The Grace Zone - Part 11

It’s a privilege once again to continue looking at this book we have been studying together of 1Peter, and I love the fact that Peter was not a theologian, he didn’t get trained as a Pharisee or a rabbi, he was trained as a fisherman. He was a man of the sea, he was a man with the smell of fish on his hands, but he met Jesus. When he met Jesus, everything changed. And that is what happens, when we encounter Jesus, and the power of the cross, destinies are transformed. Jesus brings hope, and victory, and freedom. It’s not always to follow Jesus, but it is powerful when our hearts are surrendered and yielded to Him. That is what Peter was writing about. Peter was writing to Christians who were going through a torrid time. They were going through a time of struggle and suffering and hardship, these were the times were meant to be a believer meant you stood against the Roman Empire. Christians were being persecuted and murdered and in prison, and beaten. And Peter was trying to strengthen them and trying to put courage in side of them.

 So, the last few weeks we have been looking at how do we walk through suffering and struggle, and hardship, how do we walk through those times and keep on going when inside, we want to give up. Two weeks ago, as Peter summed up his teaching of suffering, he brought it together and said these two things, I want you to commit yourself to God, and I want you to continue to do good, even when inside you want to give up. So last week we had a look at how does that apply into different situations of life, and we looked into the area of leadership. Now, whether you are a husband or a boss or whatever leadership capacity you might be in, how do you lead when the going gets tough. Peter began to speak to leaders, to encourage them, to set an example, to keep their hearts pure before God. But today, I want to carry on with just two verses. And these two verses he is now going to address, not the leaders but the followers, and he has a word for all of us, which I believe is hugely relevant, and I hope he is going to minister to us today. 1Peter chapter five verses five and six: “5Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble 6Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”

I don’t want to just talk to the younger and not such younger men among us today. Last week, Paul was speaking to the elders, and straight after speaking to the elders, he said: “Now, to the young men.” And last week, I did not speak to the pastors, I want to speak to all of us who might be in a leadership roll. And in the exactly the same way, I believe Peter is speaking not just to young men, but all who are followers in some way. And I think as a believer, all of us know what it means to be a follower. We all are followers of Jesus if you are a believer. Many of us have a boss, or you might be a wife who has a husband, or you might be a child who has parents. You might be in some way be required to follow someone else’s leadership. And what happens when that is not working so well. Peter was writing in a context of struggle, hardship and suffering, sometimes it is easy to follow other people, and sometimes it’s not. So, Peter wants to encourage them, what happens when it’s not so easy to follow a leader.

 And he says, “Young men, in the same way.” The same way is what? Last week we saw how that in the same way elders and leaders must serve God through leading, and we lead through serving. If you were here last week, it should make sense to you. As leaders, our job is to serve by leading, and the way we lead is by serving. And Peter said in exactly the same way those being led, you can serve by submitting, and you can submit by serving. That is what it means. And we have seen the power over the last couple of week’s submission, coming under someone else’s mission and when we submit, God will open the door for God’s authority and power to work and transform a situation. In Hebrews chapter thirteen verse seventeen says: “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work would be a joy, not a burden. For that will be of no advantage to you.” What it says is so true that as a leader, to be in leadership could be a joy, or it can be a burden.

 And so much of that is dependent on the attitude of the people you are trying to lead. To lead people who are willing to follow and serve is an absolute joy. But to try and lead someone who is stubborn, proud and refusing, leadership can be an absolute burden. So whether you are an employee, a wife or child, or whatever capacity you might be as a follower, remember this; obedience or a servant heart equals joy. Serving your leaders is a joy to your leaders. Stubborn resistance equals burden. And a joyful leader is an advantage to you. I want you to ask yourself right now, if you did a moments audit on your heart, ask yourself, who am I following right now? Now ask yourself a question; am I following with a servant heart, or am I being stubborn, proud with resistance? Someone once said this; someone who thinks he is too big to follow is too small to lead. It makes sense doesn’t it? You see, the Kingdom of God is built in such a way, even Jesus, the Son of God, submitted Himself under the leadership of His Father, and He said this is how the Kingdom works. If you want to be in authority, you have to be under authority. My prayer for all of us, because we are trusting that God would raise up great leaders amongst us as a church. But great leaders have to be great followers. If you want to walk in the authority that God gives, it comes from being under the authority of those who lead us.

 To continue to be good as a follower means to continue to walk with a servant heart towards your leaders even when it’s tough. And there will be times when it is tested. But then he opens up, he doesn’t want to just talk to the young men, or to those who are following, he says: But now, to all of you, I want to clothe yourself with humility towards one another. You know that in kind of most situations in life, there is an appropriate dress code. When go to bed at night, there is a dress code, its called pajamas. If you go to school, there is a dress code, you wear a uniform. As a pastor, there is a dress code. Going to a wedding, going to a funeral, I have a dress code, my one suit, out it comes. There is a dress code for different situations. But is there a dress code for being successful in your relationship with others? Is there a dress code for your daily relationships with the people you meet day by day? The Bible says absolutely, there is. And the dress code that we can wear to relate well to others, it’s simply called humility. And the Bible says put it not like you put on clothes like you dressed for church today, put on humility in every relationship that you have. And by putting on humility, you are dressing for success in relationship, you will learn to relate well. The dictionary defines humility as this; it says humility is a modest or a low view of your own importance. But I don’t think that is a biblical definition

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 When we have a low or modest view of ourselves, who are we still looking at? Ourselves. I think that’s where the bible is different from the world. The world’s view of humility is; : “No, it’s not me, I’m not that good,” no, all I’m doing is look at myself. What the Bible defines as humility is when we stop looking at ourselves, and learn to look to God and to focus on others. You put on humility when you take off the focus from yourself. You don’t have to go around convincing people you are small; all you have to do is bring the focus back to God. Someone says; “That play is amazing, well done.” You will say; “no, I’m not that good, I will probably never win an Oscar.” No, you probably won’t. You can say; “thank, it’s wonderful to serve God.” Just put the spotlight off ourselves back onto God, and onto others. This is a biblical picture of humility. The problem is, that thing inside of us, out hearts, the old sin nature, just cannot get that right. You see, we are born into the world with a problem in our hearts sine Adam sinned all the way back in the garden of Eden, there is something in our flesh, and out broken sinful nature that absolutely yearns and craves the attention, the praise, the approval and evaluation of others. It’s built into us. And that’s why, without Jesus, we can never walk in true humility, because the flesh will always be yearning for praise or validation from the people around us. Will throw out hints about our goodness, will boast, will do anything we can to get the spotlight to build ourselves up, to appease our insecurities. But the Bible says we have been crucified with Christ. And part of the Gospel, as Jesus died and rose again, He says; “now, I can put a new heart in you, and give you a new spirit.”

If we are ever going to walk in this thing called biblical humility, we can never do it without Jesus, and without being surrendered and submitted to Him, and inviting His Holy Spirit to come and show us how. Says of Jesus that He clothed Himself with humility. Remember the story that He was going to be crucified the next day, he was with His disciples having supper, in John chapter thirteen verses two and four, it says: “ The evening meal has already been served, and the devil had prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon to betray Jesus.” It says that Jesus knew that the Father have put all things under His power and that He had come from God and was returning to God, and so He got up from thr meal, took off his outer clothing and wrapped a towel around His waist. Jesus literally clothed Himself with humility and served His disciples. But I love the fact that Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power. Jesus knew that He had come from God. He knew He was returning to God, and so He could clothe Himself with humility. You see we will never be able to take our eyes off ourselves until we know some things about ourselves. You see, just as Jesus was standing on this rock of revelation of understanding of what God had done for Him, who God was, where He was going, because He was so secure in His knowledge of His Father, He could take His eyes off Himself, and focus on the people around Him, and focus on His Father. That is exactly the same with us. You see, we are called to stand on the rock of Jesus Christ, understanding by faith that in Christ, we are forgiven. In Christ, we are now sons of God. In Christ He has created us the way He wants us. In Christ we have gifts, talents and abilities. In Christ we are loved, significant and valued. When we know that, we can stop fishing for your insecurities to be fed by the people around you, you can stand on the rock of Jesus, saying thank you God for who you made me. Now, let me focus on others.

 Let me focus on my Father, let me reflect the glory to God, and let me serve the people around me. Pride is built on insecurity, trying to feed yourself what only God can satisfy in you. But in Christ, when you are standing on the rock of who we are in Jesus, we can take our eyes off ourselves and serve God and the people around us. So why is humility such an important thing? The key revelation that God dropped in my heart years and years ago, I have a background like many of you, I got saved, came to Jesus when I was seventeen years old. The encouragement I had from one of my friends was: “Good grief! You are the last person I would ever think that would become a Christian.” And I said: “Thanks for that.” And I think one of the reasons was, I just out of deep insecurity projected this arrogance, you always have to show the best side, never show any weaknesses, its arrogance. This thing, Peter carries on, he said: “Clothe yourself of humility towards one another, because God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.” I can have such a clear picture in my mind, Sugan I’m going to have to use you because you are much bigger and stronger than me. For this moment, you’re going to be Sue and me.

 And for this moment, I’m going to be God. Not Jesus, and I notice that Jesus was wearing a “What would Jesus do? Bangle, which is good. But now, I want you to imagine for a moment that I’m God, and this is the hand of God. You see, the Bible says that God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble. I want you to imagine that God’s hand is in one of two places in our lives. If Sagan decided, I’m saying Sagan my son; I want you to go that direction. This is My word, this is My will, these are My ways, this is the plan I have for you. But because of stubborn pride in his heart, he says; “No way, I do, I make the rules, I’m the captain of my own ship, I’m Frank Sinatra, I did it my way.” So, hand of God says God resists the proud. So, you try walk toward me, and you can spend your whole life forcing as hard as you want. But the hand of God, He could have been binding the devil. He could be thinking I’m in the midst of opposition, all the doors are closing, everything I try, my prayers just aren’t being answered, it’s the devil. It’s not the devil. You are fighting against God. Because God said I will resist the proud. So as long as you have pride in your heart, the hand of God is going to be against you. He comes to his senses and decides God, it’s time to surrender to You.

 Because repentance means changing your mind and turning around. Now, I decided okay God, now I’m going to serve you and follow your ways. Now where is the hand of God? It says the gracious hand of God is upon us. What’s happening now is the favour; the gracious hand of God is upon us. He gives grace to the humble. That means each one of us has to make a choice. Where do you want the hand of God to be in your life. That is a choice every one of us has to make. Either we humble ourselves under His gracious hand, or we stand against to oppose His mighty hand. And that choice comes down to the condition of our heart. Are we humbling ourselves, or are we standing in resistance and pride and stubbornness. To me, this is one of the greatest decisions we can ever make in our lives. Ephesians two verse eight says: “We are saves by grace through faith.” In other words, grace come to us through faith. And we have just read in the book of Peter: “He resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.” So, we know when grace comes to the humble, we know grace comes through faith. I other words, what that tells me is that humility is one of the greatest steps of faith we can take. That does not make sense sometimes, in the world, pride and arrogance is celebrated. Let’s put it out there. Let’s put it on Twitter and Facebook, everything, I want people to . . . And the Bible says no, let us put the focus on God and on others.

It is a step of faith, and grace flows through faith. To exercise humility is a step of faith. The flesh yearns for the spotlight, and it could be in a positive way, in other word, you could be given to bragging, boasting, being self – absorbed, exaggeration, whatever it takes to get the spotlight on you, or sometimes it could be in a negative way. It could be self – pity, it could be through false humility, but the fact of the matter is, the spotlight is still on you. Humility attracts the grace of God. That one characteristic, pride, or humility determines where God’s hand is upon our lives. The action step, Peter carries on and says: “Humble yourselves therefore under God’s mighty hand, and He will lift you up in due time.” Notice the Bible says, Humble yourself. This is not a time to pray: “God, please humble me.” Because I think God might answer that, and I would encourage to not to pray that. Because the Bible doesn’t say ask God to humble you, the Bible simply says humble yourselves. This is choice that we have to make. So, you don’t have pray about that, it is in the Bible. It is a choice we make, it’s a choice of repentance, it’s a choice we can make this morning, to very deliberately and intentionally humble ourselves before God. It says humble yourselves under His mighty hand. His mighty hand is a hand of guidance. As we read in the scriptures, He reveals His will and His ways, to humble yourself under His mighty hand means ti humble yourself under His guidance.

 It means to humble under His hand of discipline at times. You might be going through a tough season, a difficult hardship, the Bible says endure hardship as discipline. That means we need to humble ourselves to the difficult seasons we have in life. To recognize God, your hand of discipline, not punishment, but discipline, you are correcting and adjusting things in my life, and either I can stubbornly kick against it, it’s not fair, or I can say: “Father, I submit myself to the season of discipline, under His hand of strength. Maybe you are one of those who think I can do it myself, I can do it myself, I don’t need help. No. God’s going to bring you to a place where your strength is not enough. You can kick against God, and think you can take on the world, and God’s hand will be against you until you get to the point, “I can’t do it anymore.” And then you will learn to humble yourself under His strength, saying: “God, will you strengthen me.” It means humble yourself under His hand of generosity. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to receive. Sometimes is a lot easier to give, and if someone gives you something, you fight it. You say I want to earn it, I don’t feel like I’m worthy of it. And God sometimes overwhelms us with His unmerited generosity in our lives. Because He wants us to learn to humble ourselves under His hand of generosity. Sometimes it’s Hand of commissioning. He places His hand upon you with a dream, or a burden, or a passion or a vision. And you might kick against it until eventually you say: “God, I know that you put something in my heart, it’s time for me to humble myself under your hand of commissioning. Sometimes it’s His hand of healing. Sometimes it’s His hand of affection. Sometimes it’s His hand of deliverance. Sometimes it’s His gracious hand of unmerited favour. The question is, how high the hand of God is.

You might think that well, God’s hand is about my height, under God’s hand, it’s not. I have come to the conclusion God’s hand is about this height. So, you are going to get yourself under the gracious hand of God, you will never do this unless you bow your knees and humble yourself. This makes this of walking in humility for from being a weakness, I believe walking in humility is one of the most courageous steps of spiritual warfare that we can make. You see, right in our heart of hearts, the original sin, remember, Lucifer was up in heaven, he was the archangel, he was making music, and what crept in his heart was I don’t want to just give glory to God, I want glory like God. That is why God cast him to earth as satan. And that same thing lurks in our heart. And right there is the propensity inside our heart to want the glory. But choosing to walk in humility, we are dealing right with the original root of the problem of our hearts. And it’s a like standing in spiritual warfare against that biggest thing that our hearts are susceptible to. This makes Jesus’ prayer. I mean Jesus prayed and taught us some amazing prayers, I think probably one of the most powerful that we can learn the prayer of Jesus. As He was in the garden of Gethsemane, He prayed God not my will, your will be done. That is humility. That is surrendered for the plan and purpose of God. So, humility is so important.

Action step; we humble ourselves. Let me wrap it up by spending a moment looking at the result. It says humble yourself under God’s mighty hand that He may lift you up in due time. I wish I knew when due time was. But it’s God’s time. The Bible says that all things are made beautiful in His time. Which means that sometimes we are at the place of humility, until due time. Due time might be when Jesus comes back. Due time might be a season very shortly in your life, wher God wants to raise you and promote you, but He is waiting for our hearts to be ready. The whole Gospel is built around this thing of humility. Think about Jesus; think about the Gospel for a moment. The Son of God chose to become the son of man. He humbled Himself; the Son of God chose to humble Himself to become the son of man, so that the sons of man could be exalted to become the sons of God. That is the glorious truth of humility. The whole Gospel is built around it. I think Peter was thinking about Jesus, and this amazing road that he walked, and how God exalted Him from absolute surrender and humility and humiliation, on the cross, and raised Him to the highest place, Paul wrote it so beautifully in that well – known passage in Philippians chapter two verse three: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vane conceit. But in humility, consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should not only look to your own interest, but  also to the interest of others. That attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus, who being the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to grasp, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Being also a man, He humbled Himself to obedient to death, even death on the cross. Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place, gave Him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”

 This is a powerful road of humility. Up until Jesus, humility was never something celebrated. Why be humble. Why not rather be proud and arrogant and put yourself out there. Jesus came and revealed this amazing thing called humility, and the power of humility and our humility that leads to the promotion of God. This is the powerful road. Humility that considers others better than ourselves. A humility that focuses on the interests of others. A humility that is an attitude of not grasping after privilege but serving in love. A humility that ultimately expressed in perfect obedience to uor heavenly Father. Humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand, and He will lift you up in due time. Jest as He lifted Jesus, God will exalt you to a place of honour that no one can take away. God will establish your reputation that no one can diminish. God will give you the authority that carries a genuine weight and influence. And God will give you glory so that you can reflect all that glory straight back to Him. This is the grace of God. Now let’s stand in it.