Dear congregation, let's continue to worship our God this morning by considering His Word. I invite you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter 5. And this morning I'll be reading in your hearing verses 8-14 as we round off our exposition of the book of 1 Peter. Forgive me for lying last week. I said that we were going to finish it last week, so I repent, and sackcloth and ashes, we will hopefully finish it this week. So if you're following along in a pew Bible, you can find our passage on page 1017. So let's give our attention then to the reading of God's Word. 1 Peter 5, verses 8-14. The Apostle Peter says, Be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 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. By Silvanus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it. She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings. and so does Mark my son. Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ. Thus far the reading of God's word. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our Lord stands forever. And we are thankful for it, are we not congregation? Bow your heads with me one more time so that we could ask that the Lord would illumine our hearts as we come before the ministry of the word. Father God, there is an air of sobriety in the air this morning as we consider the events of the last 72 hours, Father. And there is grieving in our hearts, Lord. Even if we do not know some of the family members who have lost their lives in this senseless shooting, But at the same time, Father, there is a robust joy this morning that whatever happened on Friday is not the last word. Whatever happened on Friday, Father, is one more notch in this world's attempt to silence and snuff out the witness and hope of the Gospel of Your Son, Jesus Christ. But this morning, Father, we are here, not just we, but churches all over this country, churches all over the world, churches who are either ending their time of worship or beginning their time of worship, and we stand lockstep as those witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ through faith who declare that one day He will break through the clouds and He will bring equity, He will bring judgment, He will judge the living and the dead, and He will usher in the new heavens and the new earth. It is that eschatological hope that we cling to this morning, Father. And we know that as we cling to it, there is an enemy, there is an adversary. He is prowling about. He is roaring. And His desire is to devour our faith. But Father, help us to see this morning that that roaring is the crazed, deranged roaring of a loser. He has lost. And Father, point our eyes to the one who is the victor this morning, Your Son and our Lord Jesus Christ. For it is in His name we pray. Amen. Last week we began to consider Peter's exhortation to resist Satan and to stand firm in our faith. And I just want to say by way of introduction this morning, if I could give you a very quick sketch of redemptive history. It was in the Old Testament times that the nations dwelt in darkness. And by darkness I mean the darkness of knowledge. They did not have, by and large, the message of salvation. Because that message of salvation was given to a nation that was meant to be evangelistic, but they were not. That nation of Israel, proud as they were, sought to keep that light to themselves, keep that knowledge to themselves. In fact, they turned that evangelistic tool into a cultural transformation tool, as if to say, you want to come into the grace of God, you've got to become a Jew. But it was at the time that Jesus Christ came some 2,000 years ago that prophecies were fulfilled. Prophecies, for example, in the book of Isaiah that said that the Messiah would come upon a region in darkness, but by His very presence He would bring light. And light flooded this world 2,000 years ago. Light flooded the darkness, and the darkness was rampant. The wickedness was rampant. Isn't it interesting that when you look back on the first century, there was a concentration of demonic activity? In fact, Jesus came into a scene where people were demon-possessed, people had sicknesses and illness, and there was this concentration of demonic activity that He broke by His very presence. And it is very interesting to note that up until this time, Satan had a grip on the world. In fact, his power and authority over this world was great. But there was a point in Jesus' ministry when He said, I saw Satan falling from the skies. And we know from Revelation 20 that with the ascension of Jesus Christ, Satan has been bound. Now, after hearing something like that and then reading this text, you say, well, it's very interesting and curious to me that Satan is bound when Peter, after all, says that he's a roaring lion going about seeking whom he may devour. But keep in mind that bind in the Greek simply means limited. Satan is limited in his activities. But isn't it interesting that if you look back 2,000 years to all the nations that were in darkness, all the nations who did not know of a Savior and a Deliverer named Jesus Christ, all the nations who knew nothing about Yahweh, now those nations, through the missionary activity of the church over 2,000 years, have had light shone upon them. Missionaries who have gone into cannibal societies and by the work of the Spirit and the grace of God have completely transformed that culture with the work of the Gospel. That is the power of the gospel, that is the power of the light of truth that has infiltrated this world through the message of the gospel. But nonetheless, Satan, though he is limited, and though he looks about him and sees that he is losing skirmishes and battles all over the place, that does not stop him from continuing to work hard to devour our faith. He wants to devour your faith. He wants to devour my faith. In fact, He doesn't want us to take Him seriously. As we saw last week, one of the greatest weapons that Satan has is the theological liberals who try to tell us that He doesn't exist. Satan would have us not believe that He exists. And if we do take Him seriously and we do think that He exists, He wants to do all He can to encourage us to underestimate His schemes. However much we may detest Satan for all his raging, his raging against you, his raging against me, his raging against the world, his raging against the church these last 2,000 years that has manifested himself in the blood of the martyrs being shed, as much as we may detest Satan, there is a sense in which we should respect him. What? Respect Satan? We must respect him as a formidable enemy. We must take him seriously and stand firm against him with the power and the resources that the Lord has given us to withstand his attacks. So last week I asked a very simple question, how should we be vigilant against Satan attacks? How should we fight back? How should we stand firm? And the first thing we saw by way of review last time is that we need to know our enemy. And I won't take time to review this except to say that Satan is real. When Peter in verse 8b speaks of Satan, I failed to mention this last week, he's using a literary tool called synecdoche. And a synecdoche in literature is when you speak of the parts to refer to the whole. So sometimes we speak of suits to refer to businessmen. We're talking about something they wear to represent businessmen in general. Or we talk about soldiers as boots on the ground. We're not saying just boots are on the ground, we're talking about a part for the whole of the soldier. And so, Peter here is using Satan by synecdoche to speak of a part for the whole. Satan represents the general of the dark world, if you will, who is very savvy and has at his disposal minions and dupes and lackeys and hordes. all the demonic forces of evil. But secondly, we need to not only know our enemy, but we also need to know our enemy's schemes. We saw last week that sometimes he roars. Sometimes he comes at us with a full frontal attack. But other times, what does he do? He prowls. He works against you with your own schemes and devices. He tries to get into your head. He tries to get into your heart. So sometimes he roars and sometimes he prowls. But thirdly, we saw that we need to know our strategy for resistance. And so I asked the question, how do we resist the devil and his hordes? And the first thing we saw last week is that resisting the devil requires a sober mind. If you've been here for any length of time, here at Grace Covenant Church, you've heard me, and perhaps the other pastors as well, constantly bang the drum of being sober-minded in your thinking. What does it mean to be sober-minded in your thinking? It means, among other things, that you don't have a higher opinion of yourself than you ought. This is not a matter of self-esteem or self-image, this is a matter of reality. You need to know what you are capable of and what you're not capable of, and in that category where you are not capable of something, or you are weak in something, you need to rely on the power of the Spirit. You need to be sober-minded in the situations in which you put yourself. If you are a gossip or prone to gossip, you should not go hang out with the gossips. If you are prone to look at things with your eyes that you shouldn't, then when you go to the supermarket, you should have a battle plan for how you're going to buy the oatmeal and the diapers and everything else. We need to be sober-minded, and oftentimes, circumstances and feelings intoxicate a sober mind. We become so myopic in our thinking as to assume that my circumstances, as Pastor Ken said this morning, my circumstances are so different that they're unlike anything that any child of God in the history of the church for 2,000 years has ever experienced. And so I'm not going to find my answers in God's Word. I'm not going to find my answers in relying on the Spirit. I'm going to find my answers elsewhere. We need to be careful that circumstances and feelings do not intoxicate a sober mind. We need to remember that God has always given us, in His Word, the remedy and the antidotes to fighting against Satan. What else can intoxicate a sober mind? Pride. And this comes back to sober-mindedness. We ought not think of ourselves more highly than we ought. We ought to be sober-minded and humble as we fight against our enemy. And at the end of the day, here under this head, a sober mind is consumed with Christ. Right thinking always starts with one question. And Pastor Ken mentioned it this morning. Is Christ enough for me? Is Christ enough for me? If you get that question right, you will be able to sustain anything in life. I repeat, anything. How can I be so bold? Because Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10 that no temptation has seized you except that which is what? Common to man. And then Paul immediately goes on to speak of the faithfulness of God. God is faithful. He will give you a way of escape. You know what that means? You don't have to sin. Before you were a believer, you had to sin. That's what you do. You were a creature of habit. But Christ has broken the chains of slavery to sin, and now you no longer have to sin. We need to cling to Christ and see Him as enough. But now, secondly, in how we resist the devil, and now we're moving away from our view to our sermon this morning, resisting the devil requires watchfulness. It requires watchfulness. Peter says in verse 8a, be watchful. Now Peter knew this lesson all too well, didn't he? It was Peter, after all, whom the Lord told to watch and pray and not enter into temptation while Jesus was praying. Remember that? But what did Peter do? He fell asleep. He was not watchful. He did not take seriously enough what Jesus said. He assumed, and I think we do this too, he assumed that having the title disciple of Christ was enough. But disciple means what? Follower. And Peter was supposed to be following what Jesus had instructed him to do. Peter assumed that he was strong enough. I mean, after all, just some chapters earlier in Matthew 16, Jesus had told Peter that his confession was the rock, the rock upon which the church would be built. If that doesn't give you a big head, I don't know what else would. But this was not intended for Peter to become lax and lazy. I mean, if you're going to be, as it were, in some sense, and I underline, in some sense, the head of the church, the leader of the church under Jesus Christ, of course, if anything, you can't be lax, you can't be lazy, you need to be on guard all the time. that Peter put his guard down. He was not watchful and he was not alert. And it was not long after his fall into sleep that he was standing by a fire and he denied his Lord three times. Do you see the connection there? Not watchful, not praying, He wakes up out of his sleepy stupor and goes by a campfire and a little servant girl starts to grill him and he collapses under the weight of temptation. We need to watch our slow slide into sin. Sometimes sin and temptation, it comes fast and furiously, doesn't it? But other times it's like the frog in the kettle, right? We're just minding our own business. It's in cold water and then slowly the heat gets turned up and we don't recognize it. Why? Because we're not watchful. We're not watching our heart. We're not watching our attitude. We're not watching our tone. We're not watching our gratitude. In fact, there may not be gratitude. What we're doing is we're stewing and becoming bitter over what the Lord has not done or what other people have done to us. And instead of running to promises, instead of running to fresh grace and fresh mercy, we begin to grow bitter. Or, it's not bitterness, it's apathy. And teenagers, I can tell you from experience, as can others in this place, one of the greatest struggles as a teenager is apathy. You just don't care. There are things that are more important. And you wonder why these old people are always making a big deal of Jesus and Christ and the Kingdom and the Second Coming. But we pray that the Lord would give you a watchfulness so as to see the importance of Christ in this world. but also a cold heart toward God can be a honing device for Satan. Think about that. A cold heart toward God can be taken up by Satan and his hordes and the world and the flesh and put into service of temptation. A cold heart will always, almost always, naturally gravitate towards sin if we are not watchful. So we must be watchful. And husbands and wives, listen to your spouses when they speak to you. They know. My spouse knows me better than anybody on this planet. And she knows. It amazes, boggles my mind sometimes how she knows what I'm going to do in the next 15 seconds. She knows my attitude. She knows my rhythm. She knows my proclivities. And we were just having a conversation over dinner last night, speaking of the many and varied ways in which the Lord speaks to us through our spouses. If your spouse is telling you You seem a little apathetic, you seem cold, you seem unwatchful. We should see that and hear that as God speaking to us. But now thirdly, I want you to notice this in verse 9, resisting the devil requires communion with the saints. Look at the text. He says in verse 9, resist him, that is Satan, firm in your faith, And then he says, knowing, here's a participle, so the idea is, resist him standing firm in your faith as you know, or by knowing, by knowing what, Peter? That the same kinds of sufferings are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. Your brothers are experiencing the same thing. Now, what is Peter's point here? Peter doesn't say, you know, Peter expects you to connect the dots here, so let's connect them. Resisting Satan requires knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by the saints. You know what that means? It means that you draw close to the saints as a result. In other words, Peter's not saying, they're all experiencing the same thing, so stay away from them. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, your brethren throughout the world, starting with this local congregation here, they're experiencing the same attack from Satan and his hordes, and the result is you should draw close to them to garner your forces. You should draw close to and press into the church, as I always say, to remind you that you're not crazy. Because Monday through Saturday, for most of us, we walk in a vocation and in a world where people surround us who think we're crazy. And if we're not careful, the momentum and the gravity of Monday through Saturday can spill over to Sunday and we'll think, maybe I am crazy and so I don't want to go near those crazy people. But Peter says, they are experiencing the same things. Press into them. They are there to remind you of your inheritance. I read this a few vespers back in Ephesians 1.18, but Paul breaks out in this prayer for the Ephesians, and he says in Ephesians 1.18, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints." When is the last time you looked at your brother or sister, you peered deeply into their eyes, you had a conversation with them, and walking away from that conversation, walking away from that handshake, walking away from that hug, you were reminded of the inheritance that you have in the heavenly places? Do you know that God intended it to be that way? Do you know that God intended that this time together, Sunday, the Lord's Day, was meant to be a day when the Kingdom of Heaven comes down to earth, and through our liturgy we are catapulted, as it were, into the heavenly places where Christ is seated at the right hand? And that comes not only through the liturgy, not only through the ministry of the Word, but long after the benediction has been given, you continue to press into one another, encouraging all the more as you see what? The day approaching. You see, in the saints we get a glimpse, just a small glimpse, of our inheritance in the saints. So we push into the saints for these reasons. Also, we push into them to disabuse us from the myth that our circumstances are so unique that we need to isolate ourselves because nobody understands us, as I already said. Brethren, you would be surprised, you would be surprised if you knew what some of your brothers and sisters experience in this congregation. One of my constant prayers and the prayers of my fellow brother pastors is that this place would not be a place of superficiality. That this place would be a place where we could be real with one another. Where real sins could be put out for the brethren to hear and for the brethren to take up as burdens that they can pray for us, encourage us, exhort us, rebuke us. And that comes in the context of fellowship. You've all heard the proverb, 2717, as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens the countenance of another. And we know that, and we see that living itself out and fleshing itself out in the context of the congregation. But can I read you another proverb that I came across in my weekly Bible reading, daily Bible reading the other day? It's in Proverbs 18.1. You don't need to turn there, but just listen. The proverb says, whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire. He breaks out against all sound judgment. Isn't that interesting? He who isolates himself seeks his own desire. Now, you've often heard me talk in the pulpit about, you know, some people are extroverts and some people are introverts, and there's certainly a category for that. But you know what I fear is that sometimes, whether it's the label of extrovert or introvert or whatever label you want to slap on it, these labels can become what? Self-fulfilling prophecies. And I think some of us maybe who are more on the introvert side of the spectrum, if we're not careful, if we're not careful, we can let that become an excuse for us not pressing into the people of God, not realizing that the same kinds of sufferings are being experienced by your brethren throughout the world for two reasons, that not only that we could press into them and get encouragement from them, but that so also we can encourage them. You see, it's a two-way street. We need to be careful not to isolate ourselves, for the Proverbs says it is characteristic of those who seek their own desire. You see, we live in a generation where we want to be told time and time again that we are victims. We want to be told that it is not our fault. We want to run away from shame and run toward acceptance. But what are we forgetting? We're forgetting that the Gospel is all about acceptance. The Gospel is all about forgiveness of sins. The Gospel is all about being brought into union again with Jesus Christ and being one with the Father through Him. And when a congregation is doing what it should, it listens to the burdens of their brethren, it enters into their troubles, and it seeks to mine out the hope that the Gospel gives within those circumstances. Your brothers and sisters are enlisted saints in the service of the King. So press into them. Utilize them. Make much of them. They are your compatriots in the resistance against Satan and his minions. But now finally on this head for how we can stand firm in the faith. Consider this, resisting the devil requires standing firm by clinging to the Word. In 1 Peter 5.9a he says, The idea here is that you resist Him by standing firm in your faith. When the devil and his minions turn up the heat, we don't forget who we are and in whom we believe. We don't rely on our chariots, on our own wisdom, on our own intelligence. The Lord has given us the weapon with which we do battle. against our enemy. It is the sword of the Word of God. And we have a picture, a beautiful picture of this in 2 Samuel 23. You don't need to turn there, but let me just tell you the story of an obscure man in the book of 2 Samuel. He was one of David's mighty men. His name was Eliezer. And there was a great battle where the Philistines were coming against the mighty men of David when all the other Israelites had fled. And all who were there to withstand the attack of the Philistines was David's mighty men and at the front, Eliezer himself. And the text tells us that he rose and struck down the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand clung to the sword. And the Lord brought about a great victory that day, and the men returned after him only to strip the slain. In this battle against the Philistines, Eleazar clung so tenaciously to his sword that his hand was stuck to the sword after battle. And I would have you note that the text says that his hand was weary. That's not just some random detail. He was desperate in his weakness and he clung so closely to that sword because it is the only thing that would protect him. He knew that the moment he let go of that sword, lights out, he's done. He's going to have a sword sticking out of his heart and a Philistine boasting and gloating over him with his foot on his chest. So what did he do? He clung to that sword as tightly as he possibly can. And he clung so tightly that when the battle was over, and there was blood dripping down from every limb and every body part, and everybody was assembling one another to see if everybody was okay, everybody else put their sword in their sheath, but not Eliezer. He could not let go of that sword. Brethren, we don't have a literal sword with which we do battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Instead, what has God given us? God has given us the sword of the Word of God, Ephesians 6.16, and it is by clinging to this sword, listen, its promises, its declarations, its judgments, and its power that we can stand firm against the assaults of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Just as Eleazar clung to a sword out of desperation and hope, so it is with us. Sometimes there's nowhere else that we could turn to but anxiety or the Almighty. There is a source of power which runs straight up to heaven where Christ is. And the conqueror, Christ, is seated at the right hand of the Father. And the touchstone to get in contact with that source of power is the Word of God by clinging to it. This is what the psalmist says in Psalm 119.31. He uses the same word in the Hebrew. I cling to your testimonies, O Lord. Listen, let me not be put to shame. You don't want to be put to shame. You don't want your faith to be the center of the laughing stock of the people around you. You cling tenaciously to the sword. Listen, brethren, even when you don't have all the answers, because we don't always have all the answers, do we? We don't always have the answers. I mean, I think of this tragedy that happened on Friday, and what people want to know is how do we avoid something like this from happening again, and how do we restore things that were lost? I don't know the answers to those questions on this side of heaven, but this I do know. Christ has power over the dead. Christ was raised from the dead and He was the first fruits of we who will also be raised. And one day this world will be cleansed and eradicated of wicked and evil men and women like that man who went into that municipal building. All those promises come to us through the Word of God. And so you cling to them. In Eliezer's case, by clinging to his sword so tenaciously that when the battle was over he could not let it go, What did the Lord bring? The Lord brought victory that day. And so it is with us in our fight against Satan and his minions. We need to cling on to the promises of the Word. And Peter gives us a promise right here in verses 10 and 11. Look at verses 10 and 11. He says this, And after you have suffered a little while, 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 promises to restore you. even when you haven't won the skirmishes against Satan. Even if you've lost the skirmish against Satan, that is the power of the gospel. He restores you. He wipes the shame from off of your face and he lifts up your countenance and he gives you the righteousness of his Son. That is restoration that only comes through the gospel. What else does Peter say he will do? He will confirm and strengthen us. With every skirmish won, we see the power of the promises of God to overcome our fears, to overcome our inhibitions, and our longstanding patterns and habits. The promises not only promise grace for failures, but confirmation in victories. Finally, he will ultimately, the text says, establish us in the glory of Christ, to which he has called us in the first place. I love that. What this choice promise here tells us, dear Grace, is that the end of all these skirmishes has already been written. We win. We are those who are more than conquerors in Christ. How does that strengthen my grip on the sword of the Word in my skirmishes against Satan? In this way, in any given skirmish against sin, you tell yourself this. You ask yourself this question. Do I want to be on the losing side or on the winning side? To give in to this temptation is to throw in my lot with a damned Satan and his damned minions. But the joy of this promise is that I do not have to. I am no longer a slave to sin. The Emancipation Proclamation has gone out from the cross of Calvary 2,000 years ago in three simple words. It is finished. Jesus Christ has won the battle for us. He has won the battle and it is ours. Take hold of your inheritance as sons and daughters of freedom today. Throw in your lot with your victorious captain, Jesus Christ." We're reminded of His power in verse 11. I love this. All the dominion belongs to God. This is why John says, greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Satan knows this and that really is why he roars. The roaring of the devil is the crazed anger of defeated Satan. As long as your faith is in Jesus Christ, who defeated Satan, there is no reason to fear his ferocious roar. He is the adversary who constantly reminds us of our sins and unfaithfulness, but Jesus is the one who took the wrath for all of his people. He took the wrath for your unfaithfulness. He took the wrath for your failures. He took the wrath for your apathy. He took the wrath for your cold heart. He took the wrath for your high-handed sin. But if you repent and believe in Jesus Christ, that is the gospel, and He will forgive you. And this is why Peter says in verse 12, as he concludes this letter, he says, I have written to you all, saying this, this is the true grace of God. So to what shall you cling this morning, dear friends? I want to address you unbelievers very briefly. It's clear that when a man gets hold of a sword and grips it fast and holds it for a while, that such a thing may happen to him as happened to Eliezer. But dear unbeliever, has it ever occurred to you, has it ever occurred to you that the eager way in which you hold your sin and the long time that you have held it may produce a similar result upon you? One of these days you may be unable to get rid of those habits which you are now forming. At first the net of habits is like cobwebs and you can soon break through it, but you don't. And then later, those sinful habits are made of twine. And then later, it will become rope. And finally, it will be strong as still. And you will be fatally ensnared. Dear unbeliever, you are currently ensnared in the mouth of the lion, and he will ultimately devour you. You are hardly yet aware how strong a hold on your habits your hand has laid. They're fastening upon you like huge serpents, coil upon coil. And you've always intended, like we always do, you've always intended to only go so far and no further, but your sin has overtaken you. The only way of breaking with sin is to unite with Christ through repentance and faith. Listen to me very carefully. When you undertake a new relationship with Christ, you necessarily have a new relationship with sin. So what does your relationship with sin look like right now? Do you know how it ends, dear unbeliever? It ends in the mouth of the lion. But this morning you could look to another lion, the lion of Judah, the lion who was conquered, the lion who came first as a lamb but will come back when he breaks through the clouds as a roaring lion. And it is that lion who will judge the living and the dead. It is that lion who holds your destiny in his hands. And if you would have salvation this morning, I bid you come. Turn from your sins and come to Jesus Christ. May the Lord give us grace to do that this morning. Let's pray. Father God, we do thank you that there is a greater lion whose roar will overcome this world one day. And we pray, Father, that as we now look to that lion, Jesus Christ, in the Lord's Supper, that we would find strength, Father, as we meditate upon him, that we would find strength, Father, and a new strength, as it were, to repent of our sins and to place fresh faith in Jesus Christ, and that, Father, you would, as you are so faithful to do, renew our zeal through the sacrament of grace. Give us renewed zeal. Give us fresh mercy. Give us fresh grace. Lift up our countenance, Father, and let us behold the brilliance of your Son and our Lord Jesus Christ. In this supper we pray, in Christ's name, amen.