Genuine humility is demonstrated through service to others and worship of God. Peter's commands in 1 Peter 5:5-6 outline two aspects: clothing oneself with humility for mutual service within the Christian community, and humbling oneself under God's mighty hand, recognizing His sovereignty. The sermon illustrates these points using examples like Paul's dedication to the Corinthian church despite their failings and Elijah's encounter with God after his self-pity. True humility arises not from self-abasement but from an awareness of God's greatness, leading to worship and a proper perspective on one's own significance.
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So keep these in mind. We're dealing with a subject of humility. Last week we started with Luke chapter fourteen and what our Lord had to say there, an instruction on the subject of humility. And from there we moved to various places and especially our minds are centered tonight as we conclude on first Peter chapter five beginning at verse five. Likewise ye younger submit yourselves unto the elders. May all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility. For God resists us of crowd and give us grace to the humble.
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him for he carers for you. May the Lord bless his words. Let us pray together. Our Father, as we bow in our holy presence, we thank you for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for your long-suffering and your patience with us. Truly you are long-suffering and patience unto thine own. For you could have cut us off when we were living in sin. You could have sent us to an lost eternity, but all how patient you were with us.
And we stand amazed at your love and grace manifested in Christ Jesus our Lord. We thank you tonight that we can pray one for another. We pray for the Alexander family tonight there in Raleigh. We ask you to give the brethren who are going to speak words tomorrow. wisdom that what they say will certainly honor these and draw sinners to yourself. But above all else, glorify our Lord Jesus Christ, who has brought life and immortality to life through the gospel.
Truly, if in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most pitiable. But we thank you, our Father, that Christ is risen from the dead, He is the first fruits of them that slept, and He has triumphantly conquered on behalf of all His people, and we follow in His train. We have the promise that nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We praise you for it. We pray for these other needs. We think especially as this test tomorrow on this day with. We ask you to graciously rule and overrule, calm hearts, and may it please thee, our Father, to work that which is well pleasing, that will glorify thyself, and that all the relatives involved will get a fresh glimpse of what it means to do what we read tonight.
in thy word, casting all our care upon him, for he careth for us. We also pray for Lisa Morel's child, and ask you to graciously undertake them. For all the others on our prayer list, we ask, O God, that thou wilt work in and through us for the honor and glory and praise of thy dear name. We ask tonight concerning the turmoil that exists around the world. Man is so self-centered and full of self-love, as thy word declares, in the last days perilous time shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, proud boasters, disobedient to parents, and all the other things.
And these conditions exist, and they're getting worse by the day. but especially we pray for the work of the gospel. For the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. And you have given to this generation a whole church to evangelize the whole world. It is well pleasing to you to save them that believe. But they believe because somebody tells them nothing. They believe and call upon thy name. because the message goes out and you use men and women to tell the message.
Make us mindful of this and help us, our God, to be involved in the building of our church worldwide. We just thank you for the privilege of asking these things. And when we think of this, we pray for the outreach of this assembly to our missionaries that we support. When we think of WHPE and the Bible Broadcasting Network, this basically benefits us. When we think of a precious child ministry, we think of that which can reach hearts of those that realize that sin does have its results.
And we pray for those who counsel and work with them, for Sarah Murdoch in Bolivia. and West Stephan and Mariana. For Mr. Leighton, for Nora Patterson, for all our dear friends who are scattered, who are carrying the gospel to the ends of the earth, we commend them to you. You're able to enable them to walk worthy of thyself unto all pleasing and to be fruitful in every good work. May this be true in all lives. Clothe us, our Father, with humility, not simply with words.
For Jesus' sake, amen. This subject of humility is a large subject. In First Peter, chapter five, in verse six, and in verse five, we find that humility is clothed with two commands by Peter. In verse five he says, clothe yourselves with humility one toward another. And this suggests a tie of service of God that we bear toward one another as we seek to serve one another. And this is like the yoke of Matthew chapter eleven verses twenty eight to thirty.
So our Lord says, my yoke is easy and my burden is hard is right. And the reason for it is because our Lord is meek. and lowly in heart. But then the second command of Peter, in First Peter chapter five, here we find this command where he says, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. This is nurtured in an awareness of the greatness of God. In other words, this is a call to worship rather than service. Here is humility that grows out of worship. Now these two concepts we want to look at tonight from First Peter chapter five, we want to look at them.
How do we do it? He says, clothe yourselves, all of you with humility one toward another. How do we do it? You see, every one of us who is a believer, we're bound to our world. Each of us lives in our own little world. We go different directions every day. And we're bound to our world by occupation. We're bound to our world in one way or another. And with all its imperfections. And we're bound to it in another way. We're bound to it in order that we might redeem it by proclaiming the gospel to men.
And you and I become responsible... for that little world in which we operate, to which we are joined in one way or another. We are to redeem it for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now first of all in verse five where he says, all of you be subject one to another and be closed with humility. We find in this chapter that here humility is bound to the idea of Christian service. I want you to turn to Second Corinthians chapter twelve. How far does this go? How far are we bound one toward another in Christian service?
Chapter twelve of Second Corinthians in verse twenty. Paul opens his heart to the Corinthian church in his second epistle and he says to them, For I fear that when I come, I shall not find you as I would. Paul would like to see the church going on for God and manifesting the graces of our blessed Lord. And as Augustine put it, the first virtue of the Christian is humility. The second virtue is humility. The third virtue is humility. And Paul would like to see this, but instead he's so afraid going to find a church that he's puffed up and anything but humble.
And therefore he says, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not. He's so afraid that they're going to see in Paul. He's going to have to discipline them. He's going to have to say things to them that he'd rather not say. And he says, let there be debate, envying, rare, strife, backbiting, whispering, swelling, tumult. And then he adds, unless when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.
What is Paul really saying when he says, God may humble me before you? Was Paul saying that he wasn't humble? No, he's using the idea here of Christian service. Paul is linked to these people in their failures. He had gone to Corinth. He had plowed new ground. He brought the gospel there. And he says, though you have many instructors, you only have one father. Through Christ Jesus, I have begotten you by the gospel, he said to them. And he's linked to these people. His heart is united with these people.
And because of the sin and because of their man-centeredness instead of God-centeredness, he says, it's going to reflect heavily upon how I act when I'm in your presence. And God may humble me before you. At Corinth, the price was such. that Paul says he's humbled, he's clothed with humility, and if because of these tithes he will not break with a people in his ministry to them. In other words, he's going to be faithful to them, no matter what it costs. Genuine humility.
You see, the form of a servant, and in Luke fourteen, our Lord said, if any man would be great, let him be a servant. You have a desire to be great? Serve others. The form of a servant cannot be accepted without the clothing of humility. It just can't. John Chrysostom, who was one of the early church fathers, he started his Christian experience in a monastery. And he realized that he was very selfish in a monastery. Very selfish. He said, all I was working for was the salvation of myself.
But God called us to serve others. And that great preacher of the early Christian church, he went back to where he was. He left the monastery and he labored among God's people at Enoch. He refused independence. He refused it. He accepted the work of redemption through the proclamation of the gospel. This lies at the heart of genuine humility. Clothe yourselves, Peter says, with humility, and this as reference to serving one another in the Christian community. But when in the next verse, in First Peter chapter five, he says, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.
I'll never forget when I've met Stan Ford the first time. We preached together at a conference in Columbia, South Carolina. And he told a story I'll never forget. He told of this sea captain who had a number of young men that he was disciplining in the things of the Lord and they'd meet together for Bible study and prayer. And he never lost the fact that he was a captain at one time. He knew how to bark out orders. And of course, in the course of the men were on their knees praying, and one of these young men prayed, O Lord, humble us. And the old sea captain barked out, O Lord, don't answer his prayer.
And that's why he just interrupted his prayer. He said, Lord, don't answer that prayer. And then the young fellow was quite embarrassed. And after they were finished praying, he said, why did you do that? He said, young man, don't ask the Lord to humble you. That can be the worst experience you ever have. Because if you read the book of Daniel, how God humbled Nebuchadnezzar when he was proud, it was a terrible experience. But he said, God instructs you to humble yourself. Humble yourself, the scripture says, under the mighty hand of God. And in James chapter five, this same truth is brought to us.
You see, when we read that expression, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, this is where genuine humility grows. How so? Well, the mighty hand of God speaks of the greatness of God, and it puts the greatness of man in a position with the greatness of God, and any man who has ever looked rightly at the greatness of God is humble. If the sovereignty of God doesn't humble you, nothing will. Nothing humbles a man like the greatness of God. At the same time, it is the hand of God which the humble man realizes will lift him up.
Nothing will lift you but the hand of God. What do we read in the Psalms? Promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the west. nor from the south, but from the Lord. But from the Lord. It comes from the Lord. Now this is seen in the flight of Elijah in I Kings chapter nineteen. Elijah had preached and he had preached a strong word to Jezebel and to Ahab and he announced that there was going to be no dew nor rain and there was going to be a drought for a period of time according to his word, and it lasted two and a half years.
Furthermore, after the drought was over, he shamed the prophets of Baal in a mighty demonstration on Mount Carmel, First Kings chapter eighteen. But then he runs from Jezebel and melancholy sets in upon this man, Elijah. Turn to First Kings chapter nineteen, and we want to read a few verses. First Kings Nineteen. Elijah begins to look at himself. And he says in verse ten. And he's speaking to the Lord. In answer to the end of verse nine.
Where God says to him. What are you doing here Elijah? In verse ten he says. And he said. I have been very jealous for the Lord. God of hosts. For the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant. Throne down thine altars. And slain thy prophets with a sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away. And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by. And a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and breaking pieces of rocks before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
And after the earthquake a fire, that the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and were not, and stood in the entering end of the cave. And behold, there came a voice unto him and said, What are you doing here, Elijah? God didn't change his tomb. He didn't change his crept. God revealed his mighty power. You see, Elijah is complaining of self-pity before the Lord. He is the only one left, he says, who is true to God.
And he knew better than that. He knew better than that. Because when he went to show himself under Ahab, he met a man by the name of Obadiah. And the scripture says of Obadiah that he feared the Lord greatly, for the more he had been used of God to hide safety of the prophets of the Lord in a cave, and he fed them from Jezebel and Ahab's table. He's the first one that God showed Elijah to. Elijah knew that he was not alone. But when soft pity and melancholy take over a person, their view of God And what he needs to see is the mighty hand of God.
And do you notice that once he saw the mighty hand of God, it was far greater than all the duties to which God had called Elijah. Far more. You see, Elijah's humility follows. We're not going to take time to read it. But there's more to be seen in his trek back north where he had run from. and in his renewed confidence in God. You see, humility does not grow out of self-abasement, but it grows out of an awareness of the fact that over life stands the mighty hand of God.
And when we see the mighty hand of God, there's a fire, there's a wind, there's the earthquake, but God wasn't in either, but he was in the still small voice. And the mighty hand of God is found in the still small voice of his precious word that he wants to speak to us, his children in. You see, his hand is greater than all our problems. And God wants us to see that. Humble yourselves where? Under the mighty hand of God. This is a command to worship. Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle.
Elijah was scared. I believe I'd be too. I watched a storm two nights ago and I thought of Job. I walked to the front. We've had a number of tornadoes around. And when it began to rain and the wind was blowing strong, I saw the rain coming this way. And then I saw the rain coming this way. I thought, now how can I come this way and come this way? Something has to be going around. And I looked at the trees and they were swinging this way at the top. And I tell you, it makes the chills go up and down your back.
The Lord spoke to Job out of the whirlwind tornado. That must have been an awesome speech. No wonder Job said, I repent in dust and ashes before the Lord. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. Now we have another man to consider. He's a man of Psalm eight. Turn to the Psalm eight. Verse one, O Lord, O Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, and who hath set thy glory above the heavens?
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, thou hast ordained strength, because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens the work of thy fingers, the moon, and the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that thou visitest him, for thou hast made him a little lower than Elohim. Thou hast made him a little lower than God. If you read the original on this, the word is Elohim. Thou madeest him a little lower than God, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madeest him to have dominion over the works of our hands, and has put all things under his feet.
You'll notice when you read Psalm eight, there's nothing in this Psalm that calls man a worm, or as rotsum as a toad, as it does in some other passages in Scripture, where it speaks of man's awful depravity in the presence of God. But in Psalm eight, man is placed as a little lower than God. And there are words of worship. This Psalm begins with the words, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is not man, but thy name in all the earth, and it ends with the same words. Here we have the greatness of man. But there is someone here that is much greater than man. It is God who created man.
It is God who gave man the distinction of having dominion. It is God who made man a little lower than himself. And it is this knowledge that brings us into humility and that brings us to worship. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. Humility is a virtue that's very elusive. It's like the little boy who was in a fog. And he was trying to catch the fog in his hands, in his glass hands, and then he looked in to see if he still had the fog. But it was gone.
And that's how humility is. That's how humility is, you see. You can't hold the fog. And you can't hold humility. And you can't keep humility in isolation. Humility is always seen in a true relationship that Peter talks about. In service to others in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And second, in worship to God as we see him who is sovereign above all. And we realize how little we really are. And we humble ourselves under His mighty hand.
This is the humility our Lord speaks about in Luke. This is the humility that Peter commands in First Peter chapter five.