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Verse 14 says this, “If you're insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rest upon you.” I don't know about you but when I'm insulted, I don't first think, “Wow, what a blessing this is. I am so blessed right now. I wish I were insulted more.” But there are sometimes when being insulted is a blessing. I think the title for 1 Peter 4:14 should be “Blessed Insults.”

Perhaps there is something that Peter is exposing here. Perhaps all of us live too much in fear of man. Perhaps all of us work too hard for human approval. Do you ever have a negative comment by somebody just wreck your day? Because after you walk away, you rehearse that over and over again. Or somebody vehemently disagrees with something that you thought was one of your best insights, and you carry on that argument the rest of the day even though they're not with you, and you mount better arguments for your opinion. Of course, you have! We've all done that.

Peter is flipping the script to us, and saying, “There are moments when mockery and insult is a sign of blessing.” What does he say? “If you're insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and God rest upon you.” Imagine that person who is insulting you doesn't understand it, but they are recognizing glory. They are recognizing the presence of the Spirit of God in you. They're recognizing that you have been lifted out of the mass of humanity and drawn to God's presence and filled with His Spirit and had His glory poured in on you. That's why you're different. That's why you make the choices that you make. They're recognizing something beautiful; they don't understand that, but that's what's happening. And that's why their insults are actually a blessing because it's another indication of the work of God in you.

Have you ever wondered, “Is God with me? Is He really in me? Does He really care for me? Has He really done for me what He says He's done?” This is a bit strange but maybe the insults of the world are God saying, “Yes, yes, yes, I am with you, I am in you. My glory does rest on you. That's why this person can’t handle you. They can’t handle how different you’ve become because of My grace!” Blessed insults.

Eternal honor–this kind of eternal honor is only ever yours by grace; it never ever comes by the result of human effort. So, here's the spiritual faultline. Will we live for present, always temporary, human approval, the glory of human respect and human acceptance? Will that be what we treasure? Will that be what we work for? Or for the eternal glory of living for the honor of our Savior and knowing every time we're maligned, every time we’re rejected, every time we're insulted, it's just another sign of the blessing that's been poured in on us by God's amazing grace; I'm going to say it again that we could have never earned, achieved, or deserved. Sometimes being assaulted is just a huge, glorious blessing!

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“But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler.” If I could name this verse, I would name it “What You Bring On You.” Suffering is not always an indication of new life in Christ. The hardship that I face in suffering is not always a blessing. What Peter says next is a very, very important qualification; and it's also incredibly humbling. Not all suffering is a blessing because there is a kind of suffering that we bring on ourselves.

Let's step back and think about when God's Law was given. After God had redeemed the Children of Israel from slavery, that means He had already placed His love on them, they were already His children, they didn't have to earn or deserve that, He leads them out of Egypt, plants them in front of Mount Sinai, and He gives them His Law. That Law was not a means of them earning favor with Him. That Law was a gift of His grace because these people, who for over four-hundred years, had every choice of life pre-made for them by their masters, had no idea how to live.

God's Law is a product of His love; He wants His children to thrive. And this is the Creator who knows the world He's made. He knows now the nature of its fallenness, its brokenness. He knows us; He knows our struggle with sin, and so He gives us tracks to run on because He loves us. So, God's way of living is always the right way. It's the way of thriving. It's the way of peace and life and happiness and joy. So, when we step out of His will, this is very important to get, there will always be some degree of negative consequences.

Listen, you will never ever win a debate with God on what's the best way to live. It's impossible! And any time you step outside of His will, you're stepping into danger; you're stepping toward some kind of hardship, some kind of negative consequences. So that means you'll suffer, but you're suffering not because you're doing what is right and the world is mocking; you're suffering because you've stepped out of what is right, and there are natural consequences to those wrongs.

I would like to think that all of my suffering is gospel heroism, but it's not. I have the potential to make my life so painful, and so difficult, and so hard. Maybe that's just a harsh word to Luella, my wife, that hurts her feelings and introduces a tension in a moment in our relationship. And maybe we're someplace where we should be enjoying ourselves; and all of a sudden, we're not enjoying ourselves, and we're not enjoying our surroundings–that’s just brief momentary consequences. What is it? I'm not suffering because I done what is right. I'm suffering because I stepped out of God's will.

Now this warning to us, reminds us that we do not battle alone, that God battles for us. And so, He's walking before us and He's warning us, “Just remember sometimes your suffering is a result of stepping out of My will and My way!”

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Well, we end with the final few verses of 1 Peter 4. I must say, I'm a bit sad because this chapter has been just incredibly convicting and encouraging for me, and I hope for you as well. Verse 16:

Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And

     “If the righteous is scarcely saved,
          what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”

Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

Well, in the chapter that has talked about God's judgment, where Peter concludes, is a bit surprising. I think of what I would say to struggling, suffering people as I'm getting ready to close down my communication to them, I probably wouldn't have said, “Oh, by the way, God's judgment begins with His house, His family.”

Now, that may be confusing to you because you may be thinking, “Now, wait a minute, Paul. The whole message of hope in 1 Peter is that Christ took our judgment on the cross; He bore our penalty so we will never ever face condemnation, penalty for our sin. How is it then that God's judgment begins with His house, His children?”

Well, let me give you an illustration here of what he's talking about. Imagine you have a circuit court judge in Philadelphia, and he has criminals before him every day before his bench. But he has three children at home that he loves, guides, protects, and disciplines. How much scarier is His work of judgment behind that bench before those criminals who committed those crimes, than it is to those children that are part of his family that he loves? That's the distinction that's being made in this passage. We're now in God's house. We're now His children. It's never the judgment for our crimes; it's the loving discipline–Fatherhood-judgment of those who are His children. Yes, we will face His discipline, but we never have to be afraid that we are like the ungodly and the sinner who are not part of His house, who have not surrendered themselves to Him by His grace who are not His children.

And He ends by this, “Let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator by doing what is good.” We don't have to be afraid even though life is hard because we have a faithful Creator. What is he talking about? God remembers His covenant promises to His children. They go back to the garden to that moment when Adam and Eve disobeyed, and God said, “I'm going to send One who will crush the head of the serpent.” That's a finger pointed to Jesus who would provide defeat of sin and eternal life for His children. Don't be afraid; God will remember His promises!

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Well, we're in our final stages of our year-long study of 1 Peter. We’re in 1 Peter 5, and 1 Peter 5 is directed to elders. Elders are God's appointed leaders of His church, and Peter humbly says, “I want to speak to you as a fellow elder.” But although this material is primarily written to elders, there's so much gospel helpfulness in this passage. And I actually love the way he begins. There’s a hymn that we used to sing growing up, it was, “I Love to Tell the Story.” And it was a hymn about the amazing gospel story. Well, Peter does one of the best summaries of the gospel story in verse 1 of 1 Peter 5 that you could ever read.

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed.

If you are looking for a two-word summary of the entire biblical narrative, here it is–suffering and glory. Those themes are everywhere throughout the biblical story. We know from the prophecies of Isaiah that Christ's life was going to be a life of suffering, “despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” But Christ's life was also one of amazing glory, the glory of the resurrection, the glory of His ascension to the right hand of the Father.

Our lives are suffering between the ‘already and the not yet.’ We live in this fallen world where suffering is everywhere around us. But every day we are blessed with the glory of redeeming grace. The world that we live in is suffering, broken, groaning. But there's glory to come, the new heavens and the new earth. Suffering is what sin causes and has ushered into the world; glory is what grace is able to do. Suffering is your address now; glory is your guaranteed destination. Suffering is God's tool of transformation in your life; glory is God's promise of a final consummation of His work.

It really is true that this story is this constant coming together of suffering and glory, suffering and glory, suffering and glory, and reminds us that God is not satisfied with our condition, or the condition of His world. I find hope in realizing that I serve a dissatisfied Redeemer who will not give up, who will not relent until every microbe of sin is delivered from every cell of every heart of every one of His children. He will not give up until this world is finally and fully renewed.

Now, that story of suffering and glory is meant to be the story that gets shaped that animates your life. And I would ask you these questions, “What story shapes your living? What is the story that you tell yourself that makes sense of everything you face every day? What's the story that brings you joy? What's the story that brings you sadness? What's the story that is the thing that interprets everything that goes on in you and around you?”

Well, here's the story, suffering and glory. Sin brought untold suffering into this world, but there's a God of awesome glory, who pours into that world the glory of His grace, so that at some moment, sin will be no more, and we will reign in peace and righteousness and glory forever and ever and ever. Now, that's a good story!

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I think culturally in the church, we are in desperate need of a fundamental transformation of our view of leadership, our view of authority. We have created a generation of big personality, loud, domineering, sometimes bullying leaders. And I'm just impressed when Peter begins to define what a leader is in Christ’s Church, his definition is the polar opposite of anything like that. Let me read for you (1 Peter 5:2-4).

Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

I don't know how much you know about the culture into which this is written, but ‘shepherd’ was not a prized occupation. Shepherds were lowly and it was an unremarkable, smelly, lowly job. A shepherd is a servant title. Remember, he doesn't call these people “kings of Christ’s Church; he calls them “shepherds.” And if you study the culture of a shepherd, it would be hard to find a more fundamentally other-centered title than “shepherd.” Shepherd lives, breathes, exercises his gifts for the sake of the health of the sheep. And so, that's Peter’s view of a leader.

And he lays out, first it means exercising oversight. This is not domineering, this is not controlling, but it's that huge responsibility to care for the souls of people–to guide, protect, feed, and nurture.

He says that you’re to do that willingly. And I like how he puts, “as God would have you.” See, God knows that humble leadership always starts with the heart. God's focus is on the heart. We know that from the qualifications of elder; it's those qualifications are character, character, character, character.

He says, “…not for sinful gain.” Authority is not for you! The people, whom you lead, are not there to build your reputation, to build your power, to build your position, to build your economic position. And in that way, ministry is always this war between the kingdom of self and the kingdom of God.

He said, “…not domineering.” How important that is. There is a Lord, there is a Chief Shepherd, and it's not me! He says rather than be domineering, be an example of the self-sacrificing, patient, gentle, gracious love of the Savior.

And then he says something that I just love. He says this life of sacrifice will be rewarded. Now think about this, I'm given a gift I couldn't have worked up myself, I'm given a calling I couldn’t have deserved on my own, yet I'm rewarded for using that gift and that calling.

Authority for Peter is a life of servanthood. It's a life of suffering. It's a life of willing, joyful self-sacrifice.  It’s not domineering, it’s not controlling, it's not self-centered. Elders are not the kings of Christ’s Church; elders are the shepherds of Christ’s Church. They're there to represent His work in the life of His people for whom He died!

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Well, as we begin to look at 1 Peter 5, verse 5, my question for you is, “Do you value humility?” If I would watch the video of your last six weeks (I ask this question all the time.), would I see somebody who values humility? Are you impatient with others? Do you have to be in control? Do you like telling your story more than hearing the stories of others? Do you complain the minute life is a bit uncomfortable? Do you get mad when somebody decides to disagree with you? Is your life a life of humility?

Peter says this:

Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. (Then he says this.) Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

I love that, “Clothe yourself.” It's that physical image of deciding what you're going to wear, these external garments that you put on to go out and matriculate in the world. He says, “Clothe yourself…with humility.” Here's, the humble self-view of the Christian life.

Here's number one: I am my biggest problem. There's no bigger problem in life than I am to myself because of the sin that lives inside of me.

That leads to a second humble admission: I cannot solve this problem on my own; I've got a problem that I can't solve with all of my wisdom, with all of my experience, with all my personality and personal power and mentality and emotionality–I can't solve my biggest problem.

Third humble confession: That means I'm in desperate need of rescue. The very word rescue means whatever situation I find myself in, I can’t get myself out of it on my own.

Fourth humble admission: I am not wired to live well in isolation from others. I am not wired to live well in isolation from others.

Which means fifth: I need the wisdom and experience and insight of others. That admission basically means personal spiritual insight is the result of community–it's hard to get it by yourself.

Further humble admission: At no time before I cross over into eternity will I ever be a grace graduate. Grace is a school that I will never graduate from!

Seventh humble admission: All of this means in my life, I have no room for boasting because every good and perfect gift, everything that's worth celebrating, every blessing–I didn't deserve, I didn't achieve, I didn't acquire on my own; it is a result of God's grace and God's blessing and God's provision in my life.

Now, here's what's important to understand; pride is the mortal enemy of grace. If you're proud, you're telling yourself a different story than the humbling story I just repeated. That's the Pharisee in the temple who's looking at other people, and he's saying, “I thank God that I’m not like these people.” He's basically saying, “Here I am God; I just want to announce to you I don't actually need you because I'm not like everybody else.” The more you are in awe of you, the less you'll be in awe of God. The more you tell yourself you're okay, the more you will devalue His grace. Be honest–do you value humility?

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So, I have a great affection for the way that Peter ends his letter. It really does tell me that somewhere between the denial of even a relationship with Jesus, and the renewal that Jesus brought to him by His grace, and the writing of this epistle, Peter has become a tender pastor and a good teacher because what he does is he ends his letter with five directives. These directives really do define for us what living looks like that is shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ. And in that way, it provides a wonderful summary for everything he has said so far. And it's going to take two of these Bible studies for us to work through these five directors. So, this is a “Final Directives - Part 1.”

Here's the first one, there is a king, and He is not you. 1 Peter 5:6, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so at the proper time he may exalt you.” That mighty hand of God is nomenclature that has to do with royalty and authority and power. It's saying there is a powerful, authoritative, sovereign King on the throne. And there are writers who think that mighty hand is actually getting people to think back in early biblical history, to the display of power when God was delivering Israel from Egypt, just how God unleashed His power to create these awesome mind-bending plagues.

So here's the lifestyle. There are only really two lifestyles you and I can live. There's one of submission to a greater authority than ours, His wisdom, His call, His will, His way; or some degree of self-exultation, my will, my way, my rules, what I want, when I want it, where I want it, who I want it from. And we're always feeling the tension, the war between those two things. And actually, what Peter is saying to us right now, and I think it's so important to hear, is that the gospel is the death of self-exultation. The Gospel is a death of self-exultation!

Here's the second directive, rest in your Savior's care, “…Casting all your anxieties on Him, because he cares for you.” You and I, because we're in Christ, inherit the covenant blessing made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that's the argument of Galatians. So, rest for us is not found in our understanding because we won't understand everything, rest is not found in our control because it's impossible for us to control all the things that we'd like to control, rest is not found in our wisdom because our wisdom has limits, rest is not found in our righteousness because our righteousness has limits, rest is not found in our money or our power or our position. Rest is found in this one thing, by awesome activity of grace, we are now the objects of God's care!

The King of kings, the Lord of lords, the One who sits on the throne and rules everything, cares for us. And so, Peter says, “Don't be anxious, don't be afraid, bring your cares to Him.” Before the foundation of the world, He chose us to be sons and daughters of Him. And because of that, to be the object of His constant love, His constant care. Do you rest in your Savior’s care or is your life one of fear and anxiety, desire for control?

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So, we're working our way through these five final directives that are in the last section of 1 Peter 5. The first one was, “There's a King and He is not you.” The second one is.
“Rest in your Savior’s care.”

Here's the third one in verse 8, “Take life seriously.”

Be sober minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

I love these two phrases. “Be sober-minded.” That's, be serious in the way you think about life. Don't just live for the comfort of the moment, the pleasure of the moment, whatever you feel like at the moment, be serious. And then he says, “Be watchful.” A serious-minded person is watching ahead, planning ahead, looking ahead, be watchful.

But here's why he says that sober-minded, watchful living is important, because “Your adversary the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” We do believe it's inescapably taught in Scripture in the presence of real evil. We do believe in a real enemy; we do believe in the forces of darkness. And because of that, there's danger afloat.

Do you take life seriously? Do you expose yourself needlessly to temptation, to danger? Are you watchful? There is real evil.

Fourth directive, “Resist the devil no matter what.” Verse 9:

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

Now, I don't know if you just heard what I said, but it's a curious thing to say. He says, “Resist the devil; and oh, by the way, you're not the only one that's suffering; everybody else's suffering to?” Why would he say that? Peter is being a good pastor; and he knows when you suffer, the enemy whispers in your ear, “Where's your God now? Why have you been singled out? Maybe He has favorites.” Peter is trying to silence the lie of the enemy saying, “Look between the ‘already and the not yet.’ We're all suffering because God has chosen us to live in this broken world. So don't let suffering break down your resistance. Resist the devil, no matter what you're going through.”

You know, in the face of suffering, it's easy to give up and say, “Why am I reading my Bible? Why am I praying? It doesn't seem like God is even there.” Peter says, “Don't ever let go of your resistance no matter what you're facing.”

Fifth directive, “Trust God's sanctifying grace.” I love this. He 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 restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

God will complete His work. God will complete His work. God will complete His work. He will restore, He will confirm, He will strengthen, and He will establish! Listen, our problem is never God's faithfulness; our problem is our faithfulness! God will do what He has promised to do.

Here are the five directives. There is a King; he is not you–live that way. Rest in your Savior’s care. Take life seriously. Resist the devil–no matter what. And trust, build a life based on the surety of His sanctifying grace.

Do I want to be a king? Do I doubt God every time hardship happens? Do I have a silly way of approaching life that lacks seriousness? Do I let go of my resistance when things are hard? Do I really trust God's sanctifying grace? Five beautiful directives that define what it looks like to live in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

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So, this is my last question to you out of 1 Peter. And though it seems like a bit of a strange question, but I like asking it. “What's your last hill?” It's sort of a military term where there's a final hill that needs to be taken in order for there to be a victory. And what is that last hill?

Well, I think Peter defines the last hill that we ought to be willing to stand on and die for. The ‘Last Hill’ means that ultimate thing you want to accomplish, that ultimate thing you want to experience, that ultimate thing you want to own, that ultimate thing you want to achieve, that ultimate thing that you want to stand for, you want your life to stand for, what's your last hill?

As Peter begins to end his letter with greetings that are sweet and pastoral, Peter defines what should be the last hill for every believer. He says, “This is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it.” It's like Peter is holding his letter, and saying, “Everything I've done in this letter is to define for you what God's grace looks like in everyday life. Stand firm in it! This is the true grace of God!”

‘Stand firm’ means, don't let anything move you, don't give way to fear, don't give way to pride, don't give way to discouragement, don't abandon the gospel in a moment of hardship, the true grace of God, hold on to the purity of the message of the gospel of grace. Let this message define how you think about your identity, how you think about your meaning and purpose, how you think about your values, how you think about what's morally right and morally wrong, whose glory you're going to live for, whose honor is important to you, whose rule you want to surrender your heart for.

When Peter says, “Stand firm, in the true grace of God,” he's actually saying something very modern; he's speaking into a conversation that is happening all around us. Peter’s saying, “Don't deconstruct your faith. Stand firm!” We are hearing all around us the language of deconstruction where in some kind of emotional, philosophical, theological, lifestyle process, people are taking apart the elements, the beautiful elements of the gospel, putting them over here, standing back and saying, “I don't believe that anymore. This is not me anymore.” And in those moments, it's a huge victory of the enemy that Peter has called us to resist.

Don't deconstruct your faith.  There is nothing more beautiful, there's nothing more valuable, there's nothing more healing and transformative, there's nothing that can produce peace and rest in your heart, there's nothing that can produce a humble, morally beautiful life, like the true grace of God can. What's the alternative, human effort, human power, human control, human wisdom? It's looking at God and saying, “I know better.” Don't deconstruct your faith. There's nothing sweeter, more valuable, more transformative than this one word, “Grace!”

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So, we're actually done with 1 Peter, and it's been a wonderful, convicting, encouraging experience for me. I feel a great sense of privilege that God chose me to spend a year in this beautiful piece of his book. But I want to do something; I want to stand back from 1 Peter, all the content that we worked through in all the chapters there, and ask the question, “What is the gospel to Peter?”

When you walk through chapter one, and two, and three, and four, and five, and it's gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel, and you stand back from that, what would you say the gospel is to Peter? Well, I want to give the ‘not,’ and then I want to say to Peter, “The Gospels are surely these three things.” For Peter, the gospel is profoundly more than an entrance and an exit. Yes, he understands the essential, vital, glorious importance of our justification, our reconciliation, our adoption. And he understands that glory that is to come and how that's a final culmination of all things. But for Peter, the gospel is a ‘right here, right now’ thing. If there's anywhere in Scripture where you get a sense of what I would call the “now-ism” of the gospel, it's 1 Peter.

That means three things. For Peter first, the gospel is an identity. There are so many identity statements in 1 Peter; listen to this one in chapter 2:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his (God's) own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now have received mercy.

You have been given a brand new identity; live out of that new identity that you've been given.

Second, for Peter, the gospel is a lens. It's a way of viewing and understanding everything. For Peter, the gospel is the ultimate hermeneutic. Hermeneutics is the science of interpretation; it is the means that God has given us to make sense of who we are, and what we are meant to be doing, and what life is about, and what is the moral fabric for everyday living in, and how do we conduct ourselves in relationships, and what do we say ‘yes’ to, and what do we say ‘no’ to–the gospel is a lens for understanding everything.

You look at suffering through the gospel, and it changes the way you think of suffering. You look at marriage through the lens of the gospel, and it changes the way you think about marriage. You look at authority through the lens of gospel, and it changes the way you look at authority. You look at all these things through the lens of the gospel. The gospel is an identity; the gospel is a lens.

And then third for Peter, the gospel is a lifestyle. It's a radically different way of acting, reacting, and responding to the stuff that everyone faces in life. The gospel actually gives you lifestyle tracks to run on.

The gospel is an identity that tells me who I am. The gospel is a lens, making sense out of life for me. The gospel is a lifestyle giving me moral tracks to run on, whoever I am, wherever I am, whatever God has called me to. And all this is only possible by grace. By grace, God gives us a brand-new identity. By grace, God gives us the ability to make sense out of life. But God, by grace, God removes our insanity and causes the live in a way that makes sense. May we love the gospel of Jesus Christ!