As we come to the close of 1 Peter, he has said in his letter again and again that submission and suffering are used by God as the means to sanctification. Sanctification is simply spiritual maturity. God uses trials to work in you and conform you into the image of Jesus Christ. Now added to that “formula” if you will, Peter elaborates by saying that submission and suffering produce humility, which is God’s will for you. God wants you to be humble, because Jesus was humble and in humbling Himself, He was able to fulfill God’s purposes. The opposite of humility is pride. And God’s will cannot be accomplished in you until He deals with your pride.
God’s will is opposed to your will. Your will, your agenda, your prerogatives, your ego, your pride are in opposition to God’s will. Self love is in opposition to God’s will. Self sufficiency is in opposition to God’s will. A self made man or woman is in opposition to God’s will. A person who takes pride in what they consider to be spiritual accomplishments is in opposition to God’s will.
Peter has told us many things we are to do as Christians. But in doing those things, we are not fulfilling our purposes, but God’s purposes. We are not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, the pride of life, but we fulfill the purposes of God. So if you are truly living a sanctified, holy life, then pride is not really going to be your problem. Because holiness is not having your nose up in the air. Holiness is not parading your Biblical knowledge around for everyone to see how spiritual you are. Holiness comes out of humbleness. Holiness is not thinking more highly of yourself than you ought. Holiness is recognizing that you are in your flesh corrupted by the sin nature and there is nothing good in you. Holiness comes out of humbleness, recognizing that if any good comes from you it comes because you are dying to the natural man and yielding to the power of the Holy Spirit who works in you. It’s recognizing that any righteousness that you have is because Jesus transferred His righteousness to you and God is working in you.
So, back in vs 5 Peter begins the summation of his letter by saying, “all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.” Let me emphasize that point for a moment; God is opposed to the proud. God is opposed to the proud. Those that think they are self sufficient in their Christian life, guess what? God is opposed to you. Those that don’t think that they need to be in church fellowship, guess what? God is opposed to you. Those that don’t think that they really need to be in church all that often, guess what? God is opposed to you.
How so? You think you are good to go. You think you are sufficiently full, needing nothing. God is opposed to you. You don’t think you need to submit to the shepherd’s authority. God is opposed to you. And because He is opposed to you, He is not going to give grace to you. Grace means in this instance God’s blessings on your life. You don’t think you need to submit to God’s ordinances, or submit to God’s shepherds, or submit to God’s teaching, or submit to God’s people? Guess what? God is opposed to you. Don’t be surprised then at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you, which comes upon you for your testing. Because you show by your callousness, by your pride, by your rebellion that there is dross in you which needs to be burned out.
But if you humble yourself, as Peter says in vs 6, under the mighty hand of God, in due time He will exalt you. In His time, after He has humbled you, after He has deconstructed you in your insolence, in your aloofness. Before God can build you up He has to first tear you down. Because nothing in you is worth keeping. God will not struggle against flesh forever. Genesis 6:3, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh.” The problem with the self sufficient Christian is that they may look healthy on the outside, but they are full of disease on the inside. Their heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, and yet they don’t know it. They think they are ok. They look in the mirror of God’s word and they see the problems in other people and don’t bother to fix what is wrong with themselves. And the problem is pride, which God must root out if you are His sheep. God is opposed to the proud. But He gives grace to the humble.
So therefore humble yourselves. You can either do it yourself, or God will do it. But one way or another God is going to humble you if you are a child of God. But do not underestimate the mighty hand of God. The expression, the mighty hand of God is an Old Testament symbol of God’s covering power, God’s controlling power, God’s sovereignty. God is in charge. The mighty hand of God is the hand of God in charge of you.
In Exodus 3, the mighty hand of God delivered the Israelites from slavery to Pharaoh by a series of plagues. In Job 30, Job recognizes that it’s the mighty hand of God which has brought about suffering in his life. In Ezekiel 20 the mighty hand of God chastises and punishes His people for their rebellion. Whether then it’s in deliverance from enslavement to sin, or in suffering for righteousness or in chastisement for idolatry and rebellion, Peter says you need to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God as He works in you to refine you. It is a foolish thing to resist God. But you must submit to His authority and the authorities which He has designated so that He may shed HIs grace upon you. Peter has already warned us in chapter 4 vs 17 that judgement will begin with the house of God. God commanded back in chapter 1 vs 16 “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.” That’s not a suggestion. And God will work holiness in you by His mighty hand.
And we need to understand that the blessing which He promises may not come in our time, but in His time. And His time may not be until Jesus comes back. There is no promise in this life of having an abundance and having all of the good things in life. But there is a promise that in suffering here we are storing up treasures in heaven.
Now when we encounter the mighty hand of God in our lives, and we experience the trials and tribulations that ultimately come from the hand of God to purify us, and refine us, our natural tendency is to be afraid. We don’t like loosing control of our situation, do we? We don’t like letting go of our own destiny. We are afraid of submitting to another’s authority. The thought of losing control over our lives and letting God take over causes us anxiety, because the truth is we aren’t really too sure about God sometimes. We think we know better than God what is good for us and so we are afraid to give in.
I have shared my testimony a few times over the years, particularly about how I suffered a major meltdown about 25 years ago. I could say it was a nervous breakdown, but that wouldn’t really cover everything that was going on. It was financial, emotional, physical, just about everything that could go wrong went wrong. And during the worst of that time I had a real fear that I was going to go insane. I had tremendous anxiety every day for months. And I had always heard this saying which was when you reach the end of your rope, just tie a knot in it and hang on. One night I was unable to sleep for several hours and was battling extreme anxiety to the point that I was basically hallucinating. And in my mind I could feel myself hanging on to this rope, swinging over a bottomless dark chasm. And I could feel myself slipping further and further down till I got to the end of the rope, and eventually I just couldn’t hang on anymore. I remember letting go and falling, and falling, and falling into the abyss which I believed was insanity. I think I passed out at that point. But when I woke up the next morning, somewhere in the black darkness of that abyss, when I could no longer hang on, I found that the Lord had held on to me.
Listen, don’t let anxiety keep you from trusting in the Lord to hold onto you. Because, as Peter reminds us, He cares for you. You are HIs charge and He will never let you go. You are His sheep, of His flock, and though you may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, He will be with you. His rod and staff shall bring comfort to you. By the way, the rod and staff are instruments of deliverance and also instruments of chastisement. But either way, He cares for you. I like the word care being used there. I think it harkens back to Peter’s description of Christ as the Chief Shepherd in vs 4. We are entrusted to His care. The Shepherd gives His life for the sheep. And nothing can snatch them out of His hand because He cares for them.
Jesus said in John 10:27-30 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given [them] to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch [them] out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” He cares for you if you are one of His sheep, and nothing happens to you without first coming through His hand.
If however, Jesus is our Advocate, then Peter warns us to beware our adversary. The Devil is the father of lies, according to Jesus Christ. So then we must beware lest he deceive us by the seduction of pride. Satan’s original sin was the sin of pride. Five times in Isaiah 14 Lucifer says “I will, I will, I will.” And with pride he seduced Eve so that she too said “I will be like God,” which caused her fall. And he offers to us the same temptation. To deny the Lord, and make our own decisions, to plan our own way, and to be self sufficient. Our will be done. To be lord of our own destiny, or so we think.
So be sober, Peter says, be on the alert, because your adversary the devil prowls around as a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Soberness of course, certainly covers sobriety, not being drunk or high. But in a more general way, it speaks of the seriousness of our life. Being serious is not considered a virtue today. Being serious is something to be avoided. No one really wants to seriously think about life. Start talking seriously about life, about heaven and hell and the judgment to come and see how many friends you end up having.
No one wants to think about serious things. And the devil has so orchestrated the course of this world to keep you distracted, to keep you entertained, to keep you amused. He has many sources of distraction at his disposal, such as music, popular media, movies, television, even friends or family can distract you from what’s important. I don’t want to hurt your feelings if you’re one of these people, but I really think it’s a dangerous thing to constantly have music or the television going all the time. Some people I know can’t sleep without a TV on. The first thing they do when they get in a car is turn music on. I believe that the devil uses such things to keep your mind from thinking about serious things, such as your eternal destination. Things such as the brevity of life and the meaning of life.
We need to be sober minded, serious minded and on the alert. We often act like we are blissfully unaware that there is a lion stalking us, prowling around, looking for someone to devour. Satan’s goal is to destroy you, make no doubt about it. He hates you with a passionate hatred, because you are Christ’s church. You belong to Christ, and Satan takes out his hatred for Christ upon you. He wants to bring shame upon the Lord through destroying you. Don’t think that the ages since Lucifer fell from heaven have dulled his hatred for Christ. It has only served to embitter him more. He has nothing to fear from the lost, they are already under his dominion and doomed to destruction. But he has everything to fear from a sanctified Christian living a holy life. And so he will never sleep, and never grow tired of coming up with strategies to destroy you.
Peter speaks from the standpoint of experience. I’m sure he could never forget the day when Jesus said to him, “Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat.” But Peter was full of confidence, full of self sufficiency, filled with pride in the strength of his flesh, filled with pride that he was considered first of the disciples. And in that pride, Satan took him down further than he could have ever imagined, even to the point of denying Christ three times in one night. Listen, Satan’s got your number, and it’s your pride, your self sufficiency.
Jesus was tempted by Satan as well, after 40 days of fasting in the wilderness. But the way Jesus resistwed him was through the word of God. Three times in response to three temptations Jesus said, “It is written.” He relied not upon His own resources to resist temptation, but He relied on the word of God. And that is how we are to resist Satan as well. Not in our wisdom, nor in our strength, but in the truth of God’s word we rebuke his lies. Peter says, “But resist him, firm in your faith.” Our faith is founded upon the promises of God, the word of God, and not in our own strength or even our own convictions if they are not founded in the truth of God’s word.
Another strategy of Satan that I think we are all very familiar with is that when things get bad, he causes us to think that no one understands, no one else has suffered in the way that I am suffering. He wants us to withdraw from fellowship, to fill sorry for ourselves and go into some sort of cocoon of self pity. But notice what Peter reminds us of in vs.9, “But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.” There is nothing new under the sun. Satan’s tricks are as old as creation. He has just had thousands of years and millions of people to perfect his strategies. So we must not fall for the lie that no one understands, our plight is worse than anyone else’s. Peter says the same sort of sufferings are being experienced by the church all over the world.
You know, every time I start feeling sorry for myself, the Lord has me see someone who is a whole lot worse off than I am. Sometimes it’s someone who is seriously handicapped. Other times it’s someone who has lost limbs and are confined to a wheelchair. Whatever it is, God uses it to put my suffering in perspective. Don’t let yourself become obsessed with your troubles to the point of neglecting to see others who are also suffering. Our job is to encourage one another, to help one another, to serve one another.
Jesus told Peter after the statement about Satan wanting to sift him like wheat, Jesus said, “but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” That’s what we are to be doing as well, and that is one of the blessings that comes out of trials, that we have compassion on others who are also suffering, and that we can pray for them and strengthen them.
The other blessing that comes out of our suffering is found in vs. 10, “After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.” This is the purpose of our sanctification which is produced through suffering, submission and humility. Peter uses four words to describe the things God is doing in your trials.
First he will perfect you. That word which is translated perfect would be better translated as complete. He will finish in you what He has started. He gave you the righteousness of Jesus Christ in justification, and in sanctification He exercises righteousness through you as you pattern your life after Christ. Sanctification is the act of being righteous. And God produces righteousness in you through suffering and submission. Phil. 1:6 says, “[For I am] confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it [or complete it] until the day of Christ Jesus.”
The next three words are basically synonyms meant to reinforce one idea; that having to do with establishing, as in establishing a foundation, strengthening a building. After all, Peter told us earlier in chapter 2 vs 5 that “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” The purpose then of our sanctification is to make us a fit dwelling for the Holy Spirit. That we might not be moved here and there with every wind of doctrine, that we might not be swayed by the devil’s temptations, that we might not turn aside after the lusts of the flesh being distracted by the world. God wants to establish us, strengthen us, and make us stedfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.
To that end, so that Christ may be all in all, Peter gives us as a benediction, “To Him be dominion for ever and ever, Amen.” Christ is king over all, and most especially must be king on the throne in our hearts. “He must increase,” John the Baptist said, and I must decrease.”
Simply speaking, I must die to my flesh so that He might live in me. As King of Kings He has all authority and right to exercise dominion over me. As Lord of Lords, He deserves submission from me. And as He lives in me, I will live in Him, so that I might live with Him forever and ever. Sanctification is simply yielding my life completely to be under the dominion of the Spirit of Christ. Our life is to serve Him. And He has promised that those who serve Him in His kingdom will have eternal life with Him.
Eternal life begins at conversion. And in that new life God begins the process of sanctification, learning to submit to His authority, to share in His suffering, to humble ourselves in service, so that we might be like Him, and He might live in us as the temple of His Spirit. Peter has written a very practical epistle, telling us how to live in this present world, and what to expect in the world to come. I pray that you know the grace of God which has offered to you the gift of salvation, and that you have trusted in Him for your salvation and been converted. If not, today is the day of salvation. Come and trust Jesus as your Savior and Lord today so that you may be forgiven of your sins, and find new life in Him.