Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

What do you pack for a journey?

What goes in your suitcase?

It is hard to decide.

Do you pack for bad weather or good weather, or both?

Will I wear these shoes or not?

The truth is most trips, I have packed things I did not need.

But what I required was vital.

We come to the end of the first letter Peter wrote.

While we have a second letter, we never know if Peter planned to write it.

This may have been the last time for him to instruct and encourage.

He told them they were to live as sojourners and exiles.

They were temporary residents who lived out of a suitcase.

What needed to go in that suitcase?

If these are what Peter thought might be his last words, what do you leave them?

What do you tell them to keep for the journey they are taking through this life to heaven?

In this lesson, let's look into that suitcase.

We find four important things Christians need to stay the course in an apathetic world.

Discussion

A Servant’s Heart

What kind of mindset should you have?

Think about being in suffering.

It might become "every man for himself."

I am responsible for me but not for you.

In the 1900 hurricane in Galveston, fathers found an anguished choice needed to be made.

When the water rose, and you could only save one child, which one would it be?

And suppose one of those was a neighbor's?

Think about how the pressure of the moment might change how they thought of things.

But Peter begins where he left off in verse 4. It is signaled by the word "likewise."

"Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.""

(1 Peter 5:5, ESV)

Just as in chapter 3, Peter had given instructions for wives to submit to husbands in the family.

Here he instructs those younger to submit to elders in the spiritual family.

He instructed elders to shepherd the flock.

But the flock must respond with submission.

Listen to them.

Accept their wisdom even when it might not make sense.

As Mark Twain observed, "when I was 16, my father was the dumbest man I knew.

I was amazed that when I turned 30, how much smarter he had become."

Maturity sees things youth cannot.

But this submission is not the same as subjection.

It is not someone standing on your neck demanding compliance or else.

Instead, in Christian thought, submission is self-accepted.

Peter puts it in the broader trait of humility, for no one can submit themselves unless they have humility.

"Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.""

(1 Peter 5:5, ESV)

Humility is the art of seeing yourself as you indeed are, not as you imagine yourself to be.

We assume we are vital to the planet.

And in some ways, we are.

Yet, most are born and then pass into obscurity.

It is a complex trait to acquire because we want to be important.

Our ego fluffs our emotional feathers to where we are much too important than we believe we are.

Yet, humility is a trait that Jesus invites us to share.

He was humble because he knew how to lower himself.

When we are humble, we step up to the life Jesus lived.

Peter paints a picture.

He says, "clothe yourself with humility."

He brings them back to a Roman home, replete with servants.

The saying says, "clothes make the man."

In the Roman world, "clothes made the slave."

A slave served in a garment gathered around the waist and tied up so as to not get in the way of walking.

When a slave put on this garment, it reminded him of his status in Roman life.

Peter says we should put on a servant's garment.

By doing so, he tells them to "take the role of the servant when you serve the body."

It is much like Jesus taking the basin and towel in the upper room.

It was something donned only by slaves….and a Master.

These words grate against us like fingernails on a chalkboard in a world that preaches self-promotion and personal branding.

We are to prove ourselves, claw our way to the top, make sure we are noticed.

Yet, for the Christian, it is the opposite.

Find ways to help other people.

Go out of your way to do things for which you will never receive recognition.

You never get plaques, trophies, or headlines for serving as Christ served.

Instead, you get something else.

That is spoken of in the last part of the 5th verse into verse 6.

"Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you," (1 Peter 5:5–6, ESV)

We deliberately and consciously seek to blend in with other servants.

Peter states a simple principle.

We humble ourselves, and God elevates us.

In Luke 14, Jesus watched with fascination how men clamored for attention by selecting seats closest to the host.

They wanted to be next or at least close.

It may have been like watching a dance of left-footed dancers.

Each stepped on the other to get a better seat.

Jesus gave his disciples a different perspective on life at this event.

"Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, "When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give your place to this person,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.

But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher.'

Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

(Luke 14:7–11, ESV)

The self-seeking bight found himself embarrassed when the host noticed a rival and moved him down.

Red-faced, he had to take a seat of less importance.

Nothing humiliates egotists so much as being inferior in status.

Instead, Jesus said, take the last seat, the one that nobody wants.

If you are genuinely somebody, you will be invited to a better seat and recognized.

Let the host decide who has the status.

That picture hangs as a backdrop on this passage.

We humiliate ourselves, and God elevates us.