Vigilance
Notes
Transcript
If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to 1 Peter 5. If you are able and willing, please stand for the reading of God’s Holy Word!
8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 11 To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.
May God add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!
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As Peter draws his letter to a close, he writes some final thoughts to his readers. He is exhorting them, urging them to do a few different things.
He writes down what we just read (and a few more sentences we will read together next Sunday), and that’s the end of his first letter to the churches scattered throughout Asia Minor.
Vigilance is the theme. These believers are to keep a careful watch, to pay attention. To be vigilant. Be alert and of sober mind, encourages Peter.
The same words are used by Peter in chapter 1 and then again in chapter 4.
1 Peter 1:13 (NIV)
13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.
1 Peter 4:7 (NIV)
7 The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray.
Peter is on to something. Peter has a few topics in mind for his first letter to the scattered elect. One is vigilance. Be alert and of sober mind.
The end is near. Jesus is going to return at any moment. Any day now. His Church says, Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus! We’ve got to be ready, and part of that is vigilance. We can’t be inattentive or aloof.
Peter starts and ends this letter with a call to vigilance. He bookends this letter with be alert and of sober mind. A fancy term for this is “inclusio.” I prefer “bookends.”
Alertness, sobermindedness, vigilance is needed because:
The Devil is on the Prowl
The Devil is on the Prowl
Believers must remain ever vigilant—alert—because the devil seeks to destroy them, devour them, kill them, steal their joy/hope.
The devil inflicts suffering and brings about persecution on believers so that they will despair.
The enemy wants believers to shift their faith from the LORD to themselves. The enemy loves when believers go from putting their faith in the Faithful God, to placing their faith in mere mortals.
The devil would LOVE for you to place your faith, not in the LORD, but in your family, your friends, your spouse.
Our enemy is quite effective at getting believers to transfer their faith from God and move it to politicians (this happens all the time; and it ramps up every 4 years. This is one of those dreaded years when many believers trade their birthright for a bowl of stew; their witness for a little partisan politics).
The devil is prowling about; he wants to devour you and yours. He’s very sneaky, very clever.
The devil truly is our enemy. Our adversary. Our accuser and slanderer. That’s Satan, the devil.
In the OT, we read about Satan accusing Job. He does the same to the high priest, Joshua. In Revelation, he is referred to as the accuser of our brothers and sisters.
But Revelation also tells us, at the coming of Jesus, Satan will be hurled down, defeated.
He’s prowling around like a roaring lion.
Peter is warning the church of a deadly danger, not of an animal we watch at the zoo or on National Geographic. This isn’t Simba and Nala singing songs with Zazu, Timon, and Pumba.
Some of those who first read Peter’s letter would have seen their fellow believers mauled to death by lions in the Roman amphitheaters. Their picture of a lion would have been blood-soaked.
The danger posed by Satan is real.
“Lurking behind the authorities and powers that dominate pagan life there moves a more fearful destroyer, the figure of Satan.” - Edmund Clowney
The devil hopes believers will give-up at the prospect of suffering. The devil hopes believers will be terrified in their hardship and persecutions. He’d love to deceive them so that they fall into sin.
He’s prowling about, looking for someone to devour. He’s looking to devour believers, but Christians have the assurance that they will be guarded by God’s power.
5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
The devil is on the prowl, but God cares for His children. He sustains His own. God protects His flock in and through all their distress.
We must be vigilant, ever-attentive to the schemes of the devil. Aware that he wants to devour us. Mindful that the roaring of the devil is the crazed anger of a defeated enemy.
>Peter begins his next thought (verse 9) by telling believers to resist [the devil]. If Satan is to be resisted, sober watchfulness is called for.
Be vigilant, urges Peter, and remember:
We Don’t Suffer Alone
We Don’t Suffer Alone
Our task, according to Peter, is to stand against the devil, to resist our enemy, to keep up our guard before the prowling lion.
Resistance is not passive. Resistance is active engagement against an enemy. It’s about standing firm in the faith, that is, trusting in God. Continuing to trust God as we suffer.
Those who suffer have a few points of comfort. The first comfort is found in remembering the family of believers—our brothers and sisters in Christ. They’re undergoing the same kind of sufferings. This is what Peter’s audience would cling to.
There is something encouraging in knowing you aren’t alone and isolated. It’s good to know you’re not the first Christian to suffer. You aren’t suffering while everyone else is living their best life now. We’re in this together.
You are, in Christ, joined with the family of God throughout the world.
It’s important to remember that suffering is part of the Christian life. Suffering even has its place in God’s plan. As we suffer, it reminds us of the hope we have in a future with the LORD where there will be no more suffering. In that way, suffering is hopeful.
Everyone in the Christian family—the family of believers—faces the same rejection and discrimination. It’s a mark of being part of the same family.
Every earthly family has their distinguishing features. A common nose. A cleft chin. Shared eye color. Baldness. The Case men are all bald, but also marked by our rugged good looks.
Every family has their distinguishing features. Suffering is the mark of the Christian family. Christ suffered; we who carry His name around will likewise suffer.
The church’s sufferings “are not the personal misfortune of individuals, but belong to the essence of faith and are signs of its power against evil. Even more, they are signs that faith is sustained through grace.”-Leonhard Goppelt
Our commitment to resisting the devil is helped by finding out we’re not alone. Our circumstances are not unusual; suffering is to be expected.
Suffering is common to all in the family of believers throughout the world, and down through the centuries.
But take heart! Be alert and soberminded:
This is Only for a Little While
This is Only for a Little While
The hope that will sustain the church through its fiery trial of suffering is hope in the sovereign grace of God. He is the God of all grace.
“Grace” is a favorite word of Peter; it’s used over and over in 1 Peter. It’s a recurring theme.
Peter begins his letter with a mention of grace to those he’s writing (1:2)—Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Peter then writes to his readers: set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming (1:13).
The church, and each individual in it, should, according to our friend Pete, use the gifts they have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s multi-varied grace (4:10).
Last week, we were reminded of the grace God shows to the humble (5:5).
The God of all grace means that God is both the possessor and giver of all grace.
The sufferings of the believers are intense, but God’s grace is stronger still.
The gracious God has also called His people. Called is another word that occurs in Peter a few times, with the same meaning it has here.
This is God’s effective work, by which He brings believers into a saving relationship with Himself.
In 1 Peter 1:15, Peter reminds us it’s God who called us. In 1 Peter 2:9, it’s God who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light. We have been called to follow Christ, no matter where it takes us.
Here at the end of this letter, God’s calling to salvation is clear. The God of all grace calls us to His eternal glory in Christ.
In and through Christ comes God’s saving call. Our end-time salvation is sure—sure as the sun will rise, sure as Daylight Saving time will mess with everyone’s sleep schedule—our end-time salvation is sure.
It’s certain. Because God Himself is the One who initiated it and secures it for His people.
It’s not on us; it’s on Him. That’s really good news. As the rest of verse 10 will show, God will certainly complete what He has started.
The God of all grace, who called you [all] to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while...
This is the interlude, the in-between, our current situation. This is the kid from the back seat of the minivan asking, “Are we there yet?” This is the waiting.
Before eternal glory, believers will suffer. BUT, the suffering is just for a little while. Peter’s taught this before (at the start of his letter; here’s another bookend theme, found at the beginning and the end):
1 Peter 1:6 (NIV)
6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.
A little while…
Here’s the rub: Peter saying that suffering will last only a little while, only a short time, does not mean it will only last for a brief moment during our time on earth. This isn’t teaching that we’ll only suffer for a part of our short lives.
Biblically speaking, the short time period refers to the entire time between Jesus’ resurrection/ascension (in the 1st Century) and His return (whenever that may be).
The course of human history is filled with suffering. It’s not that you’ll only experience “a little bit” of suffering, a “few moments of suffering.”
No, your life may be filled—beginning to end—with suffering. It probably will. From the moment the doctor holds you upside-down and slaps your backside, to the moment you breath your last—it’s all suffering (to one degree or another).
HOWEVER—here’s the good news of our suffering—the sufferings of this life will seem as if they lasted only a little while when compared to the eternal glory that endures forever and ever.
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
You will suffer. But it’s only for a little while. And eternity is in the offing.
With God’s grace in mind, with our calling in mind, with eternity in mind, the suffering that is ours for a little while gets more and more bearable.
Be vigilant. Be alert and soberminded as you suffer. This is only for a little while. And never forget:
God is Working
God is Working
The God of all grace is working. He has a promise for those who believe, a promise for His own. The God of all grace…will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.
Schreiner says there’s no need to distinguish carefully between the meanings of these verbs; they together are emphatically making the same point.
These verbs are in the future tense, highlighting that they are divine promises on which we can rest secure.
God will restore (repair, equip, supply), make strong (hold fast, unchanging), make firm (able and capable in contrast to weakness), and make steadfast (give a firm foundation). This is His work in the lives of His people.
God is at work. He’s working. He will complete His work in us, He will establish us, strengthen us, and ground us.
Peter, like many of us, knows all about the restoring power of God’s grace. Peter had denied Jesus, and the resurrected Jesus gently brought him back and gave him work to do.
God is doing that work—completing us and conforming us, restoring us—until we are made whole and complete in His presence.
The Lord God made Peter an apostle. Renamed him “Cephas” which is Aramaic for “Rock”. The same establishing grace that made Peter strong is promised to Christ’s church.
Whatever weakness or inadequacy we have in us, God will strengthen us.
Just as God established the earth, laid its foundations, so God makes His people firm and steadfast. He’ll sit us on the solid rock, who is Christ, and we will never be shaken.
The God who has called believers to eternal glory will strengthen and fortify them so that they are able to endure until the end. He will fulfill His promise to save and deliver them.
Sometimes, I think we’re tempted to believe God isn’t doing anything. Especially when we suffer, when we’re in the middle of a difficult part of life, we can start to wonder what God is doing. Or why He’s not doing anything.
Some people believe in a conception of God that isn’t the God of the Bible. Like many of this country’s founding fathers who were deists, people believe God “wound the clock of history and then stepped back and let the thing unravel.” Many people believe God doesn’t work or isn’t working.
The truth is: the One True God is constantly at work. He’s at work in the world. In your life. In His church.
“God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.” - John Piper
Peter isn’t writing an op-ed piece for the newspaper. Peter is, carried along by the Holy Spirit, writing down the inspired words of God. He doesn’t couch this in possibility, but in definite language.
The God of all grace… WILL HIMSELF restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.
Be vigilant, alert and soberminded to this reality: God is working. And make sure you remember:
God is Supreme
God is Supreme
Peter ends this part of his letter with a doxology. Much like the doxology we sing at the end of each of our gatherings, Peter is caught up in a moment of praise and wants us to join him there:
1 Peter 5:11 “To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.”
The all-powerful and gracious God is able to sustain His people in the midst of suffering—this is cause for praise.
Peter is emphasizing the sovereignty and power of God. He uses a word that means “dominion” even though the NIV and others translate it as “power”, it’s more than that.
It’s God’s power and rule over a world where so much evil is present. God is stronger and more powerful than our foe, Satan. No weapon formed by the devil against God’s people will ultimately prevail, because God has dominion over all things.
To God belongs all power! The dominion of God will never be extinguished. It will never be snuffed out.
Throughout the centuries, Christians have understood their sufferings in light of what is being accomplished for God’s eternal dominion.
In October 1555, two churchmen, Hugh Latimer and Nicolas Ridley, were burned at the stake in Oxford because of their faith.
As the flames rose around them, Latimer cried out: “We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, I trust it shall never be put out.”
Those were the final words of a suffering man who knew what happened to him on that day would accomplish the purposes of God’s inextinguishable and everlasting dominion.
God is supreme. His power, His dominion is from everlasting to everlasting. He will triumph over all our suffering. And He will bring His people into eternal glory, forever and ever.
Peter isn’t wishing or even praying that God’s power may endure; he’s rejoicing in the reality that it will!
The power of God that raised Christ from the dead is our hope and assurance.
If God can do that (and He did!), what can He not do? Can He work in your suffering? Can He overcome the evil of this age? Can He, in the blink of an eye, right ever wrong?
Of course He can, because He reigns supreme.
11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
As is typical, the doxology concludes with “Amen.” This word signifies that Peter longed for the day when God’s rule will be evident to all.
He anticipated the day when suffering will be in the past and glory and peace and joy will reign forever.
We, too, say “Amen”, believing one day soon this will be!
>Peter starts and ends this letter with a call to vigilance. He bookends this letter with be alert and of sober mind.
And he goes on and on about suffering, about remaining steadfast. Lots of talk about vigilance. We must be ready, attentive, on the lookout.
But, perhaps most of all, we must hold onto the promise of God in the midst of whatever we suffer:
He will restore what has been lost, damaged, or wounded.
He will confirm us in the grace that is our in Jesus.
He will strengthen us to endure.
He will establish us in His eternal and unbreakable love.
Be vigilant, church.