Tawa Baptist

Stand

Scripture: 1st Peter 5:6-14

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Cast off your anxiety
  • Stand firm in the faith
  • You are not alone
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Today we conclude our series in the New Testament letter of first Peter, focusing on chapter 5, verses 6-14.

When I started this series back in the middle of August last year, I thought this is a relatively short letter, just five chapters. It shouldn’t take too long.

I didn’t quite appreciate how much Peter was able to say in so few words. Peter’s letter is like Dr Who’s Tardis; it is a lot bigger on the inside than it appears on the outside. Excluding the holidays, it has taken 19 weeks to work through. But that is God’s word for you, generous and full of hidden gems.

From 1st Peter chapter 5, verses 6-14, we read…

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

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.

12 With the help of Silas, whom I regard as a faithful brother, I have written to you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.

13 She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark. 14 Greet one another with a kiss of love.

Peace to all of you who are in Christ.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

The main metaphor Peter has used in his letter, to describe Christian believers, is that of the Jewish exile. In many ways the Christians of the first century were like exiles or resident aliens in a foreign land. As God’s people they were a marginalized minority. They were not in a position of political strength and were vulnerable to the pressure to conform to the pagan way of life around them. In that context it would have been very easy for Peter’s readers to lose faith in God and be assimilated into the cultural soup they found themselves in.

These Christian believers needed to remain very clear about their identity and their future hope, when God would restore them. They needed to stand their ground, without resorting to violence, and without compromising who they are.

While the church in New Zealand today does not have it as hard as the church of the first century in Asia Minor, it is becoming increasingly difficult to hold to Christian faith and values. We need to resist being assimilated into the prevailing culture.  More than ever we need to be clear about who we are and whose we are.

With this in mind, Peter closes his letter with three pieces of encouragement for those who, because of their faith in Jesus, feel like exiles in a foreign land:

Cast off your anxiety, stand firm in the faith and know that you are not alone.      

Cast off anxiety:

Have you ever been swimming in jeans? I don’t recommend it. Swimming in heavy clothes that cling to you is hard work and quite dangerous. You tire more quickly and tend to be dragged under more easily.

Maybe you haven’t swum in jeans but you might have been caught in a surf rip. They say the best thing to do when you are caught in a rip is to not fight it but go with it. Then swim to the side before coming back to shore.

In verse 7 Peter says: Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

This verse is talking about giving your worry to God rather than stressing out by trying to handle everything yourself.

In some ways anxiety is like trying to swim in jeans – it tires you out and drags you down. The best thing is to cast off the denim of your anxious thoughts before you go swimming. You might do this in prayer, by talking to God and asking him to deal with whatever problem is bothering you.

You might say, for example, ‘Lord, this issue feels too big for me to handle myself. I am looking to you for help. You know all things and you know what is best in this situation. I put it in your hands. Show me what part you want me to take responsibility for and what part I need to let go of.’

Often the next day, after you have prayed about it and slept on it, your perspective returns and the path forward becomes clear. God has a mysterious way of providing a remedy which we usually only see in the rear vision mirror.

Of course, as anyone who has struggled with anxiety will tell you, it’s not always as simple as saying a prayer. After giving our worries to God we might feel a compulsion to take them straight back again.

And so sometimes, anxiety can be like getting caught in a rip. You don’t feel in control and the harder you fight against it the worse it seems to get. The more you try not to think about the thing that is stressing you out the more anxious you become.

If that happens one strategy is to distract yourself by doing something completely different for a while, something you enjoy. In this way you conserve your energy until the fear passes and you can find your way back to solid ground.

You need not wait until you are in the rip tide of anxiety though. It is good practice to have built in routines in your day and week which create circuit breakers for anxiety. The Sabbath (a day of rest) is actually a God given circuit breaker but you may do other things in between as well.

What is your circuit breaker? What is that thing you can do which disrupts the holding pattern of anxious thoughts? It needs to be something quite different from your regular job, something which gives your mind a rest from focusing on the stresses and strains of life? Maybe its gardening or wood working or baking or beekeeping or kitesurfing or music or sewing or something else. Work it into the rhythm and routine of your life. In this way you will find it a bit easier to cast your anxiety on God.

Now I need to point out that casting your anxiety on God is not the same thing as throwing caution to the wind. Casting off anxiety is not a roll of the dice. No. In casting off anxiety we are still holding onto our responsibility.

Peter was a fisherman and with fishing there are no guarantees. Some things are outside of your control. You can’t control the weather, for example, or where the fish are going to be. But you can look after your equipment so that when the weather is right and the fish are teeming, your net doesn’t break and your boat doesn’t sink.

The point is, we take responsibility for those things we can control and we leave the rest to God. We trust God with the outcome knowing that he cares for us. Doing that enables us to stay calm and think more clearly.

Cast off your anxiety but hold on to your responsibility. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. You can get rid of the dirty bath water of anxiety. But you have a responsibility to take care of the baby.

One thing that creates anxiety for many people is imagining what other people think of them. But what other people think is outside of your control.

When you are a child you go through life blissfully unaware that other people may have a perception of you that is different from your perception of yourself. But when you go through adolescence your brain becomes aware that other people see you differently from the way you see yourself. This can be difficult to come to terms with and may be one reason why teenagers can be quite sensitive at times.

If you are a teenager and you struggle with angst and social anxiety, then take heart. Those intense feelings won’t last forever. As you get older you tend to be less concerned about what other people think.

As Christians we need to be more concerned with God’s opinion of us than anyone else’s opinion. This is what we call ‘the fear of the Lord’. Fear of the Lord releases us from the fear of people.    

Early Christians could not afford to care too much about what others thought of them. First century society generally looked down on Christians and said things about them that were untrue and unkind. The average believer was routinely prejudged, misunderstood and humiliated by the words of their neighbours. And it hurt. A humble, lowly status was forced on Christians whether they liked it or not.           

It is no accident that Peter’s exhortation to cast your anxiety on God comes straight after the part where says, Humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. It can make us anxious to suffer insult and humiliation. To humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand is to leave your reputation with God. Let him vindicate you in due time. Your responsibility is to manage yourself with a clear conscience.   

Okay, so that’s the first thing: cast your anxiety on him who cares for you.

Peter’s next encouragement is to stand firm in the faith.

Stand firm:

One thing they say to every soldier is, ‘Look after your feet’. Your feet are like the foundation of your physical body. When the foundation is sound you can stand your ground.

From verse 8 Peter writes… 

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,

This is the only time in his letter that Peter talks about the devil. Peter doesn’t give the devil much attention and so we should probably take our cue from that and follow Peter’s example.

Suffice to say the term ‘devil’ means slanderer or accuser. This was quite pertinent to Peter’s readers who suffered slander and false accusation from the prevailing society in which they lived as spiritual exiles.

A roaring lion is something which provokes fear. The devil, who personifies evil, works by trying to intimidate believers. Unlike God, who cares for people, the devil wants to devour and destroy.

I said a couple of weeks ago that our faith is incredibly precious to God. He treasures our faith. Faith makes love possible and that is why the devil seeks to destroy faith.

But the devil is not like a lion in every respect. Peter says we are to resist the devil, standing firm in the faith. You can’t really resist an actual lion, in the wild, by standing your ground. The lion is too strong. It will overpower you. If you hear a lion in the wild you need to quietly get out of its way.

The devil is not like an actual lion though, because we can resist him by standing our ground. Because Jesus has defeated the devil we are able to resist him. Faith in God is the devil’s kryptonite. When we make faithful obedience to Jesus the foundation of our life (when we build our life on Christ and his teachings) the house of our soul stands firm through the storm. 

To put it more plainly, Peter seems to be saying, “Don’t be intimated by the devil’s roar (his slander, his false accusation and his threats). Stand your ground. Maintain your belief and trust in Jesus. Don’t modify your behavior in order to fit in. Don’t assimilate to the pagan culture around you and don’t renounce your faith. Keep trusting Jesus. Remain loyal to him.”

It is interesting that Peter prefaces this stuff about the devil by saying, Be alert and of sober mind. Evil often looks for a way in through the mind. A mind which is alert and sober can act like a gate keeper for the soul, keeping out the Trojan horses and poison thoughts.

When discerning which thoughts to follow and which to ignore you could apply the THINK acrostic (T.H.I.N.K.) I’ve mentioned this on other occasions. Before you walk down a particular path in your mind ask yourself…

Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it inspiring? Is it necessary? Is it kind? If the answer to any of those questions is ‘no’ then it’s probably best not to pursue the thought.       

Peter’s encouragement to stand firm in the faith was tested more than once. On the night when Jesus was arrested Peter tried to stay close to Jesus. He managed to position himself in the courtyard of the house where Jesus was being questioned.

Despite his great enthusiasm, only hours before, Peter buckled under pressure and denied the Lord three times before the cock crowed. He was bitterly ashamed of himself but, as we heard last week, Jesus didn’t hold it against Peter. Jesus restored Peter and made him steadfast and strong.

Peter’s story gives us hope. Like Peter we may deny our Lord and assimilate to the surrounding culture in a hundred different ways, large and small. We may be right to feel guilty about that. But we do no one any favours if we allow our guilt to paralyze us. It is how we respond to failure that matters. It is not how one starts but how one finishes that really counts. 

Several weeks after denying Christ, Peter boldly testified to Jesus’ death and resurrection, on the day of Pentecost. Then, after leading the church for many years, and I imagine suffering many trials, Peter’s faith was tested one last time and proved true. The Bible does not tell us how Peter died but tradition says that he was martyred for his faith. He did not count himself worthy to die in the same way as Jesus and so they crucified him upside down.

Standing firm in the faith goes hand in glove with casting your anxiety on the Lord.

Peter’s third piece of encouragement, in these closing verses of his letter, is to remember you are not alone.

You are not alone:

Sometimes at weddings you hear that reading from Ecclesiastes that a rope of three strands is not quickly broken. It is very appropriate for marriage and for life generally. We are stronger together than alone.

If I take a single piece of paper it is very easy for me to tear it in two, like this. (Hopefully that sound effect comes through on-line.) But if I take two or three pieces of paper and fold them a few times, it becomes a lot more difficult to tear the paper. We are stronger when we are folded together than when we are alone. 

Sometimes when we suffer we think we are the only ones and that creates a very lonely feeling. Loneliness makes us vulnerable to anxiety and despair. Loneliness discourages us. It makes us want to give up. Feeling that we are on our own makes us fragile, like a single piece of paper, easily torn. 

In verse 9 Peter reminds his readers they are not alone in their suffering. Other believers throughout the world are suffering in similar ways. There is a certain solidarity in knowing that.

I’m not sure about you but it actually doesn’t make me feel better to know others are suffering. It’s hard to enjoy life when you know others are doing it tough. But knowing others are suffering for their faith does motivate me to stand strong with and for them.   

As Christians we are all connected. We may not always be aware of this connection consciously but I believe it operates on a subconscious level. If a fellow believer drops out of the faith, then we may feel a certain sadness or loneliness about that. But when a believer hangs tough for Jesus we can feel a certain solidarity or strength and can take courage from that.      

Peter reinforces the point that his readers are not alone (with another fold of the paper) in verse 10, where he says…

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.

Not only do we stand in solidarity with other Christians all over the world, God also stands in solidarity with us.

Verse 10 reminds us of the past, the present and the future of God’s grace. God has called you, so you have history with God. In the light of eternity, your suffering is just for a little while, that is the present dimension. And the future looks bright, for God will restore you. In other words, God will complete his work in you and make all things new. Your present situation of weakness is not permanent.   

Peter’s letter ends with a number of greetings which further reinforce the fact that his readers are not alone. Peter sends greetings from Mark and Silas. We can’t be sure but most likely this is the same Mark who wrote Mark’s gospel. Peter refers to him as a son, not in a biological sense, but in a spiritual sense.

Silas is most probably the same person we read of in Acts, who travelled on mission trips with Paul and others. It appears that Silas was the one who delivered Peter’s letter to the house churches in Asia Minor. His physical presence in delivering Peter’s letter would have demonstrated to the church how they were connected to the wider family of believers.

In verse 13 Peter gets poetic saying, She, who is in Babylon, …sends you her greetings. In all likelihood the ‘she who is in Babylon’ refers to the church in Rome. Babylon being a cryptic way of referring to Rome. (The actual city of Babylon lay in ruins at the time Peter was writing.)

All these greetings underline the point that the church in Asia Minor is not alone, they are connected. Peter’s last instruction, to Greet one another with a kiss of love, is an encouragement for believers to remain connected with each other.

This kiss of love is a form of family like affection. Sort of like we might give someone a hug or shake their hand. It is a physical reminder that we are not alone. And it is not a difficult instruction to carry out. It is something pleasant. 

Conclusion:

Having read and studied this letter of Peter’s we can see the apostle has come a long way. In the gospels Peter comes across as a bit brash and somewhat of a blunderer. Sincere and well intentioned, for sure, but often putting his foot in it. He had the tendency to speak before thinking and to make grand claims he could not support. Sometimes his words hit the mark but just as often they were out of place.

The letter of 1st Peter reveals something of Peter’s personal transformation. His words are thoughtful and his attitude is humble. He is uncompromising in his loyalty to Jesus but quite gracious and kind in the way he writes.

There is a winsomeness to this Peter that we don’t see so much in the gospels. It is truly lovely that he should close his correspondence with the threefold encouragement to cast your anxieties on the Lord, to stand firm in the faith and to know that you are not alone.

In the journey of Christian faith, it is not how one starts but how one finishes that really counts. 

Peace to all of you who are in Christ.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • Why do Christian believers need to be clear about who they are and whose they are? 
  • How might we cast all our anxiety on God? What are some practical strategies that work for you? What is your circuit breaker?
  • What does it mean to stand firm in the faith? How can we avoid assimilating to the world’s values?
  • How might we vet or sieve our thoughts in order to protect our mind?
  • How do you feel when other Christians suffer? What might you do to stand in solidarity with them? How do you feel when a fellow Christian turns away from their faith in Jesus? What might you do to stand firm in your faith in that situation?
  • What practical things can you do to strengthen your connection with other Christian believers?