Necessary Spiritual Attitudes for the Church

Well, it is good to be with all of you this morning. If you will turn your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 5. Our family is very humbled that Cornerstone has come around us to support us for ministry in the Philippines. And if you'd saw me a few years back and asked, Are you ever going to be a missionary, I'd say, no, not planning on it, but over the past few years, 2 or 3 years, the Lord has really worked in our hearts to call us to the mission field, and my wife and I were willing and ready to go, but we didn't have a place.

And we pray the Lord to give us a geographical location where we could go and, and really minister and help train men for pastoral ministry and expository preaching, and the Philippines is a wide open door and it's, it's just in a sense in its infant stage and we're going to be on the front end of that and so we. We really look forward to what will occur when we're over there, but in the meantime we're in the process of raising our support through, prayer and financial support and if you'd like to be a part of that or get on our newsletter list, just in the bulletins my email address and you can just send me an email with your name and home address, phone number, just some basic contact information.

I'll respond back to you saying that you're added, you're on it, and then when any updates go out, you will automatically get those. I'm hoping to send out our first official one.

this coming week, it'll be the newsletter you would receive it's what was in the bulletin a couple of weeks ago, but, this will be our first launch, and we have a website and all kinds of information and ways where you can, track with us on what is going on and being able to pray for us, but we're here right now and so you can also see us around the, the campus on, Sundays and Wednesdays and, and, and talk with us if you would like. Again, if you turn your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 5, this is our text for this morning.

Let me read it to you, to give you a setting for our sermon. 1 Peter chapter 5 verses 1 to 11.

Peter writes, therefore, I exhort the elders among you as fellow elders and witnesses of the sufferings of Christ. And a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God among you exercising oversight, not under compulsion but voluntarily according to the will of God and not for sordid gain but with eagerness, nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

You younger men, likewise be subject to your elders, and all of you clothe yourselves with humility towards one another, for God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. Be of sober spirit. Be on the alert.

Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, but resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who called you to His eternal glory in Christ will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you to Him be dominion forever. than ever. As Pastor Milton has said, I, I pastored a couple of churches over the past few years, ever since leaving the seminary, master seminary, graduating with the MDiv degree there, and the Lord placed it in my life where I was pastor of two different churches.

One of the churches was in Corona. Corona, the church there was a small little church. And on one particular occasion we had this man and his wife, an older couple, come and be with us on a Sunday, and after the service they came up to me and said, Pastor, we really like your church and we know some of the people here and we are wanting to move to Corona. And I said, Well, where do you live?

And they said, Well, we live out in the desert area past Palm Springs, way out there. And we want to move to the Corona, and when we, when we move, if the Lord allows us to move, we'd like to come and join your church. And I said, Well, I'd appreciate that. That'd be good.

So about a year later they show up again and they tell me that they've moved and so they start coming on a regular basis and join our church. Well, as time would go on, my wife and I went over to visit with them in their home and and had a meal with them and talked with them, and we got to know them. On one occasion, he told me of a very interesting story. To me, it was too weird to be believable, but he told it to me nonetheless.

I even asked him afterwards, did this really happen? what you just told me? He said, yeah, it's true. What he told me was about a church out in the desert area.

Where the church members had grown disgruntled with each other. Literally, they hated each other. And the church was polarized into two different camps, two different groups. They didn't even want to see each other on Sunday.

They didn't want to even shake each other's hands. It got that bad. So what one group decided or really both groups decided, it's best that we split. So one of us has to leave.

The problem was being out in the desert in a small church anyway, they did not have the funds or the ability to go find another facility and get a new pastor. In actuality, both groups loved the pastor that was already there. So how are they going to solve their dilemma? They decided, here's what we will do.

Since the church buildings, the church structure had two doors on either side, one door on either side, two doors on the side, they decided they would not enter in through the front door because they didn't want to see each other. They would park on either side, Group A on this side, Group B on this side, and they would enter from the side doors. They would come and sit down on one side of the church or group the other group on the other side of the church, and they would attend the same service, hear the same sermon from the same preacher at the same time.

But they did not want to look at each other or see each other during the service.

So they decided to build a wall down the aisle of their church. and that solved their dilemma. When he told me this story about this church that had a lot of disunity, I cracked up and I said, this cannot be true. You're making this up.

He said, no, it really happened. I said, well, when the pastor preached the first sermon after the wall was built. Do what the pastor preached on? He said, I have no idea.

I said, I know what I would preach on. If I was the pastor to that church. I would say tear down this wall. I don't know if they ever did But why, why would a church get that bad?

How could it get to that level? It goes back to a critical issue. It's the attitude of the heart. Here's two groups that have animosity towards each other, they hate each other, don't like each other.

And why is that so? It's because they have a heart problem, an attitudinal problem. The passage before us this morning in First Peter, and we're going to look specifically at chapter 5, verse 5, the latter half of verse 5, all the way down through verse 11. Peter is winding up this letter, writing the last words on this first epistle to scattered churches throughout Asia Minor, and he wants to address a critical issue.

He wants to address an important issue. That is your attitude, the attitude of your heart. He wants to tell these believers, there are some necessary spiritual attitudes that are vital, that are important that the church better have, and the church better possess. You as Christians, better have these in your life.

They should be who you are. If you bleed, if someone cuts you, you bleed this out. That's how it should look. And Peter wants to wind up the last few words of this letter that he's addressing to these Christians, and he wants to emphasize harp on this point, because it's such a critical thing.

If you have the wrong spiritual attitudes, or do not possess the right ones, it'll be detrimental to you, your life, your family, your home and your church. And it will not bring glory to God. So for Peter, it's important. So what he does, he gives us some important spiritual attitude for the life of the church.

And there are 4, and literally, you as you read these, he just rise up from the page. There's 4 of them. Look at the first one. Attitude number one.

Peter had been dealing with the pastors in chapter 5, verses 1 through 4, giving them commands. He turns his attention to younger men, in verse 5, which would be younger men who are learning how to be a pastor, a future leader under the leadership of those elders. But then in the middle of verse 5, he Changes his direction. Instead of being just to the shepherds and just to the young men, and he opens it wide open again, and addresses everybody, he says, all of you.

And he says, let me give you Let me commend to you. Let me exhort you to have 4 necessary spiritual attitudes. The first Each of us, we're included in this letter and such as, so, so to speak. So Peter's in a sense writing to us as well.

We should have the attitude of humility. That's the first attitude, humility. And it comes from verse 5 and verse 6. Peter says, all of you, clothe yourselves with humility towards one another, because God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble, therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time.

This is interesting. It's interesting how Peter addresses the issue of humility. He talks about clothing yourselves with humility. That's an interesting expression.

The idea of clothing yourselves could talk about just putting on a garment. The slave, a slave would have to put on a certain garment to do the work of a slave. A religious person would put on a certain garment to do their religious duties. A shepherd who would go out and have to tend sheep would put on a certain garment to tend the sheep.

Here, Peter says, just like you would normally clothe yourself to do the task at hand, clothe yourself with humility. Let humility be your cloak, let humility be your garments. And the idea of clothing yourselves means that this is a priority. This is not something that's optional.

This is something that's necessary. Just as you would go about your eating and drinking, just your normal everyday life. Clothing yourself. Don't forget to put on humility is the idea.

So what is humility? Well, the opposite of humility is pride. what pride is? It comes in many different forms and shapes, sizes, but it expresses itself with this mindset.

I am the chief one, and everything revolves around me. And the problem is nobody else sees that. If everybody would see that, we'd be in a much better world. So everybody revolves around me.

It's my wishes, it's my wants. It's my desires. And like I said, pride can manifest itself in many different ways. It doesn't automatically manifest itself in arrogance.

But he says no. It's never been about me. It's not about my wants, my desires, my dreams. It's not about what I want.

It's really, it's all about him. It's all about my Lord. It's all about what he wants for me. It's all about his will.

And the perfect place to live in is right under his will, in line with his will, where his desires become my desires. Peter says, when you're living your life, your Christian life, make sure that humility, a meekness of spirit, a humility of spirit. Is your clothing. That has to be your attitude.

Well, can Peter really say this? Maybe he's just making this up as he goes along. maybe he's got some ax to grind. No, he says, I got proof.

I got an Old Testament precedent that tells me that this is right, that this is true, that I could command you and exhort you to clothe yourselves with humility, because the Old Testament says Proverbs 3:34, which this is a perfect quote from the Septuagint translation, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. God is opposed to the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. The same verse is also used by James in his letter. He says, listen, you better have humility, it better be in you.

Why? Because if you are pride, proudful, if you have pride, God will oppose you. No ifs, ands or buts about it. The idea of opposition, God is opposed to the proud, it means to resist.

You see, if you oppose, or if you are prideful, God has to oppose you, because you're opposing him. You're standing before God saying, God, I don't care about you. I don't care about your desires. what?

I love your blessings, I want them, but really, it's all my, this is my show. And God says, it doesn't work that way. The idea of opposition means that God can make your life very, very miserable if he so desires. You cannot stand against him.

The perfect place to live is in the center of his will, humbly walking before your God. What's the opposite? He opposes the proud, but what does he do? He gives grace to the humble, the one who is humble, the one who has that attitude, the one who, who possesses that attitude, lives it out.

God gives grace. That's the idea of showing and demonstrating kindness. He opens doors for you, he, he leads you and guides you and you're able to sense where he's telling you to go, and what he can tell you to do. Is having a humbleness of spirit and being a willing vessel in God's hand.

So that he can mold you and use you for his glory. For his purposes. I like what John MacArthur says. He says, I see people stumbling around all the time trying to fix up their life, stumbling around trying to find some solution, some fix, some therapy that'll work, some counseling that will just solve their problems, some book that will deliver them from their supposed dilemma.

And the bottom line may be that there's no deliverance, because you're not experiencing the grace of God. You're rather experiencing the opposing hand of God in your life because you're proud. God opposes the proud, he gives grace to the humble. This should be a no brainer.

God wants you to be humble, and that's just not like, well, God, beat me up as much as you want to. No, it's that you have a sense of spirit that says, God, I know you're on the throne, you're in charge, and I love you, and I want to worship you, and I want you to lead me and guide me and whatever you, wherever you tell me to go, I will go, where you tell me to do, I will do. It's a willingness of spirit. That's why he says, he reiterates the command in verse 6, therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.

The idea of the mighty hand of God goes back to the Old Testament when the people of Israel were brought out of Egypt by God's mighty hand. It, it represents God's all sovereign. Power. It just means God's on his throne.

That's not the only reference to this phrase. There are other Old Testament references in the care group questions. I ask you to go find some of them. So you have to do a little homework for this one.

My care group is not meeting today, so I don't have to worry about it. So, But what's the idea of the mighty hand of God? It means God's on his throne. It means God's powerful, and you humble yourselves underneath that.

And that's not a bad thing. That's not, oh, God's just going to strike me down. No, it's not that fear. It's a reverence to God, but it says, I want to bask in your goodness, in your grace, in your sovereignty.

Lord, you're on your throne. I don't have to worry about what happens tomorrow. You have saved me. Purchase my redemption.

And you humble yourself under his mighty hand, so that he may exalt you at the proper time. It's not your timetable, it's his timetable. He will place you where he wants you to be. He'll take care of you.

The people that Peter's writing to are suffering persecution because they named the name of Christ. They don't know if they're going to live tomorrow. They may get their head chopped off because they named the name of Christ. And the only thing that's going to get them through and see them through, especially the persecution, is humility, trusting in a sovereign God, placing their Their whole self into his hands.

But that's not the only attitude Peter deals with, Peter brings up. Attitude number 2. Each of us should have the attitude of trust, the attitude of trust. This is couched in verse 7, and it flows from the attitude of humility comes right out of it.

Casting all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Any of you ever been worried about anything? Any of you never been worried about anything in your entire life? No hands going up on that one.

If you're human and you are, you have dealt with anxiety. You have worried about something, no matter how big or small it may be. Peter's not denying it. Oh, by the way, is anxiety, is that something you can go buy at the store?

I go to the Apple store and look at the iPods. Oh, they're nice. I need an iPhone, but I have to wait till the Philippines to get that maybe, I don't know. Anxiety is not some tangible object, it's an emotion.

It's an emotion. It's something intangible, but it's real. And, and, when you're starting to worry about something, it's like it just wells up inside of you. And you could be worried about any number of things.

Like I said, Peter's not denying that, but what is he saying to do here? He's saying when the anxiety comes up, when it's rising up, when it's in your life, what you need to do is be able to take care of it properly. Deal with it properly. you're dealing with anxiety.

Some people say, what, what you need to do? Just take a chill pill. That's what you need to do. Take a chill pill or just get over it.

What's wrong with you? Just get over it. Peter doesn't say any of those. Oh, here's what you need to do.

You need to look into your inner child and, tell me about your father. Peter doesn't do any of that. Here's what he says. He says, you want to deal with the anxiety, you need to cast all of that anxiety on God.

So the key in understanding this is understanding what does it mean by casting? The phrase casting all brings up an imagery. Whenever you would travel in those days, there's no cars, there's no 91, there's no freeway, no In N-Out Burger either. But when, when you would travel, you would have to go from place to place, town to town, village to village.

And if you had to travel with a lot of stuff, you would have a beast of burden camel, donkey, mule, and you would put your belongings on that beast of burden to carry the load for you and you and that way you didn't have to carry it and try to cross the desert at the same time. Peter's using that imagery, which they can relate to very well. And he's saying, just like you would take your material belongings and put it on your beast of burden, that's, that's designed this process designed to be a help to you, so that you don't have to bear the burden, you You need to take all of that anxiety that you have, and you need to place it on God.

Why?

Because it says here, he cares for you. He loves you. He has provided salvation for you. He has provided for your daily needs.

He will continue to do so. You have to come to grips that he truly does love you and cares for you. And so when the anxiety comes, you don't need to worry about anything. But how do you take care of it?

You give it to him. You say, well, that's the million dollar question. How do I get rid of it? I'm going to save you the $24.95 OK, that you'd have to pay on Kindle.

No, it's usually $9.99 you, that you would have to pay to get this answer. I'll give it to you for free. If you go back and look at Hannah in First Samuel chapter 1 and 2, you'd meet this woman named named Hannah. She eventually would have a son named Samuel.

But if you go back and read her account, she's a woman that cannot get pregnant, she cannot bear a child because God had closed her womb, even though she didn't realize that. And because of that condition, because she couldn't bear children, that brought a stigma, a level of stigma in that society because if you couldn't bear children, society will look at you as something wrong. So that brings a level of anxiety. Well, the husband that she's married to is also married, has another wife.

That's never a good story. And so the anxiety level goes up a little bit more. Well, when they, when the whole family goes to the feast yearly, the other wife has children. Hannah does not.

And what the other wife does? She literally puts it in her face and says, I have children, you don't, and lets her know it. So the anxiety meters going up even more. Finally, her husband comes to her and says, Hey, Aren't I better than 10 sons?

Typical husband doesn't get it. So the anxiety meters just to the top, it's blowing off the roof. How does she take care of this? You read her account, and what she does?

She does the only thing she can do. She goes to God in prayer, prayer becomes the mechanism. If I can use that word. She goes to God in prayer.

And she, when she prays to God, she really in that prayer gives that burden to him. She's casting that burden and placing it on him. She got so worried about this situation that the text says she had no joy and she couldn't even eat. After her prayer, it makes A note for us and says, even though our physical situation hasn't changed yet, it would eventually change, but at that point in time, it hadn't changed, but it said she had joy and she could eat.

What had happened, what had transpired in the moment of that prayer? She cast all of her anxiety on God. What Peter is saying, you want to live in this world as a believer, you want to have the right attitude, be humble, but also trust in God for everything. Live your life trusting in Him, walking by faith.

That'll keep you on the straight and narrow. There's a 3rd attitude, attitude number 3. Each of us should have the attitude of diligence. I don't have a drum roll, but what that's like.

Be of sober spirit, he says in verse 8, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, but resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. what Peter talks about here? He says, you better wake up, be alert, you better be a sober spirit.

That means you better be Watchful and aware and have a well disciplined thought life, a well disciplined mind. Why? Because guess what? While you're living the Christian life, you have an enemy, you have an adversary.

And this adversary, he wants to be just like a lion, he wants to eat you up and spit you out. He wants you to fail. He wants you to have pride to the max and be worried to the max at the same time. He wants you to be defeated.

He wants your testimony ruined. He wants you to drag you through the mud. He does not want to see you, or even hear about you, living for the Lord. He would love for you to have the wrong attitudes, the wrong thinking patterns.

He'd want your life to be a spiritual mess. He'd want you to throw the Bible, take the Bible and throw it out and say forget it. He is an adversary, he is against you. He's looking for your devastation.

He's just like a lion. When a lion prowls, he's going around looking for prey. And when he roars, that means he's ready to attack his prey and devour his prey. The Satan is the same picture.

So you have to be Watchful, you can't just walk loudly by, spiritually speaking, and, and not even realize that you're on, that you're in a spiritual battle. Like it or not, you are in one. And you can't believe that that battlefield doesn't exist, and that the battle is not real. And when Peter talks about your adversary, he mentions the devil, and mentions the devil's agenda here, he says, you have to be diligent.

You have to have an attitude of diligence, mindful, watchful. Well, how does that flesh itself out? How does that practically work, this attitude of diligence? Well, verse 9, it's all in resisting him.

Him being Satan, the adversary. OK? The idea of resistance, the same word here for like the idea of opposition in at the latter half, latter half of verse 5. You need to oppose the devil, oppose the devil's agenda, oppose his plans, resist him.

But again, how do you do that? Well, specifically, be firm in your faith. Firm in your faith. What is that?

Well, that, what is it, what it's not is, hey, I know how to deal with Satan. Be gone Satan. say, say magical words and phrases, that'll get rid of them. No, he'll probably just laugh at you.

I need to slay him in the spirit. That'll do it. No, again, he'll probably laugh at you. But there's one weapon you have that he does not like and that will work.

And that's what Peter mentioned here, firm in your faith. Literally, it's the faith. It deals with the objective word of God, His truth, God's standard, God's word to us. But it also goes deeper and says, listen, I know you Christians believe just like I do.

You believe in God. You believe in His word, and you're to live by His word and you're to have His word in your heart so that you might not sin against Him. What I'm reiterating to you is if you want to fight the real battle that's going on. You need to stand up against the devil, resist him in accordance with how well you live according to God's word, how well it molds your thinking, and how well it molds your actions.

To vary an expression, you gotta really suck in the gospel fumes. And preach the gospel to yourself. Understand God's word, meditate on his word. That's how you're firm in your faith.

That's how you resist. The devil and also take comfort in the fact that there are others who are suffering. He reminds them of and says, there's other believers, fellow believers that are out there suffering and, and, and God is using that suffering to bring about accomplish His will by your brethren who are. In the world, and God will use that suffering in your life.

So don't let the suffering that God is bringing in your life, if he's bringing something in your life like that, he's telling these believers, don't let it debilitate you. Don't let it lead you to sin. Make sure you're watchful and alert. And you're aware of.

a spiritual battle. Have an attitude of humility, have an attitude of trust, have an attitude of diligence. Be watchful. Let me tell you, it can be easy.

Something could be said here at the church, by, by a pastor or somebody and just somebody you, Sunday school teacher, anybody. And, and you may not hear all the conversation or you don't hear everything, but it puts something in your head that something's not right here. And you want to go and find out what it is, and you can create a problem, and, and even spread gossip. Or create a problem in the process, and that would be detrimental to the church.

You may get it in your mind that something's wrong with your wife. And you start fantasizing about things that could be wrong, or making things up or, you just don't have a reality. And, and the devil can use these kinds of things. And eventually you can have division in your home and make things worse than they really are.

One pastor told me one time ministry would be easy if you didn't have to deal with people. But then you would have no ministry. We have to have the right attitudes. We have to be alert to how Satan could take us sometimes we're our own worst enemy.

And use it to be detrimental to the life of our families and our church. But if we are alert to his schemes and his purposes, we stay ready, keep God's word in our heart, we'll respond biblically, and we'll live out biblically and have biblical relationships with each other. There's a final attitude though. It's in verse 10, and it's very interesting.

It's interesting that he concludes with this. It's the attitude of hope, the attitude of hope. It says in verse 10, after you've suffered for a little while. The God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

To Him be dominion forever and ever. This is interesting, this is very, very interesting, how he develops this, this thought here. You see the phrase, after you have suffered for a little while? Like I said, these people are going through physical suffering, and even mental suffering because of their stand for Christ.

And you say, well, Peter, this looks like a time related work after you have suffered for a little while. So what is a little while? maybe it's 5 minutes. I'll suffer for Jesus for 5 minutes.

Hey, I could do better than that. I'll suffer for Jesus for 1 hour. 1 hour sounds like a little while. what?

I'll be gracious. I'll go a day. After a day, it better be over. Is that what Peter's talking about?

That being a little while?. When he says after you have suffered for a little while, what the span, the time span of a little while really is? In comparison to eternity, it is your earthly existence. That's what he's getting at.

In other words, Christians in Asia Minor, you may have to suffer every day for the rest of your life. Since you're a name as you name the name of Christ, you may have to suffer every day till the day of your death. And if so, that is only a little while. The point he's trying to make is when all of that is over, what he's dealing with here is, you want to sneak peek into the future.

We're all interested in what the future is. Truth be known, you're probably interested in study of prophecy, those kinds of things, and, and the scriptures are replete with what, with a lot of prophetical issues. I just warn you, don't be putting, setting dates to everything. That doesn't work, never has.

But the issue of prophecy is, is intriguing. What Peter does here, he deals with what I call a personal eschatology. He gives you a personal eschatology. He says, after you suffered for a little while, let me tell you what your future is.

Let me tell you what it will be like after you breathe your last. This is beautiful. He says, the God of all grace, The God who is the one who dispenses grace, all grace, he has that power, he has that ability because he's God. God had a plan.

Before the world began, before the foundations of the world, God, he says, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ. And he doesn't just say who called you to salvation. It's calling you to His eternal glory in Christ. The idea of calling looks back at what happened in eternity past.

The glory of Christ is your full Glorification, that's still yet in the future. So God looks at this. Peter's examining this or stating this from the vantage point of how God did a work before the world began, because he has a work that's going to be accomplished fully and finally, after you, you've breathed your last. In other words, God has a plan for you.

When you die, it's not all over. Praise be to God for that. When you die, when you breathe your last, you get ushered in his presence, absent the body, present with the Lord, right? But how does Peter describe this?

He says, after you suffered for a while, when this life is over, the God of all grace, the one who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, the one who is sovereign on his throne, the one who is in charge, guess what he is gonna do for you. He will himself. He's not going to dispense some angel to do this. This is something he personally is gonna do.

He will himself. He will perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. What does that mean? These 4 little words represent things that have not happened yet to you.

The idea of perfect means he's going to make all things right. He's going to revolve resolve all situations. New heaven and new earth, no more tears, and the former things have passed away. That's being made perfect.

He will confirm you. What does that mean? He will make you firm. What does that, what does that mean?

It means that no longer will you have to live by faith. Because now you, you see him face to face. You live by faith now, because you don't see him. But he will.

He'll also strengthen you. Let me tell you, a lot of people think that they're strong and they got all this power and ability and, I tell you, you haven't felt strength and empowerment till you're in your resurrected body in heaven with him for eternity. It's an existence that you and I can't even imagine. That will happen.

He will establish you. You're gonna finally dwell in the home that he has made for you, your real home, because here, you're just a passing through. Peter says, take a look at this. Look at your future.

Look at your future. If God's gonna do that for you in the future, then that should affect you today, that truth should affect how you think and live today. Because what does it do? It provides you hope.

And this is not some hope like I hope the Dodgers win today, and I really do, but, I know. Hope the angels do too. Say it that way. Not that hope that's talked about here.

I hope God will do this. No, this is the hope says, I know, I know because of his word, because of, of who he is. He is the God who knows the beginning and the end. He's the alpha and the Omega.

He's got it all planned out. Nobody can thwart it. The enemy cannot thwart it. Nobody can change it.

It's gonna happen. So live in the light that that he's gonna take care of you. Not just now, but in the future. That gives you hope today.

That's why you, Peter says to him, be the dominion forever and ever. He's the God that's on his throne. We're to humble ourselves underneath him. We're to trust in Him for everything.

We're to be aware that there is an enemy, but if we're firm in the faith, we're firm in God's word, and we are letting God dwell through us and really basking in a relationship with him. We will fight against the enemy, we will resist. We can overcome that temptation. And he's the God who provides hope.

So I have an attitude. Of humility, trust. Diligence and hope, and they're all really linked together in an unbreakable bond. And that's what will keep you going.

If this church is filled with people who humbly walk before their God, trust God for everything, who stand up against the enemy and says, I'm not going to fall prey to the devil's schemes, I'm going to resist, not in my own power, but through the work of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit within me. And I'm gonna live and bask in the hope that he has given me for my life. No matter how long I live on earth, 50, 60, 70, 80 years, no matter how long it is, I know I got a home that'll never fade away.

If this church is filled with these kinds of people, you and I, God has brought us here, this is our home, this is our church, and if we strive to have these attitudes, what God could do here, how he could use this church as a shining light to this community for ages and ages to come.

It's not only does the church have to have strong leadership, chapter 5, verses 1 through 4, not only does the church need strong future leaders, But the church needs strong members. And Peter addresses all that in the span of 11 verses and brings us to the truth. That we really are required to walk with our Lord humbly trusting him, facing the battle with hope all along the way as we go about our days, about our life each and every day. Let's pray.

Lord, We do give you thanks for this day. We thank You for this word. What we do pray that we will be believers who will have these attitudes and model them and exemplify them. I pray that we will be a strong church for ages and ages to come, for days and years to come.

And Lord, now I pray for the offering that will be taken, Lord. The funds that are received go to help the ministry of this church. And Lord, I pray that you will use that to your glory in Jesus' name. Amen.