1 Peter chapter 5 is a fascinating chapter
because in it Peter looks in two directions
at one time.
Don't ever drive like that.
John Bunyan has an interesting character in the
Pilgrim's Progress called Mr. Looking Both Ways.
But that's not what Peter is doing in
chapter 5 of 1 Peter.
He's remembering and he's looking forward.
As you read this chapter you see him
sort of reminiscing about some of his experiences
with Jesus Christ.
In verse 1 he remembers his suffering.
In verse 2 where it says feed the
flock he must have remembered that breakfast meeting
when Jesus said take care of my lambs
and feed my sheep.
When he talks about not being lords over
God's heritage Peter must have remembered those times
when he and the other disciples argued over
who was the greatest.
When he talks about being clothed with humility
verse 5 that certainly reminded him of the
upper room when Jesus put on the garb
of a servant and washed their feet.
That little word make you perfect up in
verse 10 is the same word for the
mending of the nets.
When Peter wrote that word he must have
remembered that time when he was mending the
nets and the Lord Jesus called him.
Talking about Satan as a lion in verse
8 certainly reminded him of that evening when
Jesus said Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to
have all of you disciples that he may
sift you as wheat but I'm praying for
you that your faith fail not.
So throughout these words Peter is looking back
but he's also looking ahead and over and
over again he talks about glory.
Verse 1 the glory that shall be revealed.
Verse 4 the crown of glory.
Verse 10 he's called us to his eternal
glory.
Verse 11 to him be glory.
The path of the justice is the shining
light that shines more and more into the
perfect day and I think the great theme
of chapter 5 is that the best is
yet to come.
He's talking about the wonderful future we have
as Christians.
Now everybody doesn't have a future.
If you're here tonight and you've never been
saved, you've never been born again, you don't
have the life of God in your heart,
you don't have a wonderful future.
In fact you have a very dismal future.
It's appointed unto men once to die and
after this the judgment.
Depart from me ye that work iniquity I
never knew you.
The Lord knows the way of the righteous
but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
But for those of us who know Christ
and are seeking to live for Christ there
is a tremendous future awaiting us.
In fact in chapter 5 of first Peter
the apostle describes for us four persons who
can look forward to a very wonderful future.
Now of course they're all Christians but they
are Christians who are going through certain experiences.
Even though every believer in Jesus Christ is
going to heaven, not every believer is going
to have a well done when he gets
to heaven.
Even though every true Christian born again through
faith in Christ will experience the glory of
heaven, not every Christian is going to have
the crown of glory or the glory that
is earned through faithfulness.
And so we ought to examine our lives
tonight and see whether or not we fit
into what Peter's talking about here.
Now who are the four persons that Peter
talks about who have a bright wonderful future
ahead of them?
Verses one through four, those who are serving.
Verses five six and seven, those who are
submitting.
Verses eight and nine, those who are standing.
Verse ten, those who are suffering.
Now if you are a believer who is
serving, you've got a wonderful future ahead of
you.
If you are a believer who is submitting,
you've got a wonderful future ahead of you.
If you're a believer who's standing against the
wiles of the devil, then you've got a
great future ahead of you.
And if you're a Christian who's suffering, you've
got a great future ahead of you.
Let's meet these four persons.
Verses one through four, the Christian who is
serving, the elders who are among you, I
exhort, who am also an elder, Peter didn't
claim to be anything more than that.
He didn't call for himself any high position
in the church.
He didn't claim to be something that he
wasn't.
He was an elder and a witness of
the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker
of the glory that shall be revealed, shepherd
the flock of God which is among you,
taking the oversight of it not by constraint
but willingly, not for filthy lucre but of
a ready mind, an eager mind, not as
being lords over God's heritage but being examples
to the flock.
And when the chief shepherd shall appear, you
shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth
not away.
He compares the local church to a flock,
to sheep.
That is a marvelous picture.
Someday I want to write a book about
the pictures of the church in the Bible.
I think many Christians don't understand the great
privilege it is to be a part of
a local church.
We're members of a body, we're stones in
a temple, we're a part of a bride,
we're soldiers in the army.
Many pictures of the believer but the one
that you find over and over again is
the flock, the flock, sheep.
He compares us to sheep and our Lord
was very wise when he did that.
You see, we Christians as sheep are prone
to wander.
That's why we have to have shepherds.
One of the great delights of the ministry
is studying the Word of God and preaching
the Word of God.
There the shepherd feeds the sheep.
But all one of the difficulties of the
ministry is chasing the sheep down, finding the
sheep that are wandering and going off and
saying, look, you ought to get back where
you ought to be.
Sheep are prone to wander.
Sheep are very defenseless.
They have to have someone protect them.
Sheep, by and large, enjoy flocking together.
And when they get away from the flock,
they get into trouble.
And I've seen this with Christians.
Sheep are clean animals and they're useful animals.
You can you can fleece them, they can
reproduce, you can get milk from them.
And Christians ought to be useful to the
work of the Lord.
He compares the church to a flock.
Now, a flock has to have a shepherd.
In fact, in the New Testament church, there
was a plurality of elders, as we have
here at Moody Church.
We have elders who are on the pastoral
staff.
We have elders who are elected by the
church.
And we work together to give leadership to
the church.
He's suggesting here that the flock of itself
cannot function apart from leadership.
It was not the sheep who led the
shepherds.
It was the shepherds who led the sheep.
This is why God has ordained that out
of his church, people are called, they are
endowed, they are gifted to give spiritual leadership.
Now, it's not an easy job.
Somebody likes, every once in a while I
meet someone who likes to tell me stories
about preachers.
I guess every vocation has jokes.
I suppose you're told jokes about musicians and
organists and doctors are always told doctors jokes.
The ones I feel the most sorry for
are undertakers.
In the first place, most of them don't
have a sense of humor.
In the second place, there's nothing funny about
what they do.
It's difficult.
But you heard about the little boy who
said to his friend, what does your father
do?
Oh, he's a preacher.
Ha, my dad works for a living.
I'd much rather punch a clock from eight
to four.
Be a lot easier.
You ever stopped to think of the burden
of souls giving an account for your ministry
among people?
Not easy.
And so he exhorts these elders and says,
now look, beware of certain sins.
Number one is the sin of laziness.
He said, don't you do it because you
have to do it.
Do it because you want to do it.
I know men who preach because they have
to say something.
I'd much rather preach because I have something
to say.
I feel sorry for that preacher who constantly
has to be urged, pushed, moved, or that
elder, that church officer.
Beware of laziness.
There's no room for laziness.
Now you can be a lazy preacher.
During these past seven years, I could have
crawled up into my crow's nest up there
in my study and read comic books.
Nobody would have known the difference, except on
Sundays when you stand in the pulpit and
have nothing to say, or you go out
to a funeral and you have nothing to
say.
Watch out for laziness.
He warns them, watch out for greed.
Don't do what you do to make money.
That's a danger.
Then he goes on to say, watch out
that you don't do what you do just
to get authority.
Don't be dictators.
We have pastors like that today.
They're dictators.
Instead of using their authority to build up
the people, they use the people to build
up their authority.
Little tin gods.
If you don't agree with them and their
way of doing it, they can't listen to
you.
It's got to be done this way.
This is the way we did it in
our last church.
If you don't like that, he said, don't
be like that.
You're not supposed to be a dictator.
Did you know that you can't drive sheep?
You lead them.
If the shepherd gets behind the flock and
tries to push them, they'll go in the
opposite direction.
Sheep love to do that.
They just love to go the wrong way.
The shepherd has to go before the sheep
and lead them by love.
He warns them that each shepherd, each elder,
has his own particular ministry.
Neither is being lords over God's heritage.
That word heritage means a different part of
the inheritance.
It's the same word used when the Jews
went into the promised land.
They cast lots and and this part was
given to Dan and this part was given
to Isaac car and this part was given
to Judah.
In the church, the ministry is divided.
The church isn't divided, but the ministry is.
It's impossible for one man to do everything.
And so he says, you have your responsibility
over here.
And another elder has a responsibility here.
And another elder has a responsibility there.
Now work together and don't be envious of
somebody else's ministry.
It's always a sad thing when a church
looks for a wonder man who can do
everything.
It would be utterly impossible to find such
a man.
Now what he's saying to us in verses
one through four is, if you're faithful in
serving, the chief shepherd is going to appear.
And when he appears, he'll give you a
crown of glory that's not going to fade
away.
When the runners in the races won, they
were given a crown of leaves.
And after a few days, those leaves had
faded away.
If you and I are faithful in our
work, you're doing your job.
I'm doing my job.
The elders, the deacons doing their job.
When the chief shepherd appears, he'll say, well
done.
Here's your crown.
In other words, we don't do what we
do to please people.
We don't do what we do to please
ourselves.
We do what we do to please the
Lord.
The serving.
In five through seven, he goes on to
discuss the submitting.
Those who are submissive to the Lord can
anticipate God's blessing in like manner.
Ye younger submit yourselves unto the elder.
Now there, the word elder means older in
the faith.
Yea, all of you.
You say, well, I'm not young and I'm
not old.
All right.
This includes you.
All of you be subject one to another
and be clothed with humility.
Peter must have seen that night when the
Lord Jesus put on a towel, got down,
washed their feet, clothed with humility for God
resisted the proud, but he gives grace to
the humble.
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of
God that he may exalt you in due
time.
Humble yourselves there literally means permit yourself to
be humbled.
Sometimes we humble ourselves in pride.
We tell everybody how humble we are casting
all your care upon him for he careth
for you.
God will bless those who are submitting.
You see, one of the dangers in a
church is competition.
Somebody belongs to this Sunday school class.
Somebody belongs to that group.
Someone belongs to this group and there's a
danger of competition.
There's always the problem of the younger Christians
who are coming along saying, well, these old
fogies up there, they don't know what's going
on in this church.
He's talking here about the danger of division
in the church.
And often division is along the lines of
age.
Now it takes young and old to build
a church.
I'm out in pastors conferences.
I anticipate even more of them in the
days to come.
And every once while I hear some pastors
say, I want to be a church of
young people.
I says, great.
Where are you going to get your wisdom?
Kind of hard to have deacons who are
all young people, elders who are all young
people.
Somebody else says, oh, I can't stand this
new crowd of young people coming along.
Boy, give me the seasoned saints who came
out of the forties.
Great.
I think I'm one of the saints who
came out of the forties.
I got saved in 1945.
But one of these days we won't be
here.
You see how foolish that is?
It can't be all the young and all
the old.
It needs to be both and each submitted
to the other.
The young submit to the old for wisdom.
The old submit to the young for enthusiasm
and new ideas.
Every church needs new enthusiasm and new ideas.
Back in Peter's day, the Greek cities were
divided up into youth guilds.
We think that our big youth ideas are
so new.
They aren't.
They had them back in Greece.
And the various young men and young women
would get together in guilds.
Now when these people got saved, they organized
the church into guilds.
They had youth conferences and youth meetings.
And sometimes these young people would refuse to
submit to the leadership of the older ones.
Peter said, that's a sin.
The older ones need to listen to the
young and the younger ones need to listen
to the older ones.
One has wisdom.
One has zeal.
One knows the roots of the past and
the mistakes of the past.
The other has the great vision for the
present and the zeal for the future.
Now put them together.
You've got a winning combination.
Get them fighting each other.
You got problems.
And so the answer is to submit, humble
yourselves under God's hand.
If you get under God's hand, one day
his hand will turn over and lift you
up.
But you exalt yourself.
You say, well, if we can't do what
we want to do, we'll go someplace else.
That won't solve any problems.
You just take your troubles with you and
you create division in the church.
And dividing the church is a great sin.
Because the word of God says, let's strive
to maintain the unity of the spirit in
the bond of peace.
And so some of you younger people don't
like it when the elders say, this is
our policy.
They have no right to make a policy
like that.
Oh, yes, they do.
And you better submit to it.
The elder may not like it when the
young people say, well, we've got to make
some changes here.
Don't make changes.
Been this way for 87 years.
Can't be like that.
We have to listen to one another.
That's the beauty of the church.
The shepherd and the sheep, the older and
the younger in unity and in love, the
submitting.
Now, I suggest to you that if we
don't submit one day, we're going to answer
for it.
If we don't submit, if we are the
cause of trouble, friction, competition, instead of cooperation,
we're going to answer for it someday.
I don't think God ever called me to
destroy his work.
Verses eight and nine, he talks to those
who are standing and boy, if anyone knew
anything about the devil, Peter did.
Camel Morgan has written a marvelous little book
called Peter and the church.
He's also written a book called the voice
of the devil.
You got to get those two books and
read them together because Peter has a great
deal to say about the devil.
Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the
devil, like a roaring lion, walking, walketh about
seeking whom he may devour, whom resists steadfast
in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions
are accomplished in your brethren that are in
the world.
We're not going through this alone.
Now, what are we supposed to do about
the devil here?
He's compared to a lion.
Other places, he's compared to a serpent.
As a serpent, he deceives.
As a lion, he devours.
If he cannot deceive my mind, he seeks
to devour me with suffering.
And Peter knew these people were going to
go through suffering.
He talked about that fiery trial that was
going to come, and part of that fiery
trial was going to come from the fire
of hell.
Satan has always been the adversary of the
church.
The Apostle Paul warned the elders at Ephesus
in Acts chapter 20.
He said, you watch out.
The wolves are going to get in.
They'll scatter the flock.
They'll destroy it.
But if the wolves can do it, what
about the lion?
I enjoy seeing wild animals.
I'm always glad there are bars between me
and the animals.
We were in the Kenya game park over
there in Africa.
We didn't see anything really dangerous.
We got about 200 or 300 feet away
from a rhinoceros, but he wasn't paying any
attention to us.
He was bigger than the car was, and
he knew it.
But I've never wanted to tangle with a
lion.
I love cats.
I always enjoy when my cat comes along,
jumps into my lap, you know, and takes
over.
That doesn't bother me.
I'd hate to have a lion do that.
Now, Peter gives us three instructions about the
devil, and people better heed these instructions.
Number one, you respect him.
Be sober.
You don't joke about the devil.
You don't laugh about the devil.
Respect him.
Be sober.
Recognize him.
Be vigilant.
Keep your eyes open.
Keep your ears open.
Because Satan's always at work.
Respect him.
Recognize him.
And resist him.
How do you resist him?
Whom resist steadfast in the faith?
Steadfast.
Standing fast.
In what?
In the faith.
What faith?
Faith in Jesus Christ.
That's what Jesus did.
He didn't run when Satan came roaring at
him.
He just stood there and said, it is
written, it is written, it is written.
Now Satan's going to do his best to
devour the flock and to divide the flock.
He always wants to do this.
And sometimes he finds Christians who will help
him.
Peter says, those who are standing, excuse me,
those who take their stand in the faith,
those who take the sword of the spirit,
which is the word of God, those who
take the shield of faith, they'll fight him.
They'll resist him.
And they'll overcome him.
But alas, there always are those saints who
give in to the devil.
Peter himself did it.
Jesus warned him.
He says, Satan's after you.
He wants to get a hold of you.
I'm praying for you.
Peter boasted and said, oh, though the rest
of this crowd forsake you, I'll never do
that.
And pride walks right into the devil's trap
because pride is one of Satan's tools.
Those who are standing can look forward to
God's blessing and God's glory.
Finally, verse 10 and verse 11.
But I'm always glad for that little word,
but it means a contrast here.
We're talking about Satan coming at us as
a roaring lion, but the God of all
grace who have called us onto his eternal
glory by Christ Jesus, he will give me
grace and glory.
They always go together.
There is no glory without grace.
And when you have grace, it always leads
to glory.
The God of all grace who have called
us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus,
after ye have suffered a while.
Make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you to
him, be glory and dominion forever and ever.
Amen.
He's talking here about the suffering, suffering, glory,
suffering, glory.
This is always the Bible pattern.
Verse one of chapter five, a witness of
the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker
of the glory that shall be revealed.
Chapter four, verse 13, but rejoice in as
much as you are a partaker of Christ's
sufferings that when his glory shall be revealed,
you may be glad also with exceeding joy.
Verse 15, don't suffer as a murderer.
Verse 16, if you suffer as a Christian,
don't be ashamed.
Let him glorify God.
All the way through this book, it's suffering
and glory.
Suffering and glory.
Paul says the same thing.
I reckon that the sufferings of this present
time are not worthy to be compared with
the glory.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to suffer.
There are going to be the human sufferings
of everyday life.
We aren't getting any younger.
There's going to be sickness.
There's going to be pain.
There's going to be surgery.
There's going to be medication.
There's going to be death.
These are, these are things that belong to
the, to the human part of life.
There are things that belong to the spiritual
part of life.
Satan's going to fight us.
We're going to go through suffering.
In fact, one of the best things that
can happen to the church of Jesus Christ
in America is a good taste of suffering.
It'll separate the men from the boys.
It'll separate the sheep from the goats.
It'll separate the hangers on and spectators from
those who are laying their lives down to
serve Jesus Christ, the suffering.
Now, what does Peter say about suffering?
He says, number one, God provides the grace.
If you're worrying about tomorrow or next week
or two weeks from now, God provides the
grace.
He's the God of all grace, all grace,
not part of the grace, all grace.
God has cornered the market on grace.
Nobody can outbid him.
He has all grace.
And his throne is a throne of grace.
And his word is the word of his
grace.
And the Holy Spirit is the spirit of
grace.
And Jesus Christ is full of grace and
truth.
And so you and I can depend upon
God providing all the grace.
Not only does he provide the grace, but
he promises the glory.
The God of all grace, who has called
us to his eternal glory.
Now, in between the grace and the glory,
what is God doing?
In between the suffering and the glory, what
is God doing?
Grace in suffering, glory, no suffering, what happens
in between?
He tells us what happens.
Make you perfect.
That word means mature you, equip you, develop
you.
Why is God doing what he's doing in
our lives?
He doesn't want us to stay in diapers.
More problems are created in churches by people
who have been saved long enough to be
teachers, but instead they're still in diapers and
they demand attention, burping them and giving toys
to them and changing them.
Now you do this because you love them,
but oh, you wish they were doing it
for somebody else.
The book of Hebrews was written to a
church like that.
He says for the time you've been saved,
you ought to be teaching others, but now
somebody else has to teach you the ABCs.
You're back in a spiritual second childhood.
What does God want to do?
He wants to mature us.
He wants to equip us to get out
and help other people, not be taking in
all the time, but giving out.
That's what that word means.
After you have suffered a while, make you
perfect.
So God provides the grace and God gives
the promise of glory.
And in between the suffering and the glory,
God is perfecting our character.
God is building into us patience and love
and faithfulness and loyalty and devotion.
And the result of this is he establishes
us.
Make you perfect.
Establish.
Now Peter knew the meaning of that word
establish.
It means to stand solid like a rock.
And that was his name.
Rock.
Petras, Peter, the rock.
Now there was a time in that man's
life when he was like shifting sand.
Simon was a sand dune that blew about,
but oh, he went through suffering.
And when you take sand and you put
it under pressure and heat, you come out
with rock.
And we say, oh Lord, why are you
doing this?
I'm making a rock out of you.
Do you know that the ultimate of this
is a jewel?
If that pressure and that heat continue, the
result is a beautiful jewel.
And I read that in the book of
Revelation, when it describes the jewels up there,
we're going to be a part of those
jewels.
You say, I can't take any more pressure.
Yes, you can.
I can't take any more heat.
Yes, we can.
God is taking us as clay and he's
putting the clay in his furnace and there's
pressure and there's heat and there's suffering and
he's making a jewel.
Now if you want to be a lump
of clay, that's fine.
You want to be a half formed piece
of stone?
That's all right.
That's your business.
God won't force it on you.
But oh, the Lord says, you know, I
can give you grace.
I can give you grace for surgery.
I can give you grace for heartache.
I can give you grace for anything you
go through.
I'm the God of all grace.
And he giveth more grace.
And if you'll just trust me, all of
this is going to result in glory.
The suffering.
I think this is a good chapter for
me as I look forward to a new
ministry.
I think it's a good chapter for you
as a church as you look forward to
God calling a new pastor here.
We don't look back.
We look ahead.
Now we look back to think of what
Jesus has done for us.
Peter did that.
But we look ahead.
It's glory.
It's glory in serving.
Don't give up the ministry God's given to
you.
Keep on serving, whether it's in the choir
or ushering or teaching a class or visiting
or holding an office or wrestling with problems
on a committee.
Keep on serving.
It leads to glory.
Keep on submitting.
If pride and competition get in, there will
be trouble.
Submit to one another.
Learn how to say let's try it your
way.
Learn how to say let's work together on
this.
Keep on standing.
If you don't stand, you go backward.
Keep on standing, resisting the devil and keep
on suffering.
The church is the purest when the church
is suffering.
The church has the most power when the
church is suffering.
When we are at ease in Zion, when
we are lackadaisical, when we're in our rocking
chairs, when we're complacent, God can't bless.
But oh, when we're going through the furnace,
He's walking with us.
When we're going through the waters, He's right
there to make sure we don't drown.
Oh, it's wonderful just to walk with the
Lord.
And the best is yet to come.
Jesus is going to come.
I must one day give an account to
the Lord for my ministry, and that's why
I want to be in the center of
His will.
You must one day give an account to
the Lord of your ministry.
That's why you want to be in the
center of His will.
We don't do it for people.
We don't do it for human praise.
We do it that one day He might
look at us and smile and say, well
done.
Brothers and sisters, the best is yet to
come.
Let's live in the future because the next
step is glory, glory, glory all the way.
Let's pray.
Gracious Father, thank you for the abundant life
we have that has taken us off of
a dead-end street and put us on
that marvelous road, the path of the just,
which is as the shining light that is
shining more and more that perfect day.
Thank you for the Moody Church family.
Help us, Lord, to be faithful, faithful to
stand, faithful to serve, faithful to submit, faithful
to suffer, because we realize that faithfulness leads
to glory.
I pray, O God, speak to every heart
here.
If someone here has never been saved, is
walking on that broad road that leads to
hell, may that one tonight come and trust
Christ.
If there's some careless, backslidden, worldly Christian here,
Lord, convict that heart and bring that one
to a place of dedication.
We would give ourselves afresh to you this
hour, in Jesus' name, amen.