Here is God’s truth: Because of our hope of future glory, Christians will endure the fiery trials of this life. Peter sees two major provisions for the Christian for our perseverance. Firstly, in verses 6-7, we endure trials by a God-trusting and humble disposition. Secondly, we endure Satan’s siege on our souls in the midst of suffering by vigilant opposition in verses 8-9. However, that might raise the question, “are we in our trials basically alone?” but Peter writes verses 10 to 11 to assure us that we may finally rest in the promises of an all-powerful God.

First Peter is written by the Apostle, Simon Peter, to the churches in the northeast of the Roman Empire. We know very little about what was going on in these churches other than that they were suffering (1 Peter 2:12; 4:2, 12). Peter urges that they continue to commit themselves to God’s holiness despite this and that they love one another.

Chapter 5 begins with an exhortation to follow and obey God’s appointed leadership in the church, and Peter grounds that argument in a citation of Proverbs 3:34. This verse, showing the priority of humility in the Christian life, also serves to segway Peter into the conclusion of his whole letter - our sermon text for today.

1 Peter 5:6 appears to be a reflexive imperative in most translations, but this is a passive command in the original language. It is not as if we are something very great, and we ought to step down from our position of great esteem, but rather, we must accept the fact that we are humbled by God “under His mighty hand”. We see this same passive command of “humble yourselves” in the Greek Septuagint's rendering of Jeremiah 13:18 where the prophet points out that the King should step down from his throne because his crown has already fallen off of his head.

So let’s use Jeremiah’s illustration. When you suffer - due to evil-doers or this fallen world - it is nonetheless foreordained for you by God. Your suffering reveals that you are not the Creator, but rather a creature. God ordains the circumstances of your life to reveal your dependence upon Him. You could, as Israel’s King did, remain on your throne and think yourself very great, but your crown has already crashed to the floor! The writing is on the wall! You are suffering because you are being humbled, so, humble yourself.

“But why?” you might ask. 1 Peter 5:6 describes an exaltation at a future time; that time, for Peter throughout this letter, is the return of our Lord in glory. This time is the “last time” from 1 Peter 1:5, where the object of our faith will be revealed. Peter states this alternatively in 1 Peter 4:13. Suffering now, glory at the return of the Lord. That is the Christian’s expectation.

That is also the pattern established for us in the life of Jesus. Jesus endures the cross, despising its shame (i.e. he suffers) for the joy that is set before Him (Hebrews 12:2). In order to endure suffering in the time of his humiliation, Jesus considered - dwelled upon - always set before his eyes - where this was all going. If you now believe that the Lord will vindicate you in Christ on the Last Day, you can now endure your humiliation, your suffering, and your trials.

Our acceptance of God’s humbling of our souls should lead us to rely on Him for daily provision. 1 Peter 5:7 shows a specific implication of how we ought to humble ourselves: We trust in God. As human beings, we have an inbuilt desire to flee from suffering, and that is usually good - it is a recognition of what the created order ought to be and was before the Fall. Unavoidable suffering, as we have already seen, ought to be accepted as the humbling of God upon our souls, but what about possible suffering? The idea of possible suffering manipulates our hearts to a profound sin that is often overlooked and downplayed: Worry. Worries about the future must be cast upon the Lord, because - our text says - “He cares for you.” That is a present and continuous action of God. He cares for his children. He provides for their needs, and where we would be exhausted, God has not yet begun to deplete his power.

So, fellow parents, there is a word for us here. The older we get, we discover that the cares which once seemed so dreadful, are nothing compared to the ones ahead of us or the uncertainties that remain unresolved. Where does this more poignantly appear than in our care for our children? Oh, that they might know the Lord; Oh, that they might avoid the sinful snares which so damaged us; Oh, that the Lord might preserve their lives. The list goes on. If you don’t commit those concerns to the Lord, they will become sinful worries. Charles Spurgeon illustrated the wisdom of this when he wrote:

So first, as we examine this warning, let’s assess the threat. Peter writes in 1 Peter 5:8 that the threat is Satan, one with whom the Christian has no common ground and no agreement. He is opposed to us in every way; because he is opposed to God. Peter compares Satan to a “roaring lion” (his action) who is “looking for someone to devour” (his purpose). This lion isn’t sneaking. He is roaring, and what do you do when you hear a roar? You flinch. Don’t forget: we are in the context of suffering, but suffering is not the greatest danger, Peter says. The suffering (aka Satan’s roar), is used by Satan to cause the Christian to flinch, give up, to be swallowed up - abandoning the faith. I will come back to this later, but take notice right now, that animals do not survive being swallowed by lions. Satan’s aim is not merely to maim us, but rather to utterly destroy us, murdering us eternally. Satan’s ideal situation is that suffering for the sake of Christ will convince Christians that staying in the faith is not worth it - to convince us that present suffering outweighs future glory.

A favorite novel of my teenage years was a book by Frank Herbert called “Dune”. In this book, the protagonist, Paul, goes through a test where he must keep his hand in a box, or else the woman testing him will poison him and kill him. She promises this from the beginning. The problem is that the longer his hand stays in the box, Paul has the sensation that it is being cooked, burned, and finally incinerated. However, Paul is convinced that it is a trick. He keeps telling himself, “Fear is the mind-killer,” and that mantra convinces him to endure until he takes his hand out of the box, unharmed. He didn’t flinch. But Christian we have a better mantra to endure suffering: “Jesus is worth it.”

Dear brothers and sisters, I wonder how you receive warnings like this in God’s Word. The Bible is full of them, and there are 4 approaches that I would like to consider with you.

First, we could say, “aha! The Bible warns me not to lose my salvation, so, therefore, Christians can lose their salvation, otherwise, the Bible wouldn’t warn me about that.” The problem with this is that God’s promises are unbreakable, and Peter is going to underscore that for us in a moment in 1 Peter 5:10-11.

A second option might say, “Well, I know that Christians can’t lose their salvation, so this must be for the benefit of those who really aren’t born of God, or at least not yet.” But this is a warning for the elect not to lose their salvation. Peter, addressed this letter to the elect exiles in 1:1 and began 5:8 with “Be sober-minded, be alert.” What is that if not the preface of a warning for someone who has something to protect? So if the recipients of this warning are the elect whose salvation is certain, then neither of these first two options will do.

A third way, for which I have much respect, is to say that many such warnings in the Bible, this one included, refer to losing some degree of heavenly reward or incurring some penalty of temporal backsliding. But remember when I was speaking about Satan’s attack? His aim is to swallow up. Prey does not survive being swallowed up. Appealing to this third way is ultimately an appeal to a larger theological system, for which I see no support in this text.

So we need a fourth way to read warnings, and it must be consistent with three facts:

So how ought we to respond to Peter’s warning? According to verse 9, we oppose him by being steadfast in the faith. In 1993, when Southern Seminary was ripped out of the hands of theological liberals, Al Mohler gave a convocation speech entitled, “Don’t just do something, stand there.” By that, he meant, and also our text means that immovability is something part of true faith. Again, we return to this idea, “don’t flinch”. The Christian endures the onslaught of Satan by immovably believing God and his Word. The word translated as “steadfast” also has a military application in Peter’s day; namely, it referred to a compact military formation. It is a phalanx’s act of defense against the onslaught of the enemy, and we shouldn’t overlook that all these commands are written in the plural. Peter is proscribing personal immovability and group unity in trusting God’s promises.

Your local church is also a means that God uses to keep you in the faith. And Satan hates churches. We might like to think that the Church is primarily under attack by COVID lockdowns, and various kinds of externally imposed sufferings, but those can’t destroy faith nearly as easily as disillusionment, distrust, or division. We become disillusioned with church activities because they can’t deliver what we want right now. We distrust our fellow believers or our elders because they respond differently to our sufferings. Or worse yet, we divide and go separate ways due to unresolved tensions. Brothers and sisters, hear 1 Peter 1:22; because of God's love for us in Christ, we ought to love one another out of pure hearts. Stand fast next to your brethren when you are under attack.

Peter’s final bit of warning is to assure us that suffering for the cause of Christ is a universal phenomenon. Do you hear the echo of the High Priestly Prayer in 1 Peter 5:9? Read the petition of the Lord Jesus in John 17:14-18. We suffer in the world because Christ first suffered, but the Lord Jesus prayed for us in advance that God might preserve us from Satan's attack.

It seems that Peter was a good student of our Master. Christian suffering is neither pointless nor surprising but is found in every true expression of Christianity throughout all time and in every place. This knowledge should comfort us in the way that one biblical scholar writes,

Those who believe that Christianity is a pathway to fame, fortune, or some other fantasy pervert Christian truth and disparage the honor of Christians throughout the ages. If there is no Christian suffering, there is acquiescence to the world, and wherever Christians go, they will suffer, but as verse 10 shows us, it is only for a short time.
Think also of the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 7:14. Our sufferings are light and momentary, but eternal glory breaks any scale of comparison.

Now before we examine our final verses, let’s remember both our provisions in God’s armory for enduring suffering. First, we saw that a humble disposition of trust toward God delivers us from worry. Second, we saw that the Lord’s warning compels our vigilance and unflinching faith in the face of Satan’s murderous persecution. But that’s not the end of the matter. Human responsibility is important for Peter, but so is divine sovereignty.

Let’s see what kind of God we are talking about. In 1 Peter 5:10, He is the “God of all grace,” a grace that had two major expressions in Peter’s letter: grace for present provision and future salvation. He is also the God of “power forever and ever” in verse 11. Our God is a God who is capable of delivering what he promised. And if you thought that your salvation is all up to you, and God isn’t committed to saving those who repent and trust in the Lord, think again. See the end of verse 10? “[He] will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast..” Peter is hammering home a point at the conclusion of this letter.


Dear brother - dear sister - there is a kind of Christianity that wakes up in cold sweats obsessing about heresies, suffering, and persecution. But that isn’t biblical Christianity. Let's consider Psalm 127:1-2. On the one hand, obsessive worry would be like a watchman on the wall who is overcome with the constant dread that the enemy might breach the gates and destroy the city. That watchman becomes rather useless because he destroys the troop’s morale, and never sleeps but is always tired. But being watchful, on the other hand, is like the watchman who rises early to study enemy troop movements, works diligently to train his men for battle, aggressively protects the morale of those under his care, and finally entrusts all his labors in prayer to the Lord God.

If you can go to sleep with the peace of the Lord, then you are a far better tool in his hand in the morning. Be watchful - yes! Contend for the faith - yes! But sleep in the assurance that God’s purposes are not up for grabs.

Fellow watchers on the wall, God will follow through on his promises merely “after you have suffered a little while” (1 Peter 5:10). And Friends, if you are here today, and you have never suffered because of the name of Jesus, I would like to remind you of the word of the Lord in John 15:20. As sure as Jesus suffered, his followers will also suffer. If that sounds foreign to you, I would ask you to consider whether you are truly in Christ.

We have a precious promise in 1 Peter 5:10 where Peter describes God as “[He]who called you to his eternal glory in Christ.” The eternal glory of God can permit no evil in His sight because He is wholly good. And every human being has fallen short of God’s standard of moral perfection, we have loved the created instead of the Creator; we have treasured our sins instead of God’s law. He would be just to condemn us, but instead, he has sent his only Son - the Lord Jesus Christ. He lived the perfect life that none of us did, he died in our place receiving the penalty that we all deserve, and on the third day, he rose again from the dead for our justification and ascended into heaven. Now, you must trust in Him to save you and you must turn from your sins. If you do that, God will credit his perfect life to you. His death pays for your sins. His resurrection ensures your resurrection from the dead, he becomes your forerunner into the very presence of God.

I have given you many reasons to consider the cost of discipleship today, but I pray that this truth would move you to trust in Christ: "If we suffer with Him, we will also reign with Him. But if we deny Him, He will deny us" (2 Tim 2:12).
That juxtaposition brings us back to martyrs we discussed earlier who will help us to remember God’s Word to us today.

Return with me now to 155 AD. The cries for Germanicus’ bishop would eventually lead to his capture. That bishop was Polycarp of Smyrna. While Polycarp initially fled from his persecutors, he was finally captured, he was urged to curse Christ to save his own life. His response to the Roman authorities was this: “For eighty-six years I have served him, and he has done me no evil. How could I curse my king, who saved me?” As they threatened him with being burned alive, he retorted that such torture would be only fleeting, but the eternal fire never goes out. When Polycarp was tied to his pyre, he is reported to have prayed, “Lord Sovereign God… I thank you that you have deemed me worthy of this moment… For this I bless and glorify you.”

I began this sermon by telling you that the seed of the Serpent will by nature, persecute Christ and all who are in Him. But suffering has an expiration date, and His name is Jesus. Even when he could have commanded 10,000 angels to His side, He humbled Himself to the point of death. By His suffering, he inflicted a mortal blow upon the suffering of the people of God.

Friends, we have seen that sanctified suffering is the gateway to glory. I doubt that many of us will be called to martyrdom, but can promise that all who are the Lord’s will suffer for His name. So, make use of God’s provisions. Accept the humbling of yourselves and trust God to provide you the necessary grace at the right time. Heed the warnings of the Lord that Satan aims to destroy your souls. But finally rest in the knowledge that your inheritance is safe in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. All mankind experiences suffering, but the children of God are counted worthy to suffer for the Name.
Amen.