1 Peter 5:5-7 | Humble Yourself

The Call to Humility

All right, friends, take your Bibles and turn to 1 Peter chapter 5. 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 5 through 7. We're going to look at just a few simple verses today. I've titled my sermon, "Humble Yourself." We're going to look at, in this passage, two ways that humility can be promoted in the Christian life. I'm going to read for us our passage, verses 5 through 7 of 1 Peter chapter 5, and then we're going to go ahead into our exposition of God's Word.

1 Peter 5:5-7. If you're there, give me a hearty "Amen." If you're not there, say, "Hold up, Micah." Everyone there? All right. Praise the Lord. You guys are nice and alert, even through the rain. 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 5 through 7 says this. This is God's Word:

In the same way, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. All of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, becauseGod resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you.

— 1 Peter 5:5-7 (CSB)

And God's people say, "Amen." Amen.

You know, I think every Christian knows that the virtue of humility is important. That's all we talk about as Christians, right? We need to be humble. We need others to be humble for us to have a healthy local church. We need a community that is humble.

St. Augustine has a quote about humility and how humility can tie to living for God. He says this: "For those who would learn God's ways, humility is the first thing, humility is the second, and humility is the third." I think Augustine likes humility! He says to live for God, it's all about humility, humility, humility.

And it does seem like an oversimplification to say that Christians need to be humble because we talk about that all the time. I'm sure your pastor talks about it all the time. You know, your pastor is the most humble man in the world, right? And so, he talks about humility to you all the time. We seem like we push humility all the time, but the Bible does talk about humility. It does emphasize it.

Micah 6:8 says, "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" Matthew 23:12 says, "Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted." James 4:10 says, "Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and he will exalt you." We've only looked at three passages here that talk about humility, and the Bible is riddled with encouraging believers to live a humble life.

And our passage here in 1 Peter is no different. 1 Peter is all about emphasizing the need—or this passage is emphasizing the need—for humility in the Christian life. And so I want us to leave here on this Lord's day just thinking about the virtue of humility not as an overused cliché, not as something that we talk about constantly as Christians where it is just bland and irrelevant to us and kind of just white noise. But I want us to leave here looking at humility as a core Christian value, as a necessity in our lives as Christians and how we want to live in the local church with one another.

And I'm not coming before you today as an expert on humility. All right? I was joking about your pastor—he's not the most humble person in the world, okay? Neither am I. No pastor is; no member is. And so, I'm not here saying I have arrived, and you're not here saying you've arrived in terms of humility. We all struggle with pride. We all struggle with fighting for humility. We have not yet arrived. But as a gospel community, we together can apply the biblical concepts of humility in our lives and in our relationships, all by the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm not here pushing you to apply morals and virtues better; I'm here encouraging you to think about the relevance of the gospel and how that transforms how you look at living your life. And one of those things is humility.

Standing on God's Grace in Times of Trial

If you look at the book of 1 Peter, if you're familiar and have read this book, the theme is to encourage suffering believers to stand on God's grace in order to live holy lives under heavenly hope. Peter is writing to these Christians who are facing suffering and persecution. They're really discouraged. Later, historically, some of these people would even fall under the persecution of Nero. And so he's encouraging these people who need encouragement. Thousands of years later, we find ourselves in the same place needing encouragement, needing to stand on God's grace. And so this book is very much relevant to us as Christians here today.

Chapters 1 through 4 talk about Christian salvation. He encourages holy behavior through understanding true Christian salvation, and he also encourages just enduring through general suffering. Then we get to chapter 5, where he gives this snapshot picture of leadership. He goes through the first four verses of chapter 5 and says this is what the picture of a leader looks like: leaders shepherd the flock of God among them. They don't shepherd out of compulsion, but they do it voluntarily. They don't lord it over people, but they are examples to the flock.

Then he gets to verse 4 and encourages leaders to apply these virtues of leadership because one of the motivations is to receive a future reward for that. He says, "And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory." The faithful application of leadership leads to a reward because future rewards impact present performance. Some of the motivations that we have as Christians is not because of the rewards that we see in this life, but because we know that we're going to be rewarded in eternity. And so we make sure we serve others and we sacrifice for the sake of Christ, knowing that our reward is in the future.

Humility Toward One Another

And so he ends this letter with a general exhortation, which is where we get to our passage in verses 5 through 7. We're going to look at two ways that humility can be promoted in the Christian life. Here is the first way that it's promoted: our humility towards one another. This is found in verse 5. If you're taking notes, look at verse 5: "You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

Look at how he starts off verse 5. He starts by addressing this group of people: "the younger men." This is a term that is not just isolated towards men, but is a general reference to those who are younger, those who are young in faith in contrast to the elders who typically during that time were older, more experienced men of God. And so he's addressing the young people in general, or even those who are spiritually young, because he observes that the tendency of youth is to be rebellious.

Now, I know that sounds very harsh, at least towards younger people, right? But we can all relate. All of us—you may not look at yourself as a young person, maybe you do—but everyone was young once, whether you are now or you were. I remember being a very rebellious teen. Just ask my mom, all right? She will tell you all the stories, okay? I just hated authority, and especially my parents' authority. When I was a teenager being very rebellious, my mom would say very innocent and very complimentary things, and just because she said something, I would say the opposite. She would say something innocent like, "Hey, son, I really like your shirt today." And it was a shirt that I really liked! But now that she said she liked it, inside my mind I'm like, "I hate this shirt." Why? Not because I didn't actually like the shirt, but because my mom said so. It is the tendency of youth to be against authority and to be rebellious. Not all the time, but it's a generalization. Peter anticipates this, and he says there are young people in the church that tend to be against authority, and there are people who are young in spirit that tend to be against authority. So he's trying to encourage the community to be humble. He says, "You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders."

In the same way, referring to the attitude that the elders had to not be proud or do things under compulsion or to lord it over people, he says in the same way that he's calling the elders to be humble, he's saying, "Hey, you young people in the church, you also be humble as well by submitting yourself to your pastors and elders."

Now, submission is a very hot topic. It's a four-letter word for some people. And so, we have to define submission. I really like Jonathan Leeman's definition in his book on authority. He defines submission as deferring to another person's judgment and deploying resources to fulfill that judgment. So deferring and deploying is the way that you apply submission to someone who is in an authoritative position over you. You're leaning on their judgment on a particular issue, and you're also using your resources, energies, and efforts to make sure that that judgment comes to fruition in how you're working together. It is a voluntary submission with an attitude of respect. In this context, the attitude is towards the elders or the pastors of the church, honoring their age or experience.

You can broaden the principle to any Christian who is older, more experienced, or more mature. Those who are less mature and less experienced, or even lesser in age, should defer to the more mature out of wisdom and for help. That's just wise within a local church, to honor those who are more experienced and mature. So, the immediate application is to your elders and to your pastors, but also as a broader application to those who are spiritually more mature.

Now you might come to me and say, "But Brother Micah, the pastor that we hired just a couple of years ago, Steve, he's younger than me. By a lot, right? And so how do we submit to a pastor who is so much younger?" Well, it's funny because even in Psalm 119, which is all about the Word of God, Psalm 119:100 talks about how you can get old without aging, and the way to do that is by applying God's Word. The wisdom of God's Word in Psalm 119:100 says he understands more than the aged because he has observed God's precepts. If you're a young person today, if you want to get old without aging, you apply God's Word and wisdom to your life. God's Word has that ability to mature someone even without having the years of living under their belt. And so that's how you can even submit to a pastor who is younger than yourself.

The Garment of Humility

So he says, "You younger men likewise be subject to your elders." And then he broadens it out. He doesn't just isolate the younger people; he broadens it to the rest of the church. He says, "And all of you..." This is all members without distinction. In verse 5, he is addressing the church as a whole. Whether you're an elder, an older person, or a young person in the church, he says, "All of you, clothe yourselves with humility." Everybody in the church needs to clothe themselves with humility.

The word humility is something we are familiar with. It refers to being of lowly-mindedness, taking a lowly position to serve others. It's basically just being put in your place and seeing yourself the way that God sees you. I like how Peter describes applying humility. He uses clothing language. He talks about humility as if it's a garment to put on.

Brian was just asking me about my holidays, and I was talking to him about his holidays as well. I'm a Filipino-American, and when Filipinos celebrate holidays, we go crazy. All right? We go big. I had four parties to go to. My mom has eight brothers and sisters, so I have eight uncles and aunties on that side. We went to our Christmas Eve party, and we went all out. My cousins had a full spread of food: one cousin brought a prime rib, another cousin brought a brisket, and another cousin brought a big roast pig, basically called a lechon. The whole entire pig was there, all right? It scared the kids, but we ate everything.

My cousins were ready to serve everybody, just as they do, and all three of them who brought their respective foods put on an apron. We knew when they put on that apron, they were ready to serve the good food for Christmas Eve. What we see here when Peter is using the word humility in connection with clothing is just like that concept of putting on an apron when you're ready to serve. He's telling the church that you know someone is ready to serve within the Christian community when they put on the apron of humility. They're putting on the garment of humility and saying to everybody, "I'm ready to serve others. I'm ready to help, care for, and love one another."

And so this humility is a reciprocal, mutual character. You're being humble towards one another. It's not a one-sided relationship when it comes to applying humility within the local church; it's a reciprocal idea. You're thinking about other people, their desires, their needs, showing attention to how they need to be served. And that's the heart of Christ, right? That's what we see in Philippians 2, where in the gospel, Jesus took on human flesh. He lived a perfectly righteous life as the God-man, and he came not to be served but to serve others. He preferred others. He thought of others. In one sense, he put on the apron of humility when he took on human flesh.

As the God-man, he thought of us, his people, not himself. He thought of us so that we would be saved, that we would be forgiven, that we would be cleansed, and that we would be brought into his family. He died on the cross, took on the wrath of God, and rose from the grave so that you would be saved. If you're not a Christian here today, we are so happy that you're here. We're happy that you're visiting. But you need to know that Jesus Christ was a real man who came to this earth 2,000 years ago, and he died on the cross of Calvary so that you would have the opportunity to trust in him, put your faith and hope in him, and be with God forever. God is calling you to repent and trust in him today. And for you as a Christian, God has given you the ability, if you are saved by the gospel, to apply that same type of humility in your everyday life.

I like what D. Edmond Hiebert says about relationships and humility in the local church: "Smooth relations in the church can be preserved if the entire congregation adorns itself with humility." He says, "Humility is the oil that allows relationships in the church to run smoothly and lovingly." Think about the relationships you have right now that have the most friction. Why are you butting heads with that person? It could be your mom, your kids, or the person sitting next to you—don't look at them right now! Why are you butting heads? It's because one, both, or all parties are embracing some form of pride. What helps friction in relationships is at least one person applying humility in the conflict. Imagine everybody applying humility within the conflict. Can you imagine what that would do for your marriage, your church relationships, or your job? We would have much healthier relationships. Peter knows this. He knows that this church is struggling with that, even in their persecution and suffering, and that tensions are high within these local churches. He says, "Hey, the key to smooth relationships is humility."

God Opposes the Proud

He goes on and says, "Here is the theological basis for this humility." At the end of verse 5, he says, "For God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble." You see that? That's your basis for putting on humility. God is against the proud, but he's for the humble. This is a quotation directly from Proverbs 3:34, where God is described as scoffing at the scoffers, literally mocking arrogant mockers. It's almost like God is allowing the arrogance and scoffing that people produce, causing it like a boomerang to come back to them. Here, the language says God is standing emphatically against proud people, those who are showing attitudes of pride. God is not for them.

What is pride? We know pride to be a mindset of superiority. Pride has many applications and manifestations. It is self-centeredness, a manifestation of self-exaltation over other people. Pride can have different expressions: it shows itself in ignoring your need for God, in an unhealthy self-sufficiency, or even in ignoring our need for God's people. Some people show pride by not being part of a local church or being a member of a local church. In all these manifestations of pride, the text says God is persistently against it.

This is important because we have to ask ourselves: how are we still manifesting pride in our lives? As this is the first Sunday of the new year and you are making all your resolutions, I pray that one of those resolutions is to kill our pride and the way it manifests itself. Are you living in a self-centered way? Are you self-exalting in your different contexts? Maybe you're living in an isolated way and don't see your need for others in the local church. Maybe you don't want to listen to others, or even listen to God in his Word. Pride can manifest itself in so many different pictures, and we have to see how we are manifesting it if we want to repent of it and apply humility. God is opposed to pride, and the way he opposes it is through correction and discipline—which, in one sense, is him being for you, because he disciplines those whom he loves, as Hebrews says. But he will humble his people. If you are not living in a way that is humble, I pray that you humble yourself before God humbles you, because God will do something providentially to humble you. It's just a matter of time.

If you're an unbeliever here today, you are living constantly according to your pride, and your pride will lead to eternal consequences. Living for yourself, your idols, your lusts, and your own ambitions will lead to an eternal undoing. But God says that doesn't have to be your future. Through the gospel, through the hope of Christ, you don't have to live a life of pride. You can submit and be a humble person by acknowledging your need for Christ.

Then he says, "God gives grace to the humble." That is the alternative. The humble are the lowly-minded. They are conscious of their unworthiness before God. They acknowledge their dependence upon God. They acknowledge that they are poor in spirit, that they are sinners in need of a Savior. He says to those who are humble, God continually bestows grace. He's like an overflowing fountain of grace towards his humble people. In all situations, God is willing to liberally grant you grace because that is what he does. And oh, saints, do we not need grace for the situations of life? You need grace for your marriage, for how you raise your children, for your job tomorrow, for health concerns, for the next decision for this upcoming year. We need grace for every moment of our lives. And I love it because he says he gives grace continually to the humble.

Humility Toward God

Secondly, not only do we see humility towards one another, but we see humility towards God. This is found in verses 6 through 7. Look with me at verse 6: "Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time." He uses the word "therefore" to make a close connection between humility towards others and humility towards God. He is saying, "Hey, that humility you express to one another is connected to the humility towards God that I'm about to talk to you about right now." Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.

He's giving them responsibility to be humble. It could be a true passive in the original language as well, meaning "allow yourselves to be humbled." Overall, he is basically saying this: accept your humiliation from God. Be a volunteer to be humbled by God. That is such a weird way to word it, right? No one ever volunteers to be humiliated. We don't see celebrities calling up TMZ and the paparazzi saying, "Hey, come document my most embarrassing moments." Normally, people don't invite public embarrassment. But this text is not about being humiliated by men; this is about being humbled by God. And praise be to God, the way God humbles people is not the way men humiliate people. The way God humbles us is a very sanctified, righteous, and loving way.

It's described in verse 6 that when we humble ourselves, we are humbled "under the mighty hand of God." The term "under the mighty hand of God" is an Old Testament expression that generally speaks to God's actions in human affairs. If you trace this term through the Old Testament, you'll see it refers to God subduing his enemies, disciplining his children, defending or delivering his people, and exalting his people. To put this together, when a believer submits under the mighty hand of God, they are embracing God's dealings with their life. They are submitting to God's program of discipline, purity, and maturing. That is what it means to submit under God's mighty hand. You are trusting him and his plan for your life.

I must pause and ask you this today as a Christian: are you submitting under God's mighty hand, or are you trying to resist his mighty hand? Sometimes God will allow painful providences to take place in our lives, things we personally wouldn't choose for ourselves. God is trying to teach us and say, "Hey, this is the best route. This gives me the most glory and gives you the most good, and you need to trust me." And we just don't like it, so we complain, resist, run away from God, and try to apply our own solutions. Are you submitting to God's will, or are you resisting it? When you run away from obeying his commandments and embrace temptation, don't resist his will. Submit to it. Trust him.

And he says this is what will happen, look at verse 6: "that he may exalt you at the proper time." This is the beautiful result of embracing God's dealings: his exaltation of his people. The word "exalt" literally means to lift up or raise something up. It refers to an enhancing of honor, power, or position. This means God will exalt his children in their testing. He will lift them up. In his infinite wisdom, as he ordains these difficult providences, he is acting with your true welfare in mind. Everything is leading to you being lifted up by God. It doesn't seem like it when we feel beat down, pressured, and burdened every single day, but everything is part of God's plan for our lifting up. But it's not at the time we want. We want to be lifted up now, right? No one wants to stay humble, lowly, and burdened. When will we be lifted up? At the proper time.

Well, Pastor Micah, when is the proper time? I don't know. It could be in this life, or it might be in the eternity to come. But he does promise it will happen. It just says God will exalt you at the right time. It could be through the resolution of your trouble in this life, or you might stay struggling with your particular trial until the very end of your life. While that may not sound immediately encouraging, it gives you perspective to look ahead and know that exaltation and relief will come. But it will not come according to your timetable; it comes according to God's. J. Adams says, "Part of humility is a willingness to patiently wait for things according to God's timetable." That is how you apply humility—by waiting on God. Slow down. Calm down. Don't try to solve your issues with your own way of thinking. Just wait on God; wait on his timetable.

Casting Your Cares on Him

Then he gets to verse 7, which shows another way we manifest humility: by casting our cares on God. He says: "casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." As we are waiting, he says here is a practical application of humility: cast your anxiety on him. Cast your cares. This term combines all of our anxiety, cares, and concerns together. I like how one commentator words it: "Peter unites all the readers' individual cares and concerns, whether due to memories of the past, pressures of the present, or fears concerning the future, into one burdensome whole." Peter is taking all your anxieties, balling them up into one package, and saying to decisively place it upon God. When you cast something, it is a decisive act of placing something somewhere else, throwing it or handing it over.

This word is used in Luke 19:35, describing Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. When the disciples found the colt for him to ride, it says they threw their coats on the colt. They took their jackets and literally placed them on top of the donkey. That word "placing" is the same word we have here: "casting" in verse 7. You are taking something you are holding and placing it on something else so that you don't have to carry it anymore. Peter says you can do that with your worries, anxieties, and troubles. You don't have to carry that anymore. You don't have to burden your shoulders. You can give it to God because God wants to carry it for you.

I love this because it reminds me so much of that hymn, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus": "O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer." Friends, you are needlessly carrying something today. What is it that you need to cast upon the Lord? How can you carry less and depend more upon God? What do you need to cast upon God today?

A few months ago, we went to Legoland with a couple of church members. When we were done with our trip, I was packing up. I have four kids, and that comes with a lot of heavy luggage and really random things. I was trying to pack and get us ready for the minivan, carrying all these things myself. I didn't realize my wife had called the bellhop, and he brought a cart over and was ready to help. He was just watching me struggle with all this luggage. He was a big dude, with bigger muscles than my whole body! He looked at me and said, "Slow down, man. This is my job. Let me do this for you." My wife was looking at me like, "Are you kidding me? This is why I called him, right?" And I was just trying to carry everything myself. I realized I was carrying stuff I was not supposed to carry. There was somebody else there whose job it was to carry those things for me. This is what we do as Christians. We look at our lives, our providences, and our problems and say, "I'm going to solve this myself. I'm going to carry this myself." That is why we have anxiety, depression, and sadness. God is looking at us and saying, "You don't have to carry that. You need to pray and give that to me." He says, "Because my Son died on the cross and rose from the grave, I will take care of you. I will love you and carry your burdens." We can trust that God is working and will help us. We can cast our anxieties on him. Why? Because he cares for us.

Look at the end of verse 7: "because he cares for you." That is the grounds for our action. You don't entrust your deepest, most intimate thoughts to just anyone. You only entrust them with your best friend, the person you text and call all the time. Why do you trust them? Because you know they care for you. You entrust the deepest things to people who care about you. And God says that he cares. He tells these people he cares because maybe they were at a time where they questioned whether or not God cared for them. Especially when you go through suffering, persecution, and difficult providences, that's when the mind is most prone to think that God does not care. Peter has to reiterate: he does care for you. That's why you can entrust these burdens to him.

This is what makes Christianity different from all the other religions out there. All other religions attempt to make God care for them. They try to awaken a sleeping deity through sacrifice, special ritualistic prayers, or religious acts to make their god care. Christianity is different because the Bible says God already cares about you. God loved you before you even loved him. The gospel is not about you making God care about you. Jesus died on the cross for our sins already, and when we didn't love him, he broke our hearts and humbled us so that we would love him. Because he loves us, we can entrust our crushing burdens and burning trials to him.

We have a resurrected Lord and Savior who demonstrates God's love and care for us. That resurrected hope isn't just good for eternal salvation; it is good for everyday burdens. Friends, do you believe that God cares about you? Maybe life has gotten so hard that you've doubted God's love. I'm here to encourage you and remind you that God does, in fact, love you. Maybe your difficult trials are a manifestation of his love because he is waking you up, causing you to repent, drawing you closer, and showing you that you're not as strong as you think you are. That is a loving God.

Hudson Taylor was a British Protestant missionary in the late 1800s and early 1900s, one of the most influential missionaries in Christian history. He has this quote on how God can use the humble, even though we're nothing: "I often think that God must have been looking for someone small enough and weak enough for him to use and that he found me." We are weak. We are small. We are frail. Humility is recognizing who you are in comparison to a great God. This is why our text says to humble ourselves under his mighty hand. As you humble yourself, cast your cares upon him because he cares for you.

Let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for this passage that encourages us in the midst of our difficulties and trials. We pray, O Father, that you would bless the members of this church and care for us as we humble ourselves under your mighty hand in the gospel. We pray, Father, that as pride is a great temptation, we would apply the mindset of Christ. Help us, Lord, to think upon Christ daily, to think about his humble act of service in taking on human flesh, dying on the cross, and rising from the grave so that we sinners, who don't deserve it, would find abundant grace in the gospel hope. Thank you for your salvation. Thank you for your Son. We are grateful for all of these things, and we pray for this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.