By Rev. Dr. Brent Russett – Asbury Free Methodist
August 18, 2024 -1 Peter 5:1-7
We are on our second to last sermon in our series on 1 Peter. Today, we are looking at 1 Peter 5:1-7. I am primarily going to focus on last half of verse 5 to verse 7.
I am going to skip over the first part of chapter five because it is talking to pastors and church leaders. In other words, it is talking to me and unless you want me to hear me preach to myself – which I often do – then I am going to skip it with the exception of saying this.
1 Peter 5:1–5 (NIV)
To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who also will share in the glory to be revealed: 2 Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; 3 not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.
5 In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders.
It lists a number of qualities of an elder, which is our context is a pastor. A pastor should shepherd and watch over God’s people. They should do so because the want to, not because they have to. They shouldn’t use their position for dishonest gain. They should be eager to serve. They should not lord it over people but should live as examples.
Most of these things are obvious. I do want to say that you need to be especially wary of pastors who want to lord it over the church. These are the pastors that say – I’m the pastor, you need to submit to me. You need my permission to make any changes in your spiritual life. When I tell you to jump, you should be asking, “how high?”
I point this out because the extreme of this kind of high control pastor inevitably becomes a cult leader. Now do I think you are going to go out a join a cult? No! But the less extreme version of this kind of leader doesn’t create a cult, but they do damage a lot of souls.
They use verses like the first part of verse 5.
1 Peter 5:5 (NIV)
5 In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders.
You see the bible says that you should submit to me, so submit. But they forget that they are not to lord it over God’s people. What that means is that leaders cannot demand submission. Followers need to choose to submit because they can see it the best way forward. I would say to you, that you only need to submit to what I say as I speak God’s word to you.
Again, I must nuance this a little. If you come to me and say, Pastor, I am going to paint the walls of the sanctuary black with pink and purple and green dots – I will say no your not. But I heard your sermon, I don’t have to submit to you. I am choosing not to submit to you. And I will say to you, there are times in my role as the leader of this church community that I have to speak for the community. Nobody but you and your three-person friend group, thinks that black walls with pink dots is cool – so no.
Do you get the difference? Well that was a long talk about the part of the passage I wasn’t going to talk about. What I do want focus on is humility.
1 Peter 5:5b–6 (NIV)
…All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,
“God opposes the proud
but shows favour to the humble.”
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
God shows favour to the humble. You may not know this, but one of things that you want most in your life is the favour of God. Some translations use the word “grace” in place of favour. Again, it is about God’s favour.
When God’s favour is upon you, we call that a life that is blessed. The Old Testament describes God’s favour as his face being turned towards you. He hears and is favourably disposed to answer your prayers. When God’s favour is displayed miracles happen. When you have the favour of God on your life, he establishes the work of your hands – is what Psalm 90 says.
In our passage today, it says the favour of God is God lifting you up in due time. You may not know it – but one of the things that you want most in your life is the favour of God.
One of the things that you really don’t want in your life is to have God oppose you. “God opposes the proud.” When God opposes you, or as the Old Testament puts it, turns his face from you – your prayers are unlikely to be answered. He removes his blessing from you – so you are on your own. You do not want that to happen.
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But here is the thing. We think of pride and humility as heart issues, and they are. But more accurately they are attitude issues toward other people that may or may not show up in what you say and what you do.
Look at verse 5.
1 Peter 5:5 (NIV)
All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”
Pride and humility don’t happen in a vacuum; they happen in relationship with other people. There is a good kind of pride. If you are proud of yourself, your work, or whatever without comparing yourself to someone else – then that is ok.
But pride that is not good is so easy to fall into. .
There is pride in our knowledge. 1 Cor 8 says knowledge puffs up but loves builds up. Look at the culture wars, everyone thinks that they are smarter that the people on the other side. We get puffed up about our own opinions.
We can have pride in our possessions. 1 Timothy 6:17 (NLT)
17 Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. We wouldn’t say stuff like my car is better than yours or my phone is better than yours. But when it comes to possessions, if you feel smug when you see people who don’t have what you do – you’re proud.
We can be ungodly proud about our abilities and achievements. Deuteronomy 8:18 (NLT)
18 Remember the Lord your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful… It is great to achieve and be successful. Be proud of yourself – and be thankful to God for the strength, health, and gifts he have you. But as soon as you compare your achievements to others or as soon as you fail to be thankful to God – you have become proud.
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Now we as followers of Jesus know we shouldn’t be proud, so we develop all kinds of spiritual language to show that we are humble. This shows up when people compliment us. We say, “It wasn’t me it was Jesus.” I used to struggle with this when I was younger. People would say, that was a great message pastor. I have learned that the proper response to that is thank you – and then as Corrie Ten Boom said, take that bouquet and hand it off to Jesus.
Now if I am talking about humility and God shows you something to fix your marriage – well that really wasn’t me, that was Jesus. But here is the thing – own what you do. If God has given you the grace to cook a great meal and people say that was great – say thank you. You don’t need to get puffed up about your abilities – but false humility doesn’t help anyone.
Here is another thing that people do that looks like humility put it isn’t. They avoid talking about themselves or what God has done. You might have this really amazing story of an answer to prayer, but you are afraid that people will think you are proud if you share it so you are quiet. That is not humility. If you talk about yourself in way that makes you look better than you are – that is not good. But if you talk about what God has done – that is what we were made to do.
Sometimes people think that you cannot be self-confident if you are humble. Being confident usually comes from doing something a lot of times. Being self-confident in doing your job well is not pride. Yet at the same time, we are aware that our ability depends on things we don’t always have control over like our health or our context. You can be self-confident and still depend on God.
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That is the definition of humility. Humility is dependence on God. Pride is functioning independently from God.
If you want the favour of God in your life, live in such a way where you are truly dependent on God.
When you are dependent on God, there are a number of things that are true about you. Here are some signs of humility.
If you are dependent on God, you will be responsive to God. You will be obedient to what he shows you. You can trust him to take care of you in your obedience.
If you are dependent on God, you won’t require the recognition of others. It is wonderful when people encourage and acknowledge what you done. But it is God you are seeking to please and you are dependent on him for his recognition.
If you are dependent on God, then you will be teachable. God will teach you. He will often teach you through others. People who are proud tend to think they know it all. People who are humble are open to the wisdom that God wants to give them.
If you are dependent on God, then you can put other people ahead of yourself. When you depend on God’s love you can risk loving others. When you depend on God provision you can be generous with others.
If you are dependent on God, then you won’t be easy to offend. You depend on God for your reputation. You depend on God for what comes your way. When you do that, it makes it really hard to be offended.
If you are dependent on God, then you will be quick to confess your sin. You know that it is useless to wallow in your sin. You can look on a loving God from your position of sinfulness and know that he forgives you.
1 Peter 5:5b–6 (NIV)
All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
God promises his favour to the humble. God promises to lift you up in due time. As you depend on him, you will see that in the proper time he will give you all that you need and more.
But what I love about this passage on humility is the next verse.
1 Peter 5:7 (NIV)
7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
From a place of humility, cast your anxieties, your cares on him. Peter wants you to know why – because he cares for you. God cares for you.
Here is what my Greek dictionary said about the word “cast.”
Is (an idiom, literally ‘to throw upon’ or ‘to cast upon’) to cause responsibility for something to be upon someone—‘to put responsibility on, to make responsible for.’ πᾶσαν τὴν μέριμναν ὑμῶν ἐπιρίψαντες ἐπʼ αὐτόν ‘put upon him all responsibility for your cares’ or ‘make him responsible for all your worries[1]
The next word that the NIV translates as “anxiety,” and other versions translate it “care,” is rendered in my Greek dictionary as
“a feeling of apprehension or distress in view of possible danger or misfortune—‘anxiety, worry, anxious concern.”[2] It goes on to say that “this term may refer to either unnecessary worry or legitimate concern.”
When you put the two of these things together with the rest of the passage here is what you get.
Humble yourself, be dependent on God. Put on him all the responsibility for your cares. Make God responsible for anything that causes you distress about what could happen. Make him responsible for the things that you anxious or worried about.
That, my friends, is why Sunday after Sunday when I pray the pastoral prayer that I invite you who are carrying burdens for yourself or other, to come to the altar. What you are saying in that act is, “God I am dependent on you for this. I am putting on you the responsibility for this. I am giving you the responsibility for that which has me anxious or worried or concerned about myself or the person that I am praying about.
I am doing this because I believe what you said when you declared “I care for you.”
Of course, you don’t need to come to the altar to do that. But there is something powerful about the physical expression of an inward cry. But I hope that you will cast your cares upon him day after day in your times of prayer.
All of this starts with humility. By the way – I recognize that can be a humbling experience to come to the altar. You are saying to everyone that I am carrying a burden or concern for myself or someone I care about. But there is something about humbling yourself that allows God to move in those situations.
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So, we have seen how crucial it is to have the favour of God. God blesses the life that is humble. He opposes the life that is proud.
The question is, how does one become humble. Look at our scripture.
1 Peter 5:6 (NIV)
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
Humble yourself. This is a choice that you can make. I have heard people say that as soon as you think you are humble, your not. That is not true. The bible commands us to humble ourselves. If you can’t know if you are humble, how can you know if you are obedient to his word. Humbling ourselves is being dependent on God. That is a choice of both action and attitude.
You can choose to be dependent on God. It shows up in your responsiveness to what God asks. You won’t require the recognition of others. You will be teachable. You can put others ahead of yourself. You will be quick to confess your sins.
You will choose not to be proud. You will live your life and compare yourself to what God asks of you – you will not live in comparison to others.
When God gives us the command to “humble ourselves,” you know that the grace to accomplish that will come with it.
But I have found that there are times when God has humbled me. You see, we all have blind spots. We don’t see what is obvious to God and others in some areas of our lives. God has a way of training us in humility.
I don’t know how many times God has asked me to apologize to someone. That is training in humility. I don’t know how many times I have flubbed something in public – that is training in humility. I don’t know how many times God has called me to own my stuff – that is training in humility.
My guess is that God has a unique training plan for you as well. You can either cooperate with it and live in humility and receive God’s favour – or not.
Hear the word of the Lord.
1 Peter 5:5b–7 (NIV)
All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
[1] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 798.
[2] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 312.