WHAT JESUS DOES FOR US PART 3

JESUS TAKES CARE OF US

1 Peter 5:6-11.

1 Peter 5:6-11 (HCSB) - ⁶ Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you in due time,   ⁷ casting all your care upon Him, because He cares about you.

⁸ Be sober! Be on the alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. ⁹ Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are being experienced by your brothers in the world. ¹⁰ Now the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will personally restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little. ¹¹ To Him be the dominion forever.  Amen.

INTRO:  This is a six part Easter series entitled, “What Jesus does for us.”  So far we have seen that Jesus forgives us and He opens our eyes.  This morning we are looking at, “Jesus takes care of us.”

Dr. Alexander Whyte tells the story of a man who dreamed that he saw Jesus tied to a whipping post, and a soldier was scourging Him. He saw the whip in the soldier's hand, with its thick lashes studded here and there with bits of lead, which were intended to cut into theflesh. As the soldier brought the whip down on the bare shoulders of Jesus, the dreamer shuddered when he saw the marks and bloodstains it left behind. When the soldier raised his hand to strike again, the dreamer rushed forward intending to stop him. As he did so, the soldier turned round, and the dreamer recognized himself.

You see, it was for our sins that Jesus was punished.  Look at it this way, we were the ones who tortured and crucified Him, so that we wouldn’t receive the punishment of our sins.  Christ Suffered.

Suffering is part of what all of us face.  Here in our text we see that the first century church was suffering persecution for their faith in Jesus.  They were getting it from all sides:  Satan Himself, the Gentiles, and the Jews. 

1 Peter was a book that was not only written to the persecuted first century church encouraging them to live out their faith.  But we can find application and encouragement as well.  It gives us an assurance that Jesus not only cares about us, but He displays this care in physical and tangible ways.

You see, it is easy to live the Christian life when everything is going well.  But when difficult times come, it endeavors to undermine the Lordship of Jesus in our lives.  Difficulties brings with it the temptation to compromise so that the fires of testing and trials might be quenched.  We seem overwhelmed at times.  It is in moments like these that we are called upon to make a choice; a choice between dealing with life in our own strength or remaining dependant upon the Spirit of God living within us.

If you find yourself in these situations this morning, take heart, God has a word of encouragement for you.  His desire is to use these difficulties to strengthen you, to perfect and establish you and to demonstrate to you how He wants to care for you.

There are six things in this passage this morning that I want us to look at in light of this:

1.  Be humble.

v. 6 - Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you in due time,  

A.     The Greek word for humble here means, “To make low, to abase, to make small, or to weaken.”

1.      It goes against our nature, and pride or sense of self worth to allow anyone or even the circumstances of life to weaken us or make us small.

2.      You see, the word humble here is also in the Greek a passive voice.  Meaning, we don’t necessarily do the humbling, but an outside source. 

3.      In our case the outside source is God Himself.  So we are being instructed to allow God to humble us.

4.      Let me read this out of one of the most literal translations of the Bible, Green’s Literal translation.

v. 6 (LITV) – Then be humbled under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in time.

B.     We won’t read it, but in using v. 5 to explain this verse it says “that God resists or opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.”

1.      You see, there is not weakness in humility before God, but power.

2.      And it is not our power, but the Power of God’s mighy hand.

C.     You will notice that it says that when we our humbled before God that He will exalt or restore us in due time.

1.      Due time never seems to work with our schedule.

2.      The reason for this is because that it is not until pride is dead, and we have rested in His mighty Hand in humility, that God can exalt or restore us.

3.      In humility we will lose our pride, but we will gain the Lord’s favor.

2.  Be dependent.

v. 7 - casting all your care upon Him, because He cares about you.

Psalm 55:22 - Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will support you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

A.     Pride makes us self-reliant; Humility positions us to recognize and accept our dependence upon God.

B.     The Greek word here for “burden” or in some translations, “anxiety,” or “cares” expresses a burden which comes with anxious care and apprehension.

1.      When we hold to our burdens, it makes us weary because we are constantly struggling and fighting against it.

2.      When we humble ourselves before God and recognize we are dependant on Him: we are turning our burdens over to Him.

3.      Remember this: when we are His, the only things that come into our lives is what God allows.

C.     You will notice I also quoted Psalm 55:22 here. The Hebrew word for burden is quite a bit different that the Greek word for it.

1.      It literally means, “What He has given you.”

2.      Let me read to you another literal translation of this verse.  Throw upon the Lord, whatever burden He has assigned to you, and He will sustain you as you bear it and He will not allow you to totter or stumble.

D.     Here is how humility and dependence work together:  Humility causes us to see our weakness; Dependence causes us not only to recognize God’s strength but to rely on His strength.

1.      Our strength has limitations because it is natural.

2.      God’s strength has no limitations because it is supernatural and eternal.

3.  Be alert.

v. 8 - Be sober! Be on the alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour

A.     The words “sober”, and “alert” mean to be mentally calm and watchful at the same time.

1.      Instead of being anxious, we are depending on the Lord.  There should be a calming effect to that.

2.      We should be watchful before we have an enemy who seeks to destroy us.  He will use circumstances, people, religion, and whatever else to do this.

B.     The second thing I want you to notice about this verse is the description of the Devil, as a roaring lion looking to devour someone.

1.      He is not a little imp in a red costume, goatee, and a pitchfork ready to stick it in your backside.  He is a really, dangerous, intelligent enemy.  If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have so many people deceived.

2.      The word, devour here in Greek means, “to consume, or to swallow up.”

3.      Ezekiel says something about this as well.

Ezekiel 22:25 – The conspiracy of her prophets within her is like a roaring lion tearing its prey: they devour people, seize wealth and valuables, and multiply the widows within her.

4.  Be tenacious.

v. 9 - Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are being experienced by your brothers in the world.

A.     When we have humbled ourselves and found our strength in God instead of ourselves, and when we have learned the secret of dependence which is turning back over to God what He has allowed to be put upon our shoulders, and when we have the calmness to be alert an on guard against the devil, then we are to stand our ground, resisting the devil in our faith.

B.     Ephesians six tells us to take up the shield of faith, and having put on all the armor of God, we are to stand against the schemes of the devil.

C.     In James it says that if we submit to God and resist the devil, he will flee from us.

D.     When our faith is strong in the Lord, our confidence in Him will be unshaken.

E.      Examples from Scripture:

1.      David stood before Goliath and declared, “The battle is the Lord’s.

2.      Moses stood at the red sea against the armies of pharaoh and declared, “The Lord will fight for us, you must be quiet.”

3.      And we could go on and on:  Elijah, Elishah, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Jesus Himself, Paul and Silas.

F.      Here is my point:  if you resist the devil and stand firm in the faith – God will come through for you.  Don’t give up, no matter how hot the fires may get.

G.     Don’t give in to discouragement.  Don’t give the devil a foothold.  Stand firm in the faith because persecution will come.

5.  Be prepared.

A.     Why?  Because persecution, suffering, and trials will come.

2 Timothy 3:12 – All those who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

B.     We are not called to hole ourselves up in some monestary or cave:  we are called to live in the world, but not be of it.

C.     Part of being prepared is to humble ourselves before God, depend on Him, and stay alert and watchful.

D.     Here is a question if you are struggling: Do you have a regular time in the word and in prayer?  If not, unfortunately, you have not prepared yourself.  You are going to get devoured every time because you do not have the strength to stand.

1.      God has given us His very Word, and fellowship with Him and prayer and fellowship with other believers (church), why don’t we actively use them?  They are our source of strength.

6.  Be assured.

v. 10 - Now the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will personally restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little. ¹¹ To Him be the dominion forever.  Amen.

A.     Look at some of the things this verse says:

1.      God will personally get involved.

2.      He will restore.  What the enemy tries to steal, the joy and peace, and victory God will restore.

3.      He will establish – He is the one who will set you back on the way you should go.  Our foundation will not be shaky but strong.

4.      He will strengthen – in our weakness, He will become our strength.

5.      He will support us – like a can or crutch that helps us walk when we are hurting or weak, God Himself will be our support to help us continue to walk in Him.

6.      The suffering won’t last forever – it is only a little while.

CONCL:  The point of all this is:  Jesus does truly care for us.

What are you going through currently?  Maybe life isn’t turning out the way you had planned.  Perhaps the cares and burdens of life seem more than you can bear.  Don’t fight it, you will lose.  Let God use these things to humble you and cause you to depend on Him.  He is your strength, restorer and the one who has the victory in His hands.  Fall into His hands of love for strength and support.