Good evening.
Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to 1 Peter chapter 5.
We'll begin with a word of prayer and then we'll get into our study.
A gracious Father in heaven, we come before your throne.
grateful for the day that you blessed us with, grateful for the life that you have granted to us and the energy and the ability that we have to work, to labor, to serve others, to
help and to comfort those who are in need.
Lord, we pray and are mindful of those who do not have the same blessings that we have that are ill or perhaps have uh ongoing illnesses.
We pray that you give them strength through the difficulties that they face.
each and every day.
We pray for those who traveling and those who are away from us.
We pray that they might be returned back to their desired place and that they might return home safely.
We pray also for congregations that are throughout this country, throughout this world, especially those dealing with the hardships of very difficult fields to work in.
We pray that you will give them the strength that they need to continue on to be fervent in the work and diligent in your service.
you be with the efforts that we are making here at Collierville to reach the lost and to evangelize our communities.
We pray that as we strive to do that, that we will be met with open doors of opportunity and a willingness to hear the gospel.
Lord, we pray for this nation, for its leaders, and for the decisions that they make.
May we strive always to serve humbly underneath those who are in power.
But may we always remember that we have allegiance only to one, and that is to Jesus Christ our King.
All this we pray and ask in Jesus' name, amen.
Peter, as he opens up what we have in our English Bibles as the last chapter of this epistle, begins addressing elders.
We discussed this briefly in our last study, but why talk to elders now in the context that Peter's in?
Why is he addressing elders?
What are they about to be going through that they would need his exhortation?
Persecution.
As you look at this, if you were to, you know, in the New King James in the text that I have, there's a header right up at the top, says, shepherding the flock.
ah That's a good break in topic uh and good title, but it really, if we were to understand the context, it should be shepherding the flock through suffering, because that's the
context.
Don't just take my word for it.
Go down to verse 11 of chapter 5 and you'll notice, sorry, verse 10, but 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.
You know, chapter 4 we were talking about suffering.
Chapter three, we were talking about suffering.
Chapter two, we were talking about suffering.
Chapter one, we were talking about suffering.
You might think Peter's got something on his mind.
You might think the Holy Spirit had something on his mind, and he did.
The church was about to go through suffering.
And so, Peter's writing to them, telling them, yes, you're going to go through the suffering.
but you're not going through it alone.
He's going through it with you.
He's going to be there through that suffering and after you suffered, He's going to do something with you.
He is going to perfect you.
He is going to establish you.
He is going to strengthen you.
He is going to settle you.
He is going to move you.
through this experience to a new destination, to a new plateau in your Christianity.
And so, as Peter writes to these elders, he says, 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.
as you notice this statement, I want to focus in on this very last statement because we've covered some of this already, but we want to key in on this very last phrase.
He says, a partaker present tense in the glory that will be revealed future tense.
There is a sense in which Christians are currently, immediately, in the present tense, partakers in God's glory.
The reason why the book of Revelation ends with the picture of the church, the glorified church, the church of the city four square, the church that's adorned as a bride for her
husband and all of this perfection, the reason why the picture is current to the church.
is not because we've observed all of that glory, that we've had full partaking of all of that glory, but that we are currently part of it.
We are a current present tense partaker in the glory and yet the revelation of the glory is yet to come.
Our visible understanding of the glory is yet to be revealed.
But it doesn't make it any less real.
It doesn't make it any less part of what we are every day and it certainly doesn't make it any less.
something that we can count on and be assured of.
You go back to chapter 1 and Peter writes back in chapter 1 verse 3,
to a living hope, not a dead hope, not a future hope, a hope that is alive today because we are alive today.
Jesus did not say as He sat there at the edge of the well there in Samaria, He did not say to the woman, ask of me and I will give you the water of life where you will never thirst
again sometime after you've died in the future.
So He said, He said, if you knew who was talking to you right now, you would ask water for me and I would give you water that you would never thirst again.
When would that begin?
At what point would that never thirst again start?
When she died?
No.
Right then.
He wasn't offering some future promise, He was offering her something right then.
And yet, Peter will continue and say that this living hope exists through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that does
not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.
as Peter tells these Christians, you are a partaker in the glory
I understand you can't see it yet.
I understand it's not yet been revealed what that will be over in 1 John chapter 3.
John writes about this.
And John writes in 1 John chapter 3, behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God.
Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know Him.
Beloved, now we are the children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be.
But we know this, that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him.
for we shall see him as he is.
And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure.
John in his old age, as he writes as an elder,
This is, I don't know what we're gonna be like.
but I know that when he is revealed, we'll be like him, for we shall see him as he is." So there's a glory to Christ that even the apostles had not yet observed.
There's a glory to the Messiah, to the Son of God, that even they had not yet been witnesses of, but they were looking for it.
They were longing for it.
They were anticipating it.
And it didn't mean they were any less Christians or that they had any less partaking of that glory just because it was something in anticipation.
We need to be reminded that as we consider this life, we live on two planes.
of existence.
We live on this physical world.
We live with this mortal body.
We live with all the frailties and all the difficulties that exist in this life and yet...
we're reminded that the spirit and the flesh are not the same thing.
and that we is we, as Paul put it, grown in the flesh.
look forward to a point in time where we, like that seed, get planted in this ground and spring up into eternity.
Not any longer in this physical body, not any longer in this physical flesh and revealing the glory that awaits.
So he says, shepherd the flock.
Who does the flock belong to?
God.
He says, shepherd the flock of God.
Do not come to the conclusion the flock belongs to you.
This is not your flock.
You you think about Moses as he fled Egypt, ended up in Midian, ended up at the house of a priest, Jethro, ended up for 40 years being a shepherd of someone else's sheep.
You know, read in the text, Exodus chapter 3, as Moses is out with the sheep, he's not out with Moses' sheep.
Moses doesn't have any sheep.
He is shepherding the flock of Jethro.
for 40 years.
He was a steward of somebody else's sheep.
By the way, that's what made him qualified to be a steward.
That's what made him qualified to be the leader of God's people is because he had spent 40 years not trying to treat those sheep as his own, but recognizing that they belong to
someone else and being a steward of them.
So Peter tells these elders,
You shepherd the flock that does not belong to you.
You are a steward of them, they belong to God.
You shepherd the flock of God, which is among you.
Um.
Who can an elder be an elder over?
Any church anywhere?
Can ah Joe over here be an elder over the church in Australia?
Zimbabwe?
Can uh we have a group of elders at a congregation in North Texas that are elders over a church in Peru?
No.
Why?
You have to know the sheep.
The sheep have to follow you.
The sheep have to hear your voice.
You have to be a shepherd specifically by command of the flock which is among you.
Because you have a responsibility to that flock.
There is no text anywhere that authorizes elders to have authority over a congregation of which they are not a part.
Now, who in the first century had authority over a congregation of which they were not a part?
looking for a very specific group.
what group of people in the first century church had authority over congregations of which they were not a part?
The apostles, that's correct.
The apostles had authority over that.
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians chapter five concerning the issue of the man who had his father's wife, he said, I'm judged in this matter already and I'm not even present.
John wrote, as he wrote to the church in 3 John, concerning diatrophies.
And the fact that if the situation wasn't handled before he arrived, he would be handling it the moment he did.
The apostles had authority over the church and all of the churches.
There's a reason why of the apostles, Jesus said, what you bind on earth,
shall be bound in heaven and what you lose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." And Jesus never said that about any other group of people anytime, anywhere.
Because the apostles stood in unique authority within the first century church.
But could they hand that authority down to someone else?
No.
Could, well, let me ask, did that authority extend to anyone in a second generation of apostles?
No.
It didn't pass down to the Pope.
It didn't pass down to any group of cardinals.
It didn't pass down to a collective.
It didn't pass down to the Council of Nicea and the 300 ADs.
It didn't pass down at all.
By the time the apostles' lives were over, it was the responsibility, and by the way, it was the responsibility that was reiterated again and again and again by the apostles that
the elders in the local congregations had oversight over the church and would give an account for their shepherding of the flock.
The Apostles' authority continues in this.
This is the thing today, which has authority over every congregation and has authority over every flock that belongs to God and nothing else.
He's His shepherd, the flock of God, which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion.
willingly, not for dishonest gain, but eagerly, not as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.
Peter highlights and emphasizes that the elders' motivation for being an elder mattered, that their integrity in being an elder mattered, that their character as elders mattered,
and that their example as elders mattered.
and the only way they were going to shepherd the flock through suffering.
was if they were a group of people who the flock could follow.
And it's.
It's one thing to say, I'll follow you.
It's another thing to say, I'll follow you no matter where we have to go, right?
I know a few people who I followed and then decided this is a bad idea.
Let's just use driving as an example.
I've known a few people who thought, I'll follow so and so.
And then when they hit 90 miles an hour, thought, sorry, I might end up in the same place you are, but I'm not following you.
You're a bad example.
As you look at elders...
They have to wa-
with the.
Christian who is the sickest and most lame and most incapable and most uneducated in mind.
so that those sickly and lame and poor and novice level individuals can also follow.
Sometimes it's easy to lead people who are well versed in the scriptures and educated and willing to follow and able to follow and equipped to follow.
And so we run off and they run with us.
And there's some people back here who've been Christians for a year or two going, uh hey y'all, what are we talking about?
Peter is making sure that they realize that they're the thing that the flock is looking at.
Their lives are the lives that the flock is looking at.
And they have to be careful that they don't lead them into destruction instead of salvation.
Verse four, he says, and when the chief shepherd appears,
You will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.
There's a reward that exists for good elders.
You say, Aaron, great.
Explain to me the difference between the reward for good elders and the reward for every other Christian.
Look there
I just know that Peter just addressed elders and said, there's a reward waiting for you.
He says that there is a crown of glory that does not fade away.
Now, Paul over in 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter four.
will write beginning in verse 6, for I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.
I have fought the good fight.
I have finished the race.
I have kept the faith.
Finally there is later for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge will give to me on that day, and not to me only, but also to all who have loved his
appearing.
Paul says there's a crown waiting for me because of how I've lived.
because of how I've endured, because of what I've done.
But he reiterates, but it's not just for me.
It's for all those who love his appearing.
And so there is a crown of glory, there is a reward, and it may, if we combine this with a few other passages, have to do with the glory found in having others saved as a result of
your work.
Paul will write over in 1 Corinthians chapter three that there's a reward for those who are teaching and evangelizing and converting others.
And so that may have something to do with what Peter has in mind here.
Verse five, he says, likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders.
Always been kind of amused
at America's focus on the generation gap.
Because it seems like every generation there's a generation gap.
There's always some big reason why the younger generation won't listen to the older generations.
By the way, that's not really a global phenomenon.
It's really not.
There's a lot of cultures where that doesn't happen the way that it happens in America.
but they live in a very different society.
They live in a very different culture.
And yet here, you'll notice on a regular basis, about every 10, 15 years, here comes another generation that won't listen to a thing as a generation that the generation ahead
of it says to say, let alone the generations, two generations ahead of it.
And it kind of is a marked contrast between what that generation does and what everybody who went before them did.
And yet, you seem to notice that if you pay close attention, they're really not that unique because they just do the same thing that generation before them did and the
generation before that and the generation before that.
They just always seem to do it around the same age.
But Peter writes to these Christians, he says, you younger people, submit
yourselves to your elders.
Does Peter say, you elders, you make sure and pound those young people into submission?
He puts the burden of responsibility on the younger people to submit themselves to the elders.
You you go over to Titus and you look at Titus as Paul is giving instruction to Titus concerning what his work is and you read there in Titus chapter two.
that the older women, verse 3, likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much whine, teachers of good things, that they admonish the young women to
love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, all this list of things that Paul tells Titus to teach the older women to teach the younger women.
And yet, sometimes you have the younger generation going, you're not going to teach me anything.
You're not going to tell me how to live.
That may have been fine in your day, but we're different now.
not a very biblical character in view of what Peter has to say.
Peter says, you younger people submit yourselves to your elders.
Yes, all of you be submissive to one another.
Is it easier or harder for the younger generation to listen to the older generation?
if the older generation never listens to the younger generation.
You want to tell me what to do, but you don't even listen to anything that I have to say.
Peter draws out the need for the younger people to submit to the older, but then he turns around and tells everyone to submit to one another.
He says, you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility.
every morning.
Peter would like Christians to wake up.
and adorn themselves with humility.
to adorn themselves with a willingness to submit to their brethren.
A willingness to serve instead of insisting on being served.
To let someone else have it their way instead of always insisting on it being our
Now, is Peter talking about matters of doctrine where we ought to submit to one another's preferences on what should be taught and what shouldn't be taught in matters of doctrine?
No.
Do any of us get to have a say on what is taught and what is not taught in matters of doctrine if we're being obedient to God?
Not at all.
We might get to have a say about when to teach, but not what.
He's not talking about what doctrines we follow.
He's not talking about, you know what, don't stand up too hard for some doctrinal position.
Just go along to get along.
That's not what he's talking about.
He's talking about Christians loving one another and as Paul puts it, preferring one another.
and insisting that what's best for the other person is what they want to see happen.
Whatever's best for our brethren, that's what we want to do.
That's how we want to live.
That's how we want to serve.
And so he says, be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Turn over to Isaiah.
Isaiah 57.
You read here in verse 11, "'And of whom have you been afraid or feared?
That you have lied and not remembered Me,' God says to Israel, "'nor taken it to your heart.
Is it not because I have held My peace from of old that you do not fear Me?
I will declare your righteousness and your works, for they will not profit you.
When you cry out,
Let your collection of idols deliver you.
And the wind will carry them all away, a breath will take them.
But he who puts his trust in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain.
And one shall say, Heap it up, heap it up, prepare the way, take the stumbling block out of the way of my people.
For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and
place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." As God, through Isaiah, presents this
message to Israel, he calls upon Israel, if you go back and look there in verse 11, there in verse 12, there in verse 13, he says, go ahead, hallelujah.
your idols.
Start praying to them.
Maybe they'll save you.
when you go look at Romans chapter 1.
Paul makes it clear that it is always pride.
that causes humanity to elevate things in idolatry.
It is always pride that allows a human to take anything including themselves and elevate it to the level of God.
Then God says, ahead, lift up your idols.
Let's see what they can do for you.
Oh, look, I just smashed them and they just blew away.
Now what are you going to do?
And yet then, he says.
Take all the stumbling blocks out of the way.
for thus says the high and lofty one.
The one who actually sits in the position of authority.
The one who actually dwells in eternity in holiness.
And that one says, I'm going to resurrect.
I'm going to revive.
I'm going to raise up the humble.
when you are.
visualize this.
Think back to Exodus chapter 3.
In Exodus chapter 3, Moses sees the mountain and the bush that's on fire.
Moses tells the servants, I'm going to go and I'm going to see what's going on.
So Moses comes to the bush and as he approaches the bush, the voice of God comes forth.
And the text says that Moses fell down as dead.
when he saw the burning bush, didn't fall down as dead.
When he approached the burning bush, he didn't fall down as dead.
When he was faced with the voice and presence of God.
He fell down his death.
God tells him to get up.
God tells him to remove his feet, or remove his sandals from off his feet, for the place where he stood was holy ground.
What's that picture?
That's the picture of a man who was humbled and humbled himself before God.
and who God said, no, you can stand before me.
because if it had just been him, he couldn't have done anything but lay before it.
But God gave him the ability to stand.
And so Peter says that we need to humble ourselves before God.
Isaiah tells us that it is the humble and the contrite heart that God will revive.
So Peter says, 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.
Interesting point, what does in due time imply?
That all the time is not necessarily the time that we're going to be lifted up, right?
That there is a time in the future in the context Peter's writing where God will do it at His time.
Go back just one more time to the example of Moses.
When Moses was 40, Moses thought it was his time.
Moses thought it was his time to be lifted up.
He thought it was his time to deliver his people.
He thought it was his time to save his people.
God says, it's not your time.
Matter of fact, you need to go be humbled.
And so for 40 years, Moses is humbled.
Then God says, it's now your time.
And Moses says, I'm too humble.
Can you find someone else?
God says, it's your time.
So then Moses goes and delivers the people and Moses goes through a whole new experience of being humbled.
Because the people are contrary and rebellious and stiff-necked and stubborn and complaining and gossiping and sinful and he says, kill me.
pleads with God to execute him right there and right then to save him from these Israelites.
That's a whole new level of Please Lord, just kill me now.
What did I do to deserve these people?
to carry them through the wilderness.
Okay, so Philippians chapter 2 is good passage to read in this regard.
But he says,
not just humble yourselves under His mighty hand.
You sometimes, a group of people are...
m
forced into submission under a strong hand.
If you were to look at Egypt in the midst of the 10 plagues, Egypt was forced into submission into a place of humbleness by nature of the fact that everything was decimated
around them by God.
But Peter's telling them, no, you place yourself under that hand.
But as you do so, you don't do so out of fear.
You don't do so out of your uh mindset that God can destroy me in just a moment, so I better obey Him or else.
No, he says,
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." What a reassuring thing to realize that God
cares for us.
to that God cares for each individual Christian.
Not just Christians, but the Christian going through the suffering, the Christian going through the persecution, that as they humble themselves and place their cares in God's
hand, He cares for them.
But He then says, but you be sober.
The be sober here means you be self-controlled.
Not only does He say you humble yourself, place yourself under the hand of God, put your cares in God's hand, but you be self-controlled and watchful.
You be sober and vigilant, in control and always aware.
Because he says your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion.
seeking whom you may devour.
The point has been made and appropriately so.
Lions don't roar for no reason.
The most prevalent time of a lion roaring is at the moment they pounce because the roar is a distraction.
The roar is there to frighten the prey into being still.
What happens to a deer?
when they see the headlights.
There's a reason we call it a deer in the headlights look, right?
What does he do?
Now is not the time to stand still, yet the deer is standing still.
Right until that moment you swerve, then he moves right into your path, right?
Ask any insurance agent.
That's how it works.
as you think about that analogy.
Had the deer been observant and under self-control, would it have been startled into being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
No.
It would have moved.
It would have been aware of that.
car coming down the road.
Now, Peter says, you Christians, don't live your life oblivious to what Satan's doing.
Don't live your life oblivious to the one who's waiting for the moment to snatch you.
to devour you.
Why is Peter talking about this when they're about to go into suffering?
Could be tough.
A lot of times we look at the Old Testament Israelites going through the wilderness and going through the time at Sinai, and we think, oh, those people.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that they are an example for us.
So we don't do what they did.
Because if we're not humble enough to admit that it can happen to us too, then we're not being sober, we're not being vigilant, we're not aware of what the devil can do with the
circumstances that come our way.
And so he reminds the Christians, as you're headed into the suffering,
You keep an eye out because Satan's ready.
He's looking for his opportunity.
And he's willing to let that roar allow you to become stock still so he can devour you.
Now, one last question as we close.
Who goes into suffering and never comes out?
who goes into suffering and never comes out.
It's a little more specific than I was being metaphorical.
The one who doesn't keep going.
Israel went through suffering and they didn't come out.
As a matter of fact, God said, no, you're dying in the wilderness.
You shall not enter my rest.
Why?
Because they went in and stopped.
There's a visualization that's worth considering and it's about the process of change.
Anytime change happens in somebody's life, they start here and they expect that they're going to go up, that things are going to be better and inevitably what happens is they go
down because change is hard and difficult.
They go into what the people tell us is called the valley of despair because change is hard.
And what a lot of people do is they get into the valley of despair and they hop off.
And their new location is lower than their original location, even though they were trying to change for the better, they end up for the worse.
It is only by continuing that they begin to climb up and they end up at a new, improved state.
Keeter's warning them, you keep going.
You don't go into suffering and stop.
You go into suffering and you go through it.
And he's telling them, you watch your elders and you follow them through it, because they're not going to stop.
They've been through it before.
Okay, thank you for your attention.