As Foreigners and Exiles - The Message of 1 Peter
Lanse Evangelical Free Church
March 6, 2022 :: 1 Peter 5:8-11
V.8 picks up right where we left off last week as Peter encouraged us to put on humility and cast off anxiety because we are under the mighty hand of God.
The last words are still ringing in our ears, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
Have you been living that out this week? I hope so.
“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
Peter’s next words flow right out of that. 1 Peter 5:8-11.
The title of this message is lifted right out of verse 10, and it is a splendidly beautiful description of our Lord.
In verse 10, Peter calls Him, “the God of all grace.”
And that is just wonderful.
“The God of All Grace”
Now that says a lot. That name means a lot. And, remember, whatever the Bible calls God is true about God. This is Who. God. really. is!
He is the God of All Grace.
That means that God is full of grace. He is has all of the grace there is.
Remember, grace is basically “a gift.” A free gift. Towards us, it’s an unearned, undeserved gift.
God is full of all of the gifts. All of the grace. All of the unmerited favor that there is is in God. God is full of all of the gifts.
And, therefore, He is also the giver of all of the gifts. He is the God who has all of the grace there is and dispenses all of the grace there is. If you have received any grace in your life, it came from Him.
James 1:17, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
“The God of All Grace.” He is, as we sing, the “fount of every blessing.”
“The God of All Grace.”
Are those words precious to you? They should be. If you understand them. If you belong to Him, then this title for the Lord should be profoundly precious to you.
He is “The God of All Grace.”
There has been a lot of grace so far in 1 Peter. I think this is the 8th time in just 5 chapters that Peter has referenced God’s grace. In chapter 1 he told his readers to “Set your hope fully on the GRACE to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed” (chapter 1:13). And just last time, Peter said that “God opposes the proud but gives GRACE to the humble” (5:5).
All of that graces comes from the same source–“The God of All Grace.” That’s Who He is, and that is good news for all of His children.
Today, there are two particular gifts that He gives from all His grace that we want to highlight and absorb into our hearts. I’ve got two points this morning, and here is the first one:
The God of All Grace gives us:
#1. THE GRACE TO RESIST.
The grace to resist our great enemy.
You heard about him when I read verses 8 and 9. “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”
You have an enemy. One of the reasons why you feel threatened right now is that you have an enemy that wants to eat you for lunch. And it’s not some politician or governmental leader. The Bible says, “[O]ur struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).
We have a spiritual enemy, also called “the devil.” And Peter told his readers that he is like a lion.
We know that he’s also like snake. All secretive and slippery. But Peter says that the devil was acting like a roaring lion.
Why does the lion roar? He does it when he’s hungry to scare his prey. The devil is pictured as pacing to and fro and looking for lunch and roaring to terrify his targets. To make his quarry quake.
What are you and I pictured as in 1 Peter chapter 5? Do you remember two weeks ago? Verses 1 through 4.
And the devil is a lion.
And he’s not sneaking around. He’s trying to frighten us.
Do you see why this fits with verse 7? How this flows with our anxiety, with our worries?
You know who really wants you to worry? Your enemy. If you are paralyzed by holding onto your cares, then the devil has the upper hand. If he’s got you running scared, then you’re playing right into his hand.
What would it look like for him to eat us? What would it look like for the lion to devour us, for the devil to win? What does he ultimately want?
He wants us to give up. To stop believing in Jesus. To give in to our temptations and dive back into sin. To live such bad lives before the pagans that they accuse us of doing wrong, and they are right, because that’s what we fell back into. The devil wants us to give up on Jesus and give up on following Him.
And he’ll try to get us to do that through sneakiness if he can. He loves it when we forget he’s there, and give in to his sneaky temptations. But he’ll also do it by prompting persecution and attacking us through the evil provocations of his followers. Either way, he wants to take us down, defeat us, and “devour” us.
And Peter says, “Don’t let him.” V.8
“Be self-controlled and alert.” Wake up. Be vigilant. Don’t be like Peter was in the Garden of Gethsemane when he let his guard down and let His Lord down by sleeping at the crucial moment.
This is the third time in this short letter that Peter has told us to be “self-controlled” (1:13, 4:17, and here in 5:8). Peter wants us to have our spiritual guard up because we know that we have an enemy, and he wants us running scared.
But the God of all grace will give us all of the grace we need to resist our enemy. V.9
“Resist him, standing firm in the faith...”
Now, that’s interesting, isn’t it? The way to resist the devil is not some kind of incantation, is it? It’s not a magic spell or some particular words we say or pray. That’s not how you resist the devil.
How do you resist this roaring lion? You stand still!
“Standing firm in the faith.”
Sounds a lot like Ephesians 6, doesn’t it? “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (v.13). Same word that Peter uses.
We don’t resist the devil by some weird kind of Christian super powers. We resist the devil by believing God’s promises. We resist the devil by trusting in the God of all grace.
Because, remember, our enemy is a defeated enemy. Who won the battle at the Cross? It might have looked like Satan won. But He lost the battle in the Garden. Satan was trying to keep Jesus from going to the Cross.
Remember that! Jesus said, “Not my will, Father, but your will be done.” And Satan lost.
If Jesus had said, “I quit,” then this lion would have eaten Him for lunch, but instead, the Lion of Judah has triumphed!
I love it how normal this kind of spiritual warfare is. Sometimes we get to thinking that spiritual warfare is like something out of Marvel’s Dr. Strange or the Scarlet Witch or Harry Potter.
Spiritual warfare is basically trusting in the promises of God. "Standing firm in the faith.”
The God of all grace will give you all the grace you need to do it.
And He’s giving grace for that very thing to believers all around the world. Verse 9 again.
“Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”
Now, that is comforting, but in a really strange way. I mean, it shouldn’t be all that comforting to hear that Christians are being persecuted all around the world. And yet it is. Because it says that we are not alone.
Peter’s persecuted readers were not alone in their sufferings. It wasn’t because they were doing it all wrong that they were suffering for Jesus. It was because they were doing it right! It’s because suffering is normal for the international family of foreigners called “the church.”
“The brotherhood.” Same word as in chapter 2, verse 17.
“Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.” How are you doing at that? Don’t post anything online that doesn’t fit with 1 Peter 2:17.
“Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.” So hard to do when the king is harming you.
But the God of all grace will give us all the grace we need to do it.
You are not alone.
Yes, are you being hunted by the apex predator of all the earth. But so is all of your family in exile in this world. And all you have to do is stand up to him, and he will turn tail and run. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
Peter says, “Resist him, standing firm in the faith...”
And then he goes into this great promise for the last two verses, and they just about sum up the whole book. V.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. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.”
The God of all grace will give us:
#2. THE GRACE TO PERSIST.
The grace to resist our great enemy.
And the grace to persist in faith in our great Savior.
Peter reminds his readers of what God has promised them. Look more closely at verse 10.
“[T]he God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ...”
Just that phrase is enough fuel to get you through the week.
We are the people who have been called by God to His eternal glory in Christ!
He’s talking about that inheritance from chapter 1. Remember chapter 1 back in September?
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade–kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time” (1:3-5).
That’s what you and I are called to! “His eternal glory in Christ!” Guaranteed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Peter says that that God of all grace who has called us to that glory...(v.10), “after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you...”
Does that phrase “a little while” sound familiar?
It was also in chapter 1. It’s the very next verse from the one I was just quoting to you. Chapter 1, verse 5. “In this [inheritance] you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.”
Now that “little while” might seem like a long time. The persecution might last the rest of their lives. But Peter is providing them with perspective. It will be short compared to eternity. This suffering will have an ending to it. It will be relatively short. This suffering has an expiration date on it.
And when it’s over, then it will be over forever.
The Lord Himself will (v.11) “restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast” forever and ever.
Doesn’t that just sound wonderful?! The God of all grace will give us all of the grace we need to PERSIST. He will restore you. He will “lift you up in due time” like we saw last week in verse 6.
I love those words in verse 10 to describe what we will be like forever: “Strong, firm, and steadfast.”
We have a taste of it now, but we will enjoy that forever in the new heavens and new earth. “Strong, firm, and steadfast.” I can’t wait!
Of course, waiting is exactly what we need to do. We aren’t quite there yet. We’re “almost home!” But we’re not there yet. We are still in the “little while” of verse 10, being tracked by the apex predator Satan of verse 8.
We’re not there yet. But we know how the story is going to end.
So here’s what we are supposed to do right now:
Be self-controlled and alert.
Resist our enemy, standing firm in the faith.
And trusting in the guaranteed promises of the God of all grace.
Just you wait. Because He will come through.
Not only is He the God of All Grace. He is also the God of all power. V.11
“To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.”
He can do it! He has all of the power to keep all of His promises for ever and ever. He has all the power to dispense all of His grace for ever and ever.
It may not seem like it. In fact, it may not seem to you right now like God is even real.
But listen to this. This is what is real: “[T]he 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. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.”
Stand firm in Him in all of His grace and all of His power.
***
Previous Messages in This Series:
01. "Elect Exiles" 1 Peter 1:1-2
02. "A Living Hope" 1 Peter 1:3-7
03. "Angels Long To Look Into These Things" 1 Peter 1:8-12
04. "Be Holy In All You Do" 1 Peter 1:13-16
05. "Live Your Lives As Strangers Here In Reverent Fear" 1 Peter 1:17-21
06. "Love Each Other Deeply, From the Heart" 1 Peter 1:22-2:3
07. "But Now You Are..." 1 Peter 2:4-10
08. “As Foreigners And Exiles” 1 Peter 2:11-12
09. "Submit Yourselves For the Lord's Sake 1 Peter 2:13-17
10. "Follow In His Steps" 1 Peter 2:18-25
11. "Do What Is Right And Do Not Give Way To Fear" 1 Peter 3:1-7
12. "Inherit a Blessing" 1 Peter 3:8-12
13. "Even If You Should Suffer For What Is Right" 1 Peter 3:13-16
14. "To Bring You To God" 1 Peter 3:17-22 (esp. 18)
15. "To Suffer for Doing Good" 1 Peter 3:17-22
16. "Done with Sin" 1 Peter 4:1-6
17. "The End Of All Things Is Near" 1 Peter 4:7-11
18. "Do Not Be Surprised" 1 Peter 4:12-19
19. "Shepherds of God's Flock" - 1 Peter 5:1-4
20. "Under God's Mighty Hand" - 1 Peter 5:5-7
Previous Messages in This Series:
01. "Elect Exiles" 1 Peter 1:1-2
02. "A Living Hope" 1 Peter 1:3-7
03. "Angels Long To Look Into These Things" 1 Peter 1:8-12
04. "Be Holy In All You Do" 1 Peter 1:13-16
05. "Live Your Lives As Strangers Here In Reverent Fear" 1 Peter 1:17-21
06. "Love Each Other Deeply, From the Heart" 1 Peter 1:22-2:3
07. "But Now You Are..." 1 Peter 2:4-10
08. “As Foreigners And Exiles” 1 Peter 2:11-12
09. "Submit Yourselves For the Lord's Sake 1 Peter 2:13-17
10. "Follow In His Steps" 1 Peter 2:18-25
11. "Do What Is Right And Do Not Give Way To Fear" 1 Peter 3:1-7
12. "Inherit a Blessing" 1 Peter 3:8-12
13. "Even If You Should Suffer For What Is Right" 1 Peter 3:13-16
14. "To Bring You To God" 1 Peter 3:17-22 (esp. 18)
15. "To Suffer for Doing Good" 1 Peter 3:17-22
16. "Done with Sin" 1 Peter 4:1-6
17. "The End Of All Things Is Near" 1 Peter 4:7-11
18. "Do Not Be Surprised" 1 Peter 4:12-19
19. "Shepherds of God's Flock" - 1 Peter 5:1-4
20. "Under God's Mighty Hand" - 1 Peter 5:5-7
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