Stand Firm and Finish Well | 1 Peter 5

0:00You know, some believers survive the fire only to be taken down by prime, anxiety or spiritual carelessness. Peter doesn't merely want us to survive. He wants us to finish well and his final instruction isn't try harder. It's stand firm in his grace. Hey everybody, this is Vince Miller. Welcome to the weekly so glad you are here. Right here we just study the Bible a chapter at a time each week making our way through the entire Bible. And what I call project 23. I love these chapter reviews, especially following the daily. I want to encourage you subscribe to the daily and the daily we take apart the same chapter verse by verse looking myopically at each one of the verses over seven days, which is a great myopic study. Here we take a higher level look at the chapter looking at major themes trying to see overall what the author was

1:05trying to teach us. Now, if you don't have in your hands today one of these scripture journals, I want to encourage you to pick one up. I love taking notes in these things about things that I've studied, things I want underlined, copious notes. I have my outlines in here. I have convictions that I've written down. And by the way, every time we study one of these books, I put it on the shelf so I can go back and pick it up at some point in history. And remember what we've studied together and how we've studied all the way through God's Word over 23 years. That's how long it's going to take chapter by chapter one chapter a week, 23 years. Yeah, it's a long time. But discipleship is a slow study process. It's not instantaneous. We don't grow here overnight. It's steady. It's faithful. It's day over day week over week. So join me in these studies. And by the way, you want this in your hands, you know why? Because next week we begin second Peter. Second Peter comes after first Peter. And it happens to be in the same scripture journal right here. So if you're already

2:06having your hands great, if you don't go ahead and pick it up, you can go back through old lessons. And then step into second Peter with us all three chapters, only three chapters there. Study it all the way through with us for three weeks. It's going to be a fantastic journey. So first Peter, I have themed stand firm. I keep stamping these things. That's what I keep doing here. Stand firm. How to live holy in a hostile world because it's hostile out there if you haven't noticed to Christian believers. And Peter has taken us on this remarkable journey. So let's just remember where we've been over five chapters or four chapters so far. So in chapter one, he taught us to remember who we are. This is all identity in Christ information here in chapter one. In chapter two, he taught us to live like who we are in chapter one. Then in chapter three, he told us to respond like who we are. Chapter four courses, the chapter of suffering. So he

3:08taught us how to suffer like who we are now in chapter five. Peter shows us how to finish like who we are because pressure doesn't only test what we think and believe. It tests the pragmatic parts of our life like how we lead the things that we carry with us in the life, the things that we watch right here and where you place your competence. So here's the final big question of this chapter. How do exiles elect exiles like us finish well after a long season of suffering, a pressure of the fire. And Peter's answer isn't you need more self-confidence. It's this humble dependence on the God of all grace. And I made four discoveries in this particular chapter today that I want to share with you. I just kind of make these discoveries as we're going through the week, the daily right here. So I bring them into the weekly four discoveries. Discovery number one, I found in the

4:13first four verses here. It is this. It is to lead like the people under us belong to Jesus. Lead like the people belong to Jesus. So in this section here, Peter begins with elders or leaders in the church. And this is important because pressure or heat or the fire or the suffering often exposes leaders first. Because when when people feel threatened or leaders feel threatened, leaders are tempted to control things. Aren't they? Have you seen that before in the church? Within Christian leaders, I have. Because when ministry gets hard, we begin to serve out of these compulsions, these natural compulsions. When when recognition begins to disappear, the motives of our heart in leadership get revealed. So thus, Peter writes, shepherd the flock of God, of God that is among you

5:15exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, fill motivation there. But eagerly, not domineering, fill motivation there. Over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. Notice the flock language with the shepherding language from before. You filled the analogy here, filled the metaphor, kind of oozing out of this. Now, now Peter in this situation could have introduced himself as this high up apostle because this bro had some credentials. He did some pretty significant things during the time of Jesus and even after the time of Jesus. But instead here in verse one, he calls himself a fellow elder, underline that. In other words, he's a shepherd speaking horizontally to other

6:19shepherds, not over them, but alongside them. And Peter understood this particular calling and identity as a leader personally. He knew this personally. You remember after Peter denied Jesus, of course you do, because I've reminded of that to you ad nauseam in this whole study. Peter denied Jesus three times. Then Jesus Christ appears, restores him with a triple command. Do you remember it? Of course you do. It was something like 10 My Sheep, feed My Sheep from John, chapter 21, I believe. Now what Peter is doing is he's remembering that metaphor, that analogy, that shepherding analogy, tend My Sheep, feed My Sheep and he's passing it on to other shepherds who are also leaders. And he's telling them some things here. He's telling them to care for God's people and he tells them to serve willingly and he tells them to lead eagerly and he tells them to be humble and he tells them to be a

7:25model. All these things right here. I hopefully I put them right here. These are the things that he's telling them to do as a good shepher. And then notice whose flock it is here. It is the flock of God, of God. You see as leaders in God's church, it is never your church, it's never your ministry, it's never your family, it's never your team, it's never your people, it's all it's never any of these things. The people that you steward as a leader belong to Jesus, period. You are simply a steward under the chief shepherd. There's a hierarchy here folks. And if we really understand this order and this hierarchy, that should change our leadership perspective. Because when people belong to Jesus, then you don't use them for your own glory. You serve them, steward them for his glory. You don't manipulate them into obedience. You model that. That's what you do. You don't lead by

8:28controlling his people or commanding his people. You lead by going first with his people. And while the section here, of course, and these four verses is addressing church leaders, it applies beyond just church leaders. You see, parents lead, managers lead, mentors lead, all believers lead. You lead. You have some leadership ability that you are using right now. Someone out there is watching how you lead, which means that the first thing that Peter wants us to discover is this that we need to lead like those people belong to Jesus with that perspective. Because here's the deal. They do belong to Jesus. So just look inward for a second. Are you treating people like interruptions in your life? Guilty. I've done that before to my own family, treated my own children like interruptions. Are you trying to control someone you're supposed to serve?

9:34Done that guilty as charged, trying to control someone I'm just called to serve. Christian leadership is never about domination. It's never about authority. It's about stewardship. That's it. Underneath the chief shepherd, he is the one in charge. Okay, discovery too today. The second thing I saw as I was reading through this text, this is verses five through about seven here. We need to release what you were never meant to carry. Release, let go of what you were never meant to carry. Now in this section, Peter turns from church leaders to all believers everywhere, literally everyone. And he addresses two pressures that often connect together. All right, arrogance and anxiety, arrogance and anxiety, arrogance and anxiety are deeply connected and often traveled together with us in our spiritual lives. Therefore, he says this,

10:39humble yourselves, humble yourselves under what the mighty hand of God. So that at the proper time, he may exalt you casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. I want you to see the connection today between two things. Humble yourselves and casting your anxiety. Humble yourselves and casting your anxiety. These two things are connected with us and travel with us through life if we are obedient to God. This is how we fight those other issues. And I want you to know today, if you struggle with anxiety, Peter is not shaming you if you struggle with this anxiety. I'm someone who struggles with anxiety because I got sometimes some control issues, but he is showing us where to take that anxiety. And one way we humble ourselves is by

11:44admitting to ourselves that we are not God. We can't control every outcome. We cannot carry every person in this life. We cannot solve every problem. We cannot even see tomorrow. That is a problem for us, but we do know someone who can do all those things. Every one of them on the list. You see, anxiety tightens our grip, doesn't it? But humility loosens. And I mean, sometimes we really got to loosen humility loosens that grip. And Peter says that God has this what a mighty hand with a grip that you ain't got. This means his hand is powerful enough to handle anything that comes your way, my way. And note with this, he says, he cares for you. I love those words right there. I would circle that. That means his hand and his his power personal to us. God isn't merely capable.

12:49He is more than capable, more than that. And not just far away as he comes to our rescue. He is up close and personal and compassionate in the way that he does those things. So yes, today those of you who struggle with anxiety with me, you can care deeply about the issues creating all your anxiety and life without accepting the sovereignty over them because he's sovereign over them. Yes, you can be responsible in times of pressure or anxiety without pretending it all depends on you. You can remain obedient. It's okay. Obedient in the stress without trying to control tomorrow. Thus the second thing that Peter wants us to discover. Release. Let go of what you were never meant to carry. Just let go of it. Let go of what you cannot control. Let go of your

13:53adult wayward child. Let go of your reputation that you're trying to manage. Let go of the future that you want to control. Let go of your finances. Let go of your health. Let go of all those unanswered questions. But as you let go of them, pry them from your grip, give them, cast them into a mighty hand. And no, you're not casting what you insist upon holding on to and controlling. So today reflect on this. What are you gripping to tightly right now to that you need to let go of? Come on, take a second. Think about it. Think about it. You know what Peter tells us to do? Release the grip. Give it to God. Not because you don't care or are being careless. But because God cares even more than you do and he is never careless. Third thing I discovered here. This is verses eight and nine now,

14:58getting down deep into the text. The tone is going to change, but Peter is going to say this. Stay alert and stand your ground. So you're going to see his tone sharpen here. He goes from kind of this, this pleading and compassionate voice to a sharp tone. He says this. Be sober, minded. Be watchful. You're adversary. The devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Now, Peter isn't immediately turning our anxiety back on. He just wants to be anxious here. As we saw in the previous verses, he wants us to let go, but he doesn't want believers to be passive either to the issues around them. There's a delta here that we need to see. Anxiety wrongly imagines every possible threat that's out there, but alertness is different. It

16:03recognizes the real and right that right threat and then responds rightly to that threat. And Peter understood these moments. Remember before his denial, Jesus warned him in Luke chapter 22. Jesus warned him that Satan was Satan the lion was going to demand to sift him like wheat. And typical of Peter and of us, he underestimated that roaring lion, that adversary, the devil, and then he overestimated himself, didn't he? Now this more spiritually mature Christian leader, Peter says, wake up, peeps, the adversary prowls around like this hunting lion. And how does a lion hunt? Well, he intimidates with his roar and then he accuses the knee-temp and then he distracts and then he isolates and then devours.

17:03And Peter does not want us to obsess over the devil. Some people obsess over the devil. Don't do that. Our job is just to resist him, to stand firm in the faith. All believers around the world, just like you and me, are facing the same battle with the adversary, the lion, the devil. And together we need to remember lions hunt, isolated prey. So what do we do? We stand community with other believers. We stand scripture with them. We stand prayer with them. We stand obedience with them. We stay in the pack. And when the adversary roars, we don't let fear or anxiety make our decisions. Thus my third discovery here, stay alert and stand your ground, standing. We never need to hunt the adversary. That's not our job. Jesus took care of that for us. He's the one who hunts the adversary. Our job is to just resist the devil while we have time.

18:07Firm in the faith. Just know, just know this, the adversary really wants you isolated, intimidated and devoured. You wants to devour you, but God wants you just to be watchful and connected and steady so you can resist firmly in the faith. All right, final discovery of this study. Here it comes. Trust the God of all grace to finish his work in you. After the warning comes one of the strongest promises in this letter, listen to what Peter says. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you into his eternal glory in Christ will himself, himself, restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you.

19:09Now note this when Peter says a little while, you know, it's suffering. It's just going to last a little while. He's not minimizing suffering here. He's seeing it differently. Sometimes then we see it. He's measuring our time of suffering against timeless glory. Because remember, he's got a a genuine eternal perspective here. So when you stand our suffering against infinite glory, then it looks like a little suffering. Do you see? So every note, there's every pain that you feel is real in our time. But that pain is never endless. That's the point. It's suffering for a little amount of time. Time, time in with an eternal perspective. And notice, notice here, who finishes the work. He himself, God himself is the one who's going to finish everything. God himself, in fact, takes four actions here. Note them in order. God will restore what's

20:12suffering has broken in your life. Number two, he will confirm what pressure has purged. He will strengthen. He will strengthen what weariness has weakened in you. Fourth, he will establish, he will establish what the fire has tried to rob from you. Standing firm as a believer is never the triumph of your willpower of human strength. It's not declaring I got this. I hate those words, by the way, I swear, they they trigger me. Okay. I it's not saying I got this. That's what the world believes. It's knowing and declaring he's got this. He's got this and letting the persevering grace of God do its work while you are actively obedient to God, which means the fourth thing that I discovered here is this, trust the God of all grace to do the work that only he can do. He's going to finish

21:16his work in you. And today I want you to know you might be worn down. I get it. It's a lot of suffering sometimes, but know that you are not written off by God. That's the promise of chapter 5. Today you might feel shaken by all the suffering, but you are not abandoned by God. You may not know how the story of the suffering in your life is going to end or what it will look like when it comes to resolution. But I know this, the God who writes all stories knows exactly the ending of your story and get this. He's the God of all grace, all grace, not some grace, not occasional grace, not accidental grace, all grace. You see, he's got grace for your failure right now. He's got grace for that suffering that you're experiencing and grace for your leadership when you make a mistake, grace for your anxiety when you're holding on to things too much grace for that spiritual

22:16battle that you feel like you're losing grace to finish the race with him. So Peter closes this letter with one big summer here. This is the true grace of God and it's time for you folks to stand firm in it that grace. Which means today that maybe some of us we need to let go of all the outrage we're listening to and hearing in our world today. We got to let go of our desire to control the outcome. So remember what we discovered today. Four things. Lead like the people along to Jesus that we serve. Number two, we got to release what we were never meant to carry. Number three, we got to stay alert and stand our ground against the enemy. And number four, we got to trust the God of all grace to finish his work in us. That's how elect exiles live

23:22and finish well in this life. So let's just let's do a short review here. Okay. So chapter one, where were we in chapter one? We learned to remember who we are. Chapter two, we learned to live differently. Chapter three, we learned to keep doing good. Chapter four, the suffering chapter, we learned to remain faithful in the fire and chapter five, the one we did today, stand firm in the grace, his grace, all grace, the God of all grace until the very end. We don't finish well because we never stumbled in this life. You're going to stumble. Peter stumbled. He stumbled a lot. His life proves that life isn't perfect. You finish well, though, because the chief shepherd restores failures like you and I. The mighty hand of God

24:22carries us along the way. And then Christ, Christ strengthens you against the roaring lion, the enemy and the God of all grace holds you fast. So do me this favor. Will you stand firm into the very end? I want you to finish this life well. Don't finish poorly. Finish well. Because guess what? Grace gets the final word. It does. It's gonna pray for you. Father, today, help us to finish well. We just want to finish this life well. Teach us to lead a servant. Teach us to humble ourselves under your mighty hand and release the cares. We were never meant to carry. Keep us alert in our minds to the enemy, the roaring lion without without making us afraid and fearful of him. And when we feel shaken, remind us that you are the God of all grace. Restore us today. Strengthen us right now, right now. Establish us firmly and help us to stand firm until Jesus returns again in his name we pray. Amen.

25:29All right. Next week, we begin a brand new study in God's Word. Second Peter, three chapters, three weeks. Don't leave Peter's final command behind today, though. Stand firm in his grace. And until then, as always, live all and for him who will live all in for you.