1 Peter 5:5-11 | Living in the Lion's Lair

Good morning.

If you did not know, if you are visiting with us or fairly new with our fellowship, the man that prayed with us and for us a few moments ago is one of our elders, Lowell Nelson.

And I appreciated the way he prayed.

That we are a family.

And it's nice to be able to know that we as a family can share one another's burdens, isn't it?

To lift up and present each one with our needs before the throne of grace.

And even to be able to do that, for sending out an entire family to another part of the world and sharing their needs and them before the Father, and we have a privilege of doing that.

So thank you, Moss family, for being a part of us, of our family.

It's been a wonderful time.

We also have another part of our family with us this morning, and that is four and five-year-olds.

And that presents something different to our gathered family here this morning.

Perhaps a little more wiggliness, perhaps a little more volume, and that is good.

As a family, we want together to present an opportunity to you to nurture, to help grow and mature different parts of our church family.

And this is that opportunity.

And so each fifth Sunday, when there's a month with five Sundays, on the fifth Sunday, we'll be able to have the opportunity to give some of our children's church teachers a break and give the rest of us an opportunity to wrap our arms around the younger persons in our church and give an opportunity to share with them and encourage and nurture them.

It's a privilege that we have.

So, four and five-year-olds, this is an opportunity for you to be a part of maybe what we could call big church, to see what it's like and what you will be a part of.

And this morning we're going to be talking about lions.

So if you are artistic adults, you can participate in this too.

We'll let you.

You can draw me a picture of you standing before a lion.

I'd love to be able to see your picture afterwards.

The New Testament book of 1 Peter gives us a wake-up call.

Through this little book, we are reminded that we don't belong here.

This room, this community, this city is all temporary for us.

Because our citizenship, the scriptures tell us, is really in heaven.

We are only here temporarily, but we continue to live for a time in a world that, first of all, hates our Lord, and as a result of that will hate us.

1 Peter chapter 5, beginning in verse 5, details a final and perhaps even most intimidating factor to living in this world.

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

We have an adversary, an opponent, an enemy described as a lion looking for Christians for dinner.

Not to invite them over for dinner, but to consume them for dinner.

If you have a Bible or a device that you can open to 1 Peter chapter 5, I would like to read verse 5 through verse 11 if you would follow along with me.

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

Beginning in the middle of the verse, 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, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Be sober minded, be watchful.

Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

To him, that is to the God of all grace, be the dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

Perhaps you know the story of Siegfried and Roy.

Their Las Vegas entertainment show became famous for their act with white lions and white tigers.

And after years and years, decades really of performing, Roy was bitten in the neck by one of the white tigers, almost killing him and effectively ending his career as an entertainer.

Very few people would be willing to be in an open and defenseless position with a lion or a tiger.

No one, maybe at least no one in their right mind, is going to step into a lion's cage without some level of trepidation.

And yet, if you follow Christ, you live in the lion's cage daily.

How are we, as God's people, to not only survive in the lion's lair, but to thrive, to grow, and to serve the Lord Jesus Christ while at the same time continually being in the presence of our enemy?

Well, through Peter, the Lord Jesus Christ gives us four helps to do that.

I'm sorry, three helps.

I decided to remove one, and so be gracious to you this morning.

Gives us three helps to live this kind of life that God expects while in the midst of lions.

Now, these may be familiar to you, and so I'd like you to think about them in a new and perhaps challenging sort of way.

The first help that we see in this passage is that we must become humble.

We must become humble.

We need to become humble.

This is pictured here in two ways.

First, by changing your clothes, and secondly, through God's grace to subdue pride.

Peter says, clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another in the body of Christ.

For God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Humble yourselves, therefore, and that's us actively making ourselves be humble before the mighty hand of God.

The command to be humble has nothing to do with the lion.

We're not told to worry about the lion's size.

We're not told to be concerned about his swiftness.

We needn't worry about the sharpness of his teeth, or the strength of his jaws, or the length of his claws.

This is not about the lion.

It's actually about God.

The issue here is whom shall we fear?

While we live in the lion's lair, we must beware of God more than the lion.

Being humble is not about living in the sight of the lion, but living in the sight of God.

We live in a sin-cursed world.

We struggle daily in our fight against the lion.

And yes, sometimes life as a Christian is just plain hard in this world.

But God demands that we function together as a family in humility toward one another, and then we live in humility before Him.

Now, if nothing else, that tells us that one of our enemies' key means of consuming us is through pride.

See, humility was a detestable word in the first century world.

In the Roman culture in which Peter's readers were living, a humble person was considered almost worthless.

A lowly attitude was despicable.

Only slaves had a servile manner.

So if you were going to be to be worthwhile to your family, if you were going to be beneficial to society as a whole, if you were going to be someone of status, you were anything but humble.

Humility was considered a weakness because it left you open to the attacks of others.

Well, as we look at our world from the vantage point of heaven, we begin to see that humility is not a weakness but a great strength.

And isn't it shrewd?

Isn't it shrewd of the enemy to somehow make his prey believe that their greatest strength is actually a weakness?

Yet God commands us to have an attitude of humility.

In fact, he says, wrap yourselves with it, clothe yourselves with it.

There is a reason and a hope for developing this lowly attitude.

The reason is found in verse 5.

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

For God opposes the proud.

Don't miss that little word for.

It tells us why we're to have humility wrapped around us.

Did you know that it never turns out well when someone is opposed by God?

Makes sense if you think about it.

But we rarely think about that kind of thing.

Consider, in Genesis chapter 6, God opposed all of creation except Noah and his family.

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

As a result of God opposing the entire world, all but eight human beings and a handful of animals were destroyed.

God opposed the inhabitants of the land of Canaan because of their continual and unrepentant sin, and he used Israel to destroy many of them.

God set his face against his own people and sent them off into captivity for decades.

In the New Testament, Ananias and Sapphira, members of the local church, were proud of their sale of their property.

And in Acts 5, because of their pride, they lied to God in church, and God killed them instantly in the church.

God is opposed to those who are proud.

The problem is that pride is intrinsic to our nature.

We are that way normally.

We are proud people.

In our humanness, we naturally gravitate towards elevating ourselves, towards lifting ourselves up.

If there's a better job to be had, we think we deserve it.

If there's something newer and better, we think we need it.

If there's something available for free, we think we need it, rather than thinking first of someone else who might need it more.

If we sense competition, sin tends to rise up in defense of our own ability.

Like Eve, we we think it's only right that we eat the fruit because we deserve it.

Even worse, perhaps, when we experience the trials of many kinds that come to us in this world, we begin to question God.

We begin to wonder: is God really in control?

Does he really know what he's doing?

We worry and we become anxious, which amounts to wrestling the control of all things out of God's hands and into mine.

It's like telling God, I need the remote control because I don't like the channel you choose.

And that is a form of pride.

Making us enemies of God, whom He opposes.

Beloved, there is no grace there.

But in humility, we find the grace of God enabling us to live in this world in the right manner, whether it's under persecution or under peace.

And the hope of humility, the thing that is guaranteed, is that at the proper time God will exalt, lift up the humble.

He promises to do that.

Notice, though, that our exaltation from a humble place, he says, is at the proper time.

So that at the proper time he may exalt you.

That means that we cannot tell when our fight against pride and wearing the clothes of humility will come to an end.

We don't get to decide that.

And I'm sure that these folks to whom Peter was writing were thinking, you know, now would be a good time.

Now would be a perfect time.

Now would be a good time to lift us out of this persecution and terror.

Now would be a good time to relieve me of this pain.

Now would be a good time, God, to show me what you're doing.

But God doesn't always work on our timetable.

Not always in the way we might expect.

But one thing is sure.

One thing is very sure.

God's way is the only way to survive the lion's lair.

God's way is with a spirit that follows that of the Lord Jesus.

It's a humble spirit that considers others more significant than oneself, and God is always, without question, Lord and master.

So we should naturally ask then, how do I develop that humble attitude?

Because he tells us, wrap yourselves with it, and then he says, humble yourselves.

That's something we do to ourselves.

We make ourselves humble.

How do we do that?

Well, the answer is deceptively simple and yet terribly difficult.

Look at verse 7.

Cast all your cares on Him.

Because He cares for you.

That's how we do it.

Let's work backwards on that.

God cares for you.

Do you remember what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount?

If you don't, you can look at Matthew chapter 6, beginning in verse 25, and read through that.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Jesus says, Your Father in heaven feeds the birds.

He makes sure that they get the food they need, and you are more valuable than they are.

It says he clothes the flowers of the field, making them more beautiful than Solomon in all of his glory.

And so he will clothe you.

Jesus says that the Father knows what you need, so don't worry about tomorrow.

God is already there.

He's already at tomorrow.

He's already at the next day, knowing what is best for us because he cares for us.

And because he cares for us, cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.

Anxieties are those cares of life.

The things that we think in our humanness that we need to care about.

That we need to have as worthy of our concern.

We all have areas of concern, don't we?

It can be as simple as what the weather will be like tomorrow.

I have a concern about what the weather is going to be like in a couple of weeks because I'm going to be going backpacking in the mountains of Montana.

I want to know if it's going to be raining.

I have a concern about that.

But here's the problem with our concerns, folks.

As human beings, our concerns easily make us anxious, don't they?

Can be as simple as the weather.

What does Jesus say?

What does Jesus say through Peter?

Well, he tells us that we must cast our cares on him.

Why?

Because he cares for us.

The word for cast here means to throw, as in throwing a rock or throwing trash away.

We are to throw our cares of life onto our heavenly Father as if we're throwing them away for good, knowing that He will care for them.

Cast them away and don't go digging through the trash for them again.

Now that doesn't guarantee that God will give us what we wish, does it?

Doesn't mean we're going to have the situation turn out the way we desire, but it does tell us that what God gives us will be exactly what we need in life.

Whether we think so or not.

When we fully trust in the Lordship of Christ, casting all of our cares on Him, we have no need for worry or fear.

We are released from the prison of anxiety.

But that requires humility on our part.

It's a recognition that I can't do it, but my God can.

That is humility.

Casting all of our anxieties on Him requires becoming small so that He can be shown to be great.

But there is a sobering reality when we put ourselves in that position.

A lowly, humble person will be a chief target for a hungry lion.

That's why we're told, be sober-minded, be watchful, knowing that the same, I'm sorry, knowing that your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Do you remember last week in the first portion of this chapter how Peter described God's people as sheep in a flock?

Hopefully you remember that.

It wasn't too long ago.

Picture in your mind, just a mental picture here.

Picture a defenseless little sheep being stalked by a lion.

Craving a little lamb chop.

Do you have that mental picture?

You are that sheep.

And your adversary, Satan, is the lion.

The situation is precarious.

That's why we're told to be sober-minded.

It means to be well-balanced or self-controlled.

It speaks of having a sense of control over yourself so that when the devil tempts you, you will be less inclined to give in to your area of weakness.

Speaks to diligence in life, being watchful, paying attention.

See, as defenseless sheep, we don't belong in this world.

And since we don't belong, we stand out to the enemy.

In fact, if there is no difference between us and the rest of the world, then something's wrong.

And if we do stand out to the enemy, he's not going to have much difficulty in identifying us as his prey and stalking us for his next meal.

Believe me, he has plenty of hunting experience.

He knows how to get his next meal.

Being watchful here is a military picture.

It's one of standing watch at a guard post.

If you let down your guard, the enemy can come in.

If you're not watchful, the adversary can advance.

We are in a war, and the war will not end until Jesus reigns supreme in full glory upon this earth.

And yet so many of us, myself included, spend too much of our time dilly-dallying around, distracted by the cares of this life, and before we know it, the lion is nipping at our heels, isn't he?

We doze off on duty and we allow the enemy to advance right to our doorstep.

We do not watch and pray, and soon we fall asleep.

We are an army of sheep.

And as an army of sheep, we must cast all of our cares on the Master Shepherd, on the Chief Shepherd, by discarding our pride and becoming humble because He will care for us.

And brothers and sisters, your God, your Father, delights in caring for you.

He delights to protect you from the enemy.

But not while you stand in pride and refuse to trust him in your worry and anxiety.

It's when we cast our cares on him that we can maintain our post with diligence and watchfulness in this alien world with clarity.

But there is a more sinister problem.

The enemy knows us too well.

He's been around long enough that he knows human beings better than we know ourselves.

He knows our weaknesses.

He knows our frailties.

He knows that we get caught up in ourselves.

He knows that we like to worry over things rather than cast our cares on the good shepherd.

He knows that these things will distract us from our duty, and he may then creep closer, waiting, biding his time to leap upon the sheep.

Perhaps more frighteningly than that, he may present himself as a friend, or even as a fellow sheep.

He may appear to us as the most precious of commodities, as the most desirable of possessions.

He may present himself as an angel of light or as a cuddly little snake that talks.

He may try to convince the sheep that cuddling up to that great soft mane would be a wonderful place to rest.

Since we are to maintain our post with diligence, we ought to know then that this is a dangerous place in which to be.

Not because of who you are, because you're resisting in humility.

It's because of who's in you.

We must be humble, lowly people, he tells us, who cast all of our cares on our God who provides.

When we are humble and lowly, standing firm against the lion, it is not us who prevails.

It is Christ who prevails.

We must maintain our post with all clarity, with all diligence, relying fully upon our shepherd.

Now what happens if that doesn't take place?

What happens if we fail to stand firm and resist the devil?

I'll tell you what happens.

Pride begins to well up within us.

Maybe simply at first, you know, thinking, I got this.

Yes, you're tempting me, but I got this.

I can do this.

And pretty soon we are kept from completely casting our cares on the Father because we think we can handle it.

We can handle it more thoroughly than by worrying about it, of course.

It's more comfortable if I worry about it.

We can be stronger then, and then our worry and our anxiety distract us from being diligent and watchful at our post, and we then wrestle God's sovereignty away from him, believing that we can handle things better by worrying and being anxious about it.

And before you know it, we are staring right into the eyes of a hungry lion.

And as the lion begins to play out his charm, we mistakenly believe that we can take care of anything that he throws at us.

That's why we are told to take heed in the midst of pride.

Because it's then that we will fall.

Surviving in the lion's lair begins with humility.

It requires knowing that we cannot survive in our own strength.

At all costs, we must develop the lowly attitude that exalts God above everything, and then begin to cast our cares on Him, being obedient in what He commands.

And then we must take our place on the field of battle and stand firm against that roaring lion.

But there's comfort there too, when the lion is charging down on us.

The comfort is knowing that we're not alone.

Because you know that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

You know, we like to put ourselves on islands.

It's part of our pride.

We like to say, no one knows what I'm going through.

Have you heard that from somebody?

Have you heard those words come out of your own mouth a time or two?

No one understands what I'm experiencing.

Well, that's simply not true.

It is a lie from the lion's lair.

Sure, you may not, you may not have friends in your circle who are experiencing exactly what you are, but there are thousands and millions of other sheep, and among them there are multitudes who have experienced what you are enduring right this moment.

There are others who are having to resist the charms of the lion.

You are not alone in that.

And because we are sheep belonging to the same flock, we are all family in this together.

And that knowledge brings a measure of comfort.

Finally, I'd like you to notice that Peter tells us that we must become hyperopic.

It's your new word for today.

Myopia is the condition of the eyes in which a person is able to see things that are close.

We generally refer to it as nearsightedness.

Hyper opic or hyperopia is the opposite.

It's being far-sighted.

The only way that we as sheep can stay out of the lion's teeth, the only way that we can continue living in a world in which we are being stalked by the enemy, the only way we can remain worry-free is by being far-sighted.

Peter says, and after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself.

You see that?

He's taking it on himself.

God is saying, I will do this.

Will you believe me?

Will you cast all of your cares on me and trust me that I am keeping my promise?

I will keep my promise even though you are suffering.

He will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

Even though you can't tell it today, I had laser vision correction nine years ago.

Since then, my eyes have aged and declined.

But before, I was terribly nearsighted.

The only way for me to read a book without my glasses is if it was about six inches away from me.

I couldn't read beyond that without my glasses.

Beyond that, it was fuzzy and dull, and the further away, the fuzzier my vision became until I just simply couldn't see anything.

Hyperopia is the opposite.

If you are hyperopic, you can see clearly and sharply far away, but nearer things are not as clear.

God's sheep must be far-sighted.

These people to whom Peter was writing lived in a persecuted world.

They suffered for their faith.

They were forced to take up their cross daily and follow Jesus.

And many of them paid the ultimate price for that choice.

Peter told them, don't worry.

Yes, you're going to suffer for a little while.

But after that, you can't begin to imagine what God is going to do.

In other words, make sure that your vision of the present is fuzzy and dull.

You shouldn't be so focused on the pain and the agony and the sorrow and the stress and the worries of today that you can't see heaven.

That's called myopia, nearsightedness.

We are to be hyperopic, far-sighted.

Our sight should be so focused, so set on God's future work of restoring, confirming, strengthening, and establishing us that whatever takes place today is fuzzy in our vision.

Because we know that the suffering for Jesus won't last.

It's temporary.

Yes, it might lead to your death.

But don't worry, death is just the beginning of being with Jesus.

The worries of tomorrow are not worth being burdened by.

View today and tomorrow and the day after that, and every other day in which we are called to live in this lion's lair as temporary, as just another day closer to real life.

If you have placed your faith and trust in the good shepherd, if that is who you are, one of his sheep, then God has called you to his eternal glory.

That is promised, that is guaranteed.

And that is just another reminder that any suffering for our faith in this world is just God's way of separating us from the world, of demonstrating we belong in that flock.

And after a while, perhaps even when this portion of our existence is ended, the one who has called us to himself will complete his work in us.

Stand firm against the lion.

And it may be that you even feel that you will be consumed by the lion.

See, here's what even the lion may not recognize is that God's sheep, even if they are consumed by the lion, will receive the promise of God to be restored, confirmed, strengthened, and established.

I think that chapter one, verses six and seven are the key to understanding this letter.

Because it seems to me that Peter begins and ends with this thought.

Look at it again.

Chapter 1, verse 6.

In this you rejoice.

In what?

In God's graciously causing us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

That's what God has done, that's where our hope is, that's where our trust is, and we rejoice in that, knowing that our future is guaranteed with Him.

In that you rejoice.

Though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials.

So that the tested genuineness of your faith, which is more precious than gold that perishes, even though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you've not seen him, you love him.

Though you do not see him now, you believe in him and you rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Peter says to him be dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Our Lord Jesus, we are humbled here by recognizing, maybe in a fresh way, that we are we're not the ones on the top of the food chain here.

That when we come to Jesus Christ the Lord, the good shepherd, we become as sheep.

Humble.

Casting all of our cares on you.

Oh Lord Jesus, sometimes that feels like we are completely defenseless.

And yes, sometimes we we see that the the grass on the other side of the fence that we had left before seems a lot greener and fresher.

Yes, we are tempted to go back, and you you draw us back.

Sometimes you let us go and experience again the grass on the other side that we've left before we were with you, and we think that there's joy in it, but you enable us to know that it's not like it used to be.

Instead, it brings pain and agony and death.

And yet in your grace, because we belong to you, you forgive us.

Oh Lord Jesus, enable us to stand firm.

There is so much in this life that we we cannot comprehend and we do not know.

Sometimes the lion seems bigger than he is.

Enable us to know that you are greater than the lion, and we can stand with courage and without fear, because our shepherd is there.

Care for us, Lord Jesus, as we cast all of our cares on you.

Because we as your people, as your sheep, know and believe that the lion will not rule, but you will rule and reign forever.

And so we entrust ourselves to you by your grace.

Amen.