When suffering is present, good leadership should also be present, especially those who will feed the flock. Those who feed God's suffering sheep will calm God's suffering sheep. Give them the ability to make it through that suffering. But the Church needs something else.
Not only does it need good leaders, it needs good followers. Suffering can bring out the best or worst in us. In the face of turmoil and pain, what is found in you? Today on Connect with Skip Heiting, Skip shares how God uses suffering and trials to enhance your life and relationship with Him. Before we begin, here's a resource that encourages you to live with bold faith as you explore the inspiring stories of women in the Bible. You know Proverbs 31, the go-to passage that describes the ideal Christian woman and life. But let's be honest, that ideal can be as intimidating as it is inspiring. Here's Skip Heitzig with more. Can I just tell you it's exhausting to just read that, let alone how on earth women could you ever do that?
Well let me say first of all, you can't do that in a day. He's not giving the 24-hour description of the virtuous wife. This is a woman over time. Get to know some of the most incredible women in the Bible and in history with two inspiring resources. A six-message CD collection from Pastor Skip on prominent women in Scripture, plus the book Seven Women by best-selling author Eric Metaxas. This bundle is our thanks when you give $35 or more to help expand the Bible teaching outreach of Skip Heitzig. Charm is deceitful, beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Call now to request these captivating resources as our thanks for your generous gift, 800-922-1888.
Or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, let's get into today's teaching. We're in 1 Peter chapter 5 as we begin our study with Skip Heitzig.
D.L. Moody once said, be humble or you'll stumble. With that in mind, let's discover how. Let's discover this attitude in verse 5 of 1 Peter chapter 5. Likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility. For God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time.
Casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you. Now allow me to give my best shot at giving you the setting of these verses. These are the closing words of Peter in this letter.
He has written to several groups. The group right before this were the elders of the church. That they are to feed the flock, they are to shepherd the flock, they are to do so by example.
They are to do so willingly, not by constraint. And after addressing the elders, he addresses those who are younger. And then everybody saying that we should be submissive and humble and humble ourselves before God.
So let me paint the scene as I can best see it. Peter's audience were a group of sufferers. 21 times in this letter, he addresses that subject of suffering.
And he has written to them already, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you. So he's writing to a group of people who are feeling the pain of suffering. And when suffering is present, good leadership should also be present. Especially those who will feed the flock. Those who feed God's suffering sheep will calm God's suffering sheep. Give them the ability to make it through that suffering. But the church needs something else.
Not only does it need good leaders, it needs good followers. Because suffering will bring out the worst in people. The worst attitudes, the tensions, and in suffering people will often resort to baser behaviors. Tempers will flare, irritations will mount, accusations will fly, and pride will rear its ugly head. I've noticed that when churches go through times of difficulty that the atmosphere can become very volatile. And there will arise those who in the name of righteous indignation will challenge leadership. It is often, not always, but often the younger ones who will do that.
Why? Well, they never trusted the older generation anyway, to begin with, oftentimes. And they have not learned the art of diplomacy or the virtue of humility. And that seems to be, at least in part, the setting that we have here in what we have just read. The pressures on the outside of the church have produced pressures on the inside of the church. So what Peter writes now is to those who are younger and then to everyone else. I've called this message the upright walk of a bowed down man. And I want to give you the three principles, you know, sometimes you go, boy, he does things in threes a lot. Well, there are three verses, and sometimes there are two points, sometimes there are five points, sometimes there are four. But there are here, in these three verses, three major principles.
Can I call them compliant characteristics of those who are upright? I'm going to give them to you in sentence form. Number one, responding to authority helps leadership. Nothing is more helpful to those who are in authority than to find those who will compliantly respond to that authority. Notice what he writes, likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders.
Now stop right there. This is not an unfamiliar theme, is it not? Peter has written a lot about submission so far.
It's been one of his themes. Back in chapter two, verse thirteen, he writes, submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. In chapter two, verse eighteen, servants be submissive to your masters. In chapter three, verse one, wives submit to your husbands.
In chapter three, verse twenty-two, Peter writes about angelic beings being in subjection or submission to Christ. In other words, submission is a part of every single realm of life because submission is a foundational attitude for all of life. You can't be saved without submission.
Did you know that? Because to be saved you have to repent, turn from what you know is wrong, your own self-will, your own previous choices, and repent means to turn around and go in a new direction. And therefore you are now in submission to an alien will.
You cannot follow Christ unless you are willing to submit to Christ as Savior and as Lord. But notice to whom he writes, likewise you younger people. I need to warn you that that's my translation, but more modern translations and a few of the older ones will say young men in particular.
Because the word is very, very distinct. It refers probably to young men. Here it says younger people, but most translations say younger men. Now you might ask, why would Peter single out young men? I can't be sure, I can only guess. I can only guess by saying that often young men are more impulsive, more aggressive, more headstrong, and they have a tougher time with submission.
I can only speak from personal experience. When I was growing up I remember the tough time I had whenever my dad would say just about anything. I was headstrong. It's those who are young, especially young men, they feel like they've got the world by the tail and how did the world even make it all these years without them? You know what I mean. It's actually a wonderful time, youth is. It's a time of daring and creativity and feeling invincible almost, but it can also be a dangerous time. Because those who are younger often think themselves infinitely wiser than everybody else, especially the older generation.
And this can sometimes be catastrophic. Let me jog your memory a little bit. Solomon, after he died, his son Rehoboam took over the kingdom. And if you remember, Solomon had a tough time because he heavily taxed the people, almost to the point of breaking them. So when Rehoboam got on the throne, he decided he would get advice from two groups of people because the people had come to Rehoboam and said, dude, you got to relax the tax structure.
Your dad almost killed us. So he asked two groups of advisors. One was an older group who had advised his father.
One was his contemporaries, a much younger group, an edgier group. The old guy said, you better listen to the people because they are on the brink of revolt. But he asked the younger people and they said, don't listen to what the people want. Show them who's boss. Assert your own authority over them.
In fact, you should say that your little finger will be heavier than your father's waist. And so he did that. And the people did revolt and the kingdom split north and south and never recovered from that. So submission is necessary.
Wayne Mackey said, the error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute for experience. All of society is built on submission, right? There are laws that you must keep. And if you don't keep them, there are policemen out there who will reinforce and enforce those laws to help you remember. Not only is there government, there's submission at home to parents. If you go to work, you have to submit to rules and regulations of the company or the vision and instruction of the boss.
In virtually every part of life, there is a structure, a chain of command for anything to work. And so it is in the church, in Hebrews 13 verse 17, the writer says, obey your spiritual leaders and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls and they know that they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this joyfully and not with sorrow.
That would certainly not be for your benefit. Now I'm not bringing any of this up in some self-serving way, hoping that you will respond to my authority. It's simply part of the biblical text. He addresses elders, then he addresses those who are younger in response to those who are older.
And then he addresses all people in the congregation after that. But here's what I want you to know about submission. Submission to any authority on earth is an act of faith. Yes, you're submitting to a human and that's a little scary because they may take advantage of you. And I say it's an act of faith because when you submit to a person as a believer, you are trusting that there is God behind them, who is sovereign and in control in spite of what boss you have or what the issues are or what the leaders are.
It's an act of faith. I have a couple dogs at home. I had one but now we've gotten another one. And they're two different sizes but the little one is very full of himself. And that big one could take it in its sleep. But they tussle and they rumble and they look like they're fighting but they're just playing. I've watched this when they play and I've also seen it when dogs are really fighting. There is a signal that a dog gives when it submits. It'll get on its back and expose the most vulnerable part, the neck, to the dog who has the neck in its teeth. And at any time I watch it when they're playing, I think, man, that dog could just go kick and it's over. So that position of submission could destroy that dog.
But in effect, in reality, that signal is how the dog is spared. And in any organization, in any group, in any structure at all, people are spared, the unit is spared when there is submission. So the principle is responding to authority helps leadership.
Here's the second. Living in humility enhances fellowship. Living in humility enhances fellowship. Continue in verse 5.
Second sentence. Yes, says Peter, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility for, and he quotes Proverbs now, God resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble. Peter was addressing the elders in chapter 5, verse 1 and following.
We looked at that last week. Then he addresses the youngers. Now he's addressing allers, everyone, all y'all, they would say in the south.
Everyone in the flock, everyone in the fellowship. He speaks about the action of submission, now the attitude of humility. This is the attitude that lubricates relationships.
Submission and humility, those are the lubricants, that's the oil, when the gears get tight, they keep it flowing smoothly. Notice what he writes, be submissive to one another. Remember the word for submission?
We've looked at it several times in this study over the weeks. Hupitasso means to line up under, it's a military term, to line up under. The idea is that you line up under somebody's authority. You get in line under their authority. You relinquish your rights. So here he says be submissive to one another. Let me offer a retranslation. Voluntarily adapt yourselves to each other or blend with one another.
Be willing to surrender your rights. You can't always be the dog on top with the teeth growling. Sometimes you're going to have to assume the lower position, humility. So he says clothe yourself with humility. The word humility means to get low or low lying. The word is sometimes translated lowliness of mind. Paul says with lowliness of mind, Philippians chapter two, let each of you esteem others better than himself. So a low minded person. Here's what's interesting to me. The culture in which this was written, the Greco-Roman culture, especially the Greek culture, despised the quality of humility.
Did you know that? They despised it. Much like today our society despises it. You're a wimp.
You show weakness. The Greeks believed there were only two types of people in the world. Greeks and everybody else. And everybody else, their term, they were barbarians. So the Greeks said self-confidence, self-aggressiveness, those are good qualities. The only people that were the humble people were their conquered enemies. When they would conquer someone, they would turn them into slaves.
They would become the low minded person or the humble person because they saw themselves as number one, were superior. I was reading an article about personalized license plates. It seems that when personalized license plates were first introduced to the state of Illinois, that the Department of Motor Vehicles had thousands of requests for the license plate that said number one. Number one.
Thousands of them. There were so many of them that the official at the Department of Motor Vehicles whose job it was to make the assignment said, I'm not going to assign this to someone and disappoint thousands of people. So he solved the problem and he took the number one for his license plate.
Number one. Be submissive to one another, writes Peter, and be clothed with humility. You know the Bible always sees humility as a virtue, not a vice. It doesn't say it's a wimpy, weak person, but a strong person.
And you know why? Because Jesus was humble. One of the chief characteristics of this savior we follow is humility. According to the Apostle Paul, these words, Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, he made himself of no reputation. He took on the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. So taking Christ as our model, he says now be clothed with humility. That's an interesting term. I think he's borrowing that from the slave market.
There was an apron that slaves would tie around their waist. And when he says clothe yourself with humility, it's literally put on the clothing of a slave. J.B. Phillips translates it, put the overalls of humility on.
That's the attitude. Now humility is a tricky kind of a virtue, is it not? I say it's tricky because it's a virtue that if you think you have it, it shows that you don't have it.
Right? I mean, you think, okay, I think I'm humble. Well, you just showed you're not humble.
It's one of those slippery kind of virtues. Dwight L. Moody used to pray, Lord, make me humble, but don't let me know it. Like the preacher who said he had a great sermon on humility. But he also said he was waiting for a much bigger crowd so he could preach it. Or like the church who wanted to find the most humble person in their congregation, so they formed a committee and names were given and they were voted on and one little old guy who was always behind the scenes and never got any accolades and nobody ever paid much attention to him, he never took credit for anything, he was voted most humble and they gave him a little pin, most humble.
They had to take it away the next week because he wore it to church. Low-minded. Now, perhaps it will help if I define humility a little bit. Humility isn't thinking badly about yourself. No, humility is simply not thinking of yourself at all. You know, we spend so much of our time thinking about ourselves.
I think most people do. We meet somebody, what did they think of me? How do I look?
How did I present myself? So humility isn't thinking badly about yourself, it's not thinking about yourself. I want you to notice what he says. Clothe yourself with humility. Put on that apron, the overalls of humility. And he says why? For, and notice the quote, he's quoting Proverbs chapter 3 verse 34, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
Just chew on that for a minute. God resists the proud. Quickest way to pick a fight with God is to be proud. You want resistance from God, be proud. God hates pride. When you're proud, it's like choosing God off.
It sets you against him and it sets him against you. Jesus said everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. And he who humbles himself will be exalted. There were two brothers who grew up on a farm out in the middle of the country. As they grew up, one of the boys decided he would stay on the farm and take over for his dad as a simple farmer. The other one left the farm and went to school and became highly educated, got into politics, became very wealthy, grew in prominence and importance. He was well known and one day he came back and visited his brother on the farm and after supper they took a walk out in the fields and the educated, wealthy politician brother put his arm around the farmer brother and he said, you know, you ought to think about leaving this farm and making something of your life.
You know, do something important where you can hold your head up high. Get off this farm. So the farmer brother put his arm around his prominent brother and he said, look out of that wheat field brother, you know it well. And he said, notice only the empty heads stand up. And he let that sink in as I am letting it sink into you right now. Only the empty heads stand up and he continued, those that are filled always bow low.
Another way of saying that is the branch that bears the most fruit is the one that has bent lowest to the ground. Clothe yourself with the very virtue that people of this world despise, humility, lowliness of mind. Put on the garment of a slave, serve one another.
That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series Rock Solid. Now, here's Skip to tell you about how you can keep encouraging messages like this coming your way as you help connect others to God's truths. Simply put, God's Word has the power to change lives.
That's why together we're taking these Bible teachings to more people around the world because we want to see lives transformed. If you've been encouraged by these teachings and have grown closer to Christ through His Word, then I want to ask you to give a gift today to help make these teachings available in more places and through more outlets. Your generous gift will help others experience the power of God's life-changing Word. Here's how you can do that today. Visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give a gift.
That's connectwithskip.com slash donate or call 800-922-1888. And come back tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares how you can engage the devil's attacks and win the victory. Listen, your enemy cannot be ignored. You can't cloister yourself up in a church. This is what he'd want you to do and just, I don't want to think about the devil.
Some people think too much about him, granted. But you have to engage him. The devil is never too busy to rock the cradle of a sleeping saint. He'd just like you to go, In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the Christian sleeps tonight. He must be engaged. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on his word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-11-18 05:32:00 / 2023-11-18 05:41:06 / 9