here it is, likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. The elders don't carry the whole church alone. The Roman Catholic Church defines the church as the bishops gathered. That's the church. It is the elders. Praise him in the assembly of the elders, Psalm 107. That's the church. The rest of us are along for the ride. and we go wherever the bishops take us. That's not seemingly how Peter thinks about it. He says, you, the faithful, the flock, you younger people, you need to be listening to those elders because you're just as much part of the church as they are. Be humble enough to submit to your elders. Peter knows a thing or two about humility. All four Gospels record that he personally denied Christ. Yes, the other 11 all ran away too. Peter gets all the screen time. Cursing and swearing like a fisherman and saying, I don't know the man. Peter is obviously not the brainiac that Paul is. He knows fishermen just aren't known for having very large intellects. Peter, it's clear that he's a fisherman, not a scholar. So, this is a guy who's known for two major moral errors, denying Christ, refusing to have table fellowship with Gentiles. It's a guy who is not John or Paul. He has a lot to be humble about, you could say. But he tells us, You also need to be humble. Be clothed with the humility to submit yourselves to your elders. Be humble enough to submit. Peter models this. When Paul says, eat with the Gentiles, Peter eats with the Gentiles. He submits to the correction that he's received from a fellow elder. Well, Paul models it as well. When he gets to Jerusalem with this big gift for the Jerusalem church, we read about this recently, and they say, the church here doesn't trust you. Prove yourself, go to the temple and pay the expenses of the four men who took a vow. Paul goes to the temple and he pays those expenses. He humbles himself enough to submit to the elders. Be humble enough to submit to your elders. If they say, talk more gently to your spouse, do it. If they say, don't go to seminary right now, you're not ready. Don't go to seminary right now, you're not ready. If they say, don't marry that guy, don't marry him. Be humble and submit. The elders have very circumscribed authority. You don't have the right to tell you absolutely anything. Elders can't tell you what to eat, what to drink, what to wear, where to live. But their advice in spiritual matters, with respect to obeying the commands of God, the Ten Commandments, you should listen carefully. Peter says, have the humility to listen and to obey. Elder or not, pastor or not, you are the sheep of God's pasture. You have to submit to the elders. Unless you think the elders have it easy, keep in mind that the elders have to submit to the elders more often than the rest of the church. However the vote goes, that's how the vote wins. What the rest of the elders want to do is what you have to do. Even if you think it's a bad idea. you're an elder too, you are stuck with their leadership. This is Jesus' plan. And it's a plan then that requires humility. Saying this, I had a different idea, but I'll go along with what my elders are telling me. Because humility. The elders are the living voice of Christ in your life and to say to their advice, I know better. I don't care what you're telling me. That's the opposite of humility. Of course, Peter doubles down, he says, submit to your elders and then he says, all of you be submissive to one another. This doesn't mean that we're all chiefs. and all Indians, it means rather that we're supposed to show each other care and consideration. Think about what the other person would like in terms of what they're asking, right? Don't talk so loudly. Don't stand so close to me when you talk. Show that kind of respect and consideration for each other. Of course, Paul even says it in terms of submitting them to one another. He applies it to masters and slaves. He says, slaves, submit to your masters. And then he says, masters, do the same for them. That is, masters, you submit to your slaves. Go along with your brother's way for Jesus' sake in the Lord. If it's a sin, don't do it. If it's not a sin, be submissive to one another, which requires humility. And we listen to that and we say, oh man, abusers, domineering people, they could take advantage of that all day long. And so they can. Don't sin. But also, don't take your model of submission and abuse from the world and its picture of what happens in these relationships. What sort of humility did Jesus show? Look at him. Take your model from Peter, from Paul, but especially from Christ. Jesus let Judas arrest him. He let Pilate and Herod interrogate him. He let the crowds follow him and bother him. That, of course, all related to his specific mission of dying for us. But even before that, did he ever say to the crowds, Leave me alone. Do you know who I am? You have to treat me better because I'm important. Jesus never talked that way. It's clear that he never even thought that way. He thought and acted in humility despite being the Son of God. As long as our decision making is driven by a sense of our own importance, we're not thinking like Jesus. If we suffer, we will also reign with Him. It's a faithful saying, Paul says. And you're not allowed to flip it around and say, if we reign with Him, we will never have to suffer. That's not how it works. In the church, whether you're an elder or not, you will hear things said to you that you don't like. You'll be told things that hurt. Your kids will be blamed unfairly. Your hospitality will be abused or despised. All of these things happen in the church, even in our church. The proud say, I won't put up with this, and decamp. The humble say, This is part of following in the footsteps of the most humble man who ever walked the face of the earth. Are we ready for humility? Nebuchadnezzar walking on the walls of Babylon is an example of what humility is not. To look around and say, is not this great Babylon which I have built? He reaches up to pat himself on the back. He injures himself and becomes a beast for seven years. Then he learned humility. Those who walk in pride he is able to humble. To look at Babylon and say, all this glory shines on me, people. That's the opposite of humility, but to crawl in the grass with your hair like eagle's feathers and your nails like bird's claws. That's being humbled. Peter says, humble yourself. Recognize that God's hand is mighty. God's hand is mighty enough to humble the mightiest monarch the world had ever seen. The one who made a golden statue of himself. The one whom God Almighty endorsed and said, you're right, your kingdom is golden. The ones that follow it will be silver, bronze, and iron, but yours is golden. A pretty amazing compliment. The mighty hand of God took that golden monarch and humbled him. Peter, having been through That awful moment on the night before the crucifixion when Jesus turned and looked at him and he started to sob right after the rooster crowed. And that second awful moment when Paul stood up at the church potluck and made a gigantic scene. Peter, get over here and sit with the Gentiles right now. And the whole church is going, I can't believe we're seeing this. Peter is telling us, don't wait for that to happen. Take it from me. Humble yourself, because God resists the proud. And if you want to be proud, He will find a way to knock you down. God resists the proud. I think I'm on safe ground to say our last president was a proud man whom God resisted and humbled in a pretty ferocious way for several years on end. The coup de grace administered at the end of his debate with the man who would become his successor. Someone who's stumbling and failures and mental lack of awareness seen by billions of people and laughed at. God resisted that proud man. You don't want that to happen to you. You don't want everyone showing clips and sharing and quoting your stupid lines. God gives grace to those who are humble enough to submit to their authorities. How do you show humility other than submission to your authorities? Well, prayer is the ultimate sign of humility. Just as prayerlessness is the ultimate sign of pride. I don't need God. I can get through the day without Him. Why would I ask Him for something? I've got everything right here. Prayer is saying, God, I can't do it. I need help. I need you. I'm calling out to you. Men won't ask for directions. Christians won't ask God for help. Why do we do this to ourselves? Fear the mighty hand of God. And when you do, when you humble yourself in that way, You will be exalted. Peter already said he's a witness of the sufferings of Christ and the glory. You might come for the glory but you have to stay for the suffering. We talked about that last week. Now he says there will be suffering. Be clothed with humility but God will lift you up in due time. For almost two centuries starting in the late 1600s, in order to enter the kingdom of Japan, you had, if you were a European getting off a boat at Yokohama, when you stepped on the dock, the Japanese officials met you with a crucifix. And in order to be allowed to set foot on Japanese territory, you had to come forward and trample on the crucifix. You had to show that you were not, as they called you in Japan, a karishiten, a Christian. Someone who would stomp on the figure of the dying Jesus the Japanese authorities reckoned had no soft spot in their heart for the Son of God. They did this in order to stamp out Christianity within their own land, to undo the work of 16th century missionaries. In Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver considers himself a good Christian, but he goes to Japan. And he's asked to stomp on the crucifix. He won't do it. But thankfully, he's brought a letter of introduction from another prince, the king of Lugnag, a fictional country that Swift admires to a certain extent because this king He's a friend of the Emperor of Japan. The King of Lugnag, instead of making people stomp on the crucifix, this great seal of his country shows a king lifting up a lame beggar from the earth. A king reaching down to the lame beggar and lifting him up. As an icon, as a picture, it's the exact opposite of the Emperor of Japan and his demand to stomp on this bleeding, dying man giving his life for the world. The king who has everything lifts up the lame beggar from the earth. And that, Gulliver gets a special pass based on the letter from the king of Lugnag, doesn't have to stomp on the crucifix in the story. Of course, the King of Lugnag simply recognizes that the true King, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the one who stoops to lift up a lame beggar from the earth. The one who exalts us in due time. I'm not a beggar and I'm not lame. I can walk around on my own two feet. I have money in my pocket. I don't need to be so humble. That's how we think. We resist this picture of ourself as a lame beggar. Swift is more than hinting that only if you accept yourself as a lame beggar who needs to be lifted up from the grave by your king can you understand what the gospel really is. Can you be exalted in due time? He tells us to submit to the elders, to submit to one another, to do it in humility. Then he tells us about another action of humility. Maybe the hardest action of all. Harder even than thinking of ourselves as lame beggars. And this, of course, is the action of casting all our care upon Him. The humble person is not anxious. You may be lame and you may be a beggar. You may be unable to walk and have no money. If you are actually humble, that doesn't worry you. Because you have cast all your cares upon Him because He cares for you. For those with severe anxiety, the notion of handing over all their anxieties to Christ only makes them more anxious. Anxiety is a way of life for these brothers and sisters. They know more how to know how to do without it than a Japanese man would know how to do without rice. It is their daily bread. How on earth do you cast all your cares upon Him when your cares are a big mountain that simultaneously flattens your chest but also, in a weird sense, functions like the world's thickest security blanket. These are your cares, and you simultaneously hate them and love them. How do you cast those cares on Him? Well, you have to do what Peter says. Submit yourself to the elders. Submit to one another. Be clothed in humility. Humble yourself under God's mighty hand. When you're doing these things, the biggest benefit your elders can give you is to remove your anxiety. To free you from worry. So you're no longer afraid of what might happen, but instead are confident in what will happen. That God will provide all your needs. That He will take care of you. Which is of course what Peter says. He cares for you. I don't have to worry about my fate, because God cares for me. I may be a lame beggar, but my king lifts up a lame beggar from the earth. When you're safely in the middle of the herd, flocking with the other sheep, handing over the appropriate amount of responsibility for your spiritual welfare to Christ's under-shepherds, recognizing that God's mighty hand will humble those who proudly exempt themselves from the flock, that's when you know peace of mind. You don't have to live up to the standard of being the world's greatest Christian. That's why Peter says, humble yourself. Anxiety is a result of pride. I gotta look out for everything. I gotta monitor everything. I gotta keep the entire dashboard of my life clear. I gotta monitor all the switches, turn all the dials, adjust everything just right so that I can be the world's greatest Christian. Peter says, no you don't. Be humble. Understand that you're a nobody. You're free to simply be a sheep who lives in the shadow of the mighty hand. A sheep who is content to flock with the flock, follow with the herd, eating the bread of life, drinking the living water, splashing in the fountain of grace that comes from the God who cares for the humble. If you have to get to heaven alone, yeah, that would make you anxious. You have to get yourself to heaven, that would make you anxious. If you have to do it all as a super Christian, you have something to worry about. If you can't trust your friends and leaders to protect you, that's anxiety city. But if you have solid elders, a good flock, shepherds who will lay down their life for you, and the humility to recognize you don't deserve any of it, you can then cast your cares upon Christ. He is the ultimate survivalist. He's promised to get you to heaven. He's better than the TV action heroes. He's smarter than the smartest rabbi. He's more spiritually sensitive than the most spiritually sensitive pastor. You see the genius of Paul or the bluntness of Peter? Jesus has them both. He surpasses them both. He's the chief shepherd. And He's coming back. That's why we don't need to be anxious. Most of the things that worry us, we can simply let go. He will catch them. Sober resistance to the devil. Peter tells us then in the next verse, be sober, be vigilant, right? Don't be anxious, but do be sober. Don't be worried, but do be watching. You do have significant enemies. We talked about them this morning in terms of earthly enemies, those with the truth problem, the authority problem, the Jewish problem, or the greed problem. that Paul warns about. Peter warns us specifically about the devil. He's a roaring lion. He's trying to kill and devour the Christian. He says you can resist him. One way you know you can resist him is that the saints throughout the world resist him. The same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in all the world. They aren't giving up. They aren't quitting. They aren't perishing. They're standing strong against Satan. In Brazil. In India. In Nigeria. In Japan. Brothers and sisters throughout the world are standing up to the wiles of the wicked one. And we can too. Now again, how does this connect back to the theme of the elders? Well, simply this. If you have a sheep that's going up solo against a lion, you wouldn't bet five cents on the sheep winning that bout. Sheep versus lion. Not gonna end well for the sheep. But if you have a sheep plus three or four shepherds who are armed with stouts, sticks, and clubs, and fire, the odds change a little bit. You got one lion, against three or four shepherds armed to the teeth and a sheep. Now which one is going to win? The lion would be suicidal to attack four or five heavily armed shepherds. The odds are much, much more in your favor when you're staying with the shepherds. It enables you to resist the devil. firm in the faith, knowing that he's being beaten up by shepherds all over the world. And yes, he's making some dents. They're suffering, but they're also winning. If we resist the devil, he will flee from us. The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, will perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you There's temporary suffering, yes, but we can let go of anxious thoughts because He is at work in us. Lean on Him by staying with the flock and submitting to the elders and these blessings will be yours. He's Lord. Even to say that, if you really understand what that means, that in itself is an anxiety killer. Jesus is Lord. That means I'm not. That means He's taking care of everything. That means I don't have to. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. Father, we thank you for Silvanus, the faithful brother who wrote this letter. We thank you for Peter exhorting and testifying to us that this is the grace of God. and we must stand fast in it. Give us the grace to flock with the flock and stay with the shepherds. Help us as shepherds, Father. To carry the clubs and the sticks and the torches. Drive off the wicked one. He might not score any kills among our flock. We pray this, Father. In the name of Jesus, our Lord, the great King, who lifts up lame beggars from the earth. Amen.