1 Peter 5:8-11
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.
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. We are coming to the end of our series on Peter's first epistle, we've been working through it through the whole Easter season. And we've we've sort of slowly seen what St. Peter had to say to the church in the ancient world, as well as to our church today. He began by telling us that how in baptism, we receive an inheritance from Jesus Christ that is imperishable, undefiled unfading and kept in heaven for you, given to you by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Next week found out that because we are made separate given this amazing inheritance, we are called to be holy, like God is holy, to obey our Savior, Jesus Christ and follow in his footsteps. After that, St. Peter tells us that as God's church we are gathered together into a holy priesthood. He uses also the image of a church building that is founded on the cornerstone that is Jesus Christ. We talked about how Christians suffer, and that very often we suffer not because we're doing evil, but because we do good. And that's not something to flee. Peter reframed that suffering as a participation in Jesus Christ's own suffering. Last week, we talked about what it means to share our faith and give a good defense of what we believe, and how that involves not not being angry, and shouting as far as being part of any kind of cultural battle, but to focus on our vocations, and love and serve others while we share the message of Jesus Christ. And today, St. Peter returns to a theme that he has hit over and over and over again, suffering. But this time, he hits the angle, where he warns us about what Satan tries to do with that suffering. How Satan comes after us, in an attempt to pull us away from Jesus Christ. He 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 sufferings are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. St. Peter is reminding the church of his day as well as us is that the devil, Satan, whoever you want to call him, he's got lots of names throughout history is real and active in the world. Satan does stuff. He's not a figment of the ancient imagination. He is not just a force that we sort of personify. He is a real, true spiritual being who is always on the hunt, to get you. St. Peter calls him a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. I kind of get that. I have cats, and they are always looking for a bug to devour. And you see them, They stalk and they move they think they're really sneaky, but I see it. And they leap and they get it. And unlike Satan, they don't know what to do once they finally catch it.
He was really there. He was really hunting. And he knows what to do if he catches you. And we need to be aware. Fortunately, if we are aware, as St. Peter tells us, we can be just like me with my cats. They don't surprise us. We can see his work if we truly are alert. How does Satan work in our world? He's constantly there, and constantly tempting. But before we dive into that, I think it's a good idea to remind ourselves that he actually has no power to really and truly get us. Satan works as a tempter. Because the only way he can get us is if we leave Jesus's power. Jesus Christ defeated him, by going to the cross, by dying there. And by rising from the dead and ascending into heaven, he has now seated at the right hand of God, and He rules over all powers that exist. He is more powerful than any government, more powerful than any angel or demon, more powerful than death itself, he reigns over all of creation. And he's in short, which means that the devil has been defeated. When I think of this image, I often go to Psalm 23, where it talks about the shepherd with the sheep. And I think of the passage where it says, Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me, an African once explained how this image works for them in Africa. He says that shepherds in Africa have a rod, which is a giant club, and a staff, which is used to guide the sheep. And one of them is for the lion, that when the lion comes, they take the giant club and they whack him. That's what Jesus did. As long as we're in the power of Jesus, Satan can't snatch us out of Christ's hands. He's got the big club, he knows how to use it, and he protects you. The only way Satan can get us is if we leave of our own accord. If we say no to Jesus, and we turn away. And so Satan uses temptation. He uses these things to try to trick us to leave behind Jesus. Peter knew this well. In the Gospels, Peter was constantly tempted by Satan. And we see a few moments where the key of it comes. There's a time where Jesus asked the disciples, Who do people say that I am, and they run through the list. And then Peter says, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. It's a big moment, an important moment in the Gospels. And then Jesus immediately goes to say, I am going to go and die on the cross. And after three days rise, and then Peter, fresh off the big moment to saying, You are the Christ, the Son of the living, God says, No, that will never happen to you. And Peter says, Get behind me Satan. He was tempted. Peter, fresh off this power of a confession of Jesus Christ had the wrong idea of who Jesus was. And Satan pulled him in that direction. We saw it again. When Jesus was with the disciples in the upper room, sharing the Last Supper, and he says, One of you will betray Me and and he tells them all that they're going to fall away. And Peter says, No way, Jesus, even if I have to die with you, I will never betray. Peter thought he was strong. But only a little while later, when the situation had changed. Someone asked him, Do you know that guy? Peter says, I don't even know what three times he was tempted when he faced a challenging situation. Moments after he proclaimed his confidence. Satan's tempt to temptations caused him to leave Jesus behind. And Satan is constantly at work around us trying to do the same thing with you trying to do the same thing with me. And the question is, how can we defend against him? What can we do as we watch for this Rory? A lion who is looking for someone to to devour. I think, for the church, there are two important aspects for defending against Satan. One is the spiritual battle that is being done with God's grace and His power to defend us and our faith. And the other is a mental battle, trying to understand and decide and interpret what is happening in the world. The spiritual battle is the easy one. That's the one that Jesus has already won. And God defends you by Jesus's almighty power through His Holy Sacrament. And this is where Christianity actually gets very, very simple. The grace of God defends you from Satan, through the Word and the sacraments. When you hear the proclaimed word of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to you and strengthens your faith. When you receive Christ, body, and blood, he comes to you and fills you with Jesus Himself. And He strengthens you, in this fight against Satan. When Holy Baptism came to you, he united you with Jesus Christ, and gave you the amazing gift of grace. When you repent of your sins, and hear the words, I forgive your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit comes to you, and you're forgiven. And very often, these things seem really small. But there's a spiritual element to them that goes beyond what our minds can understand, deep down into that, that gift of faith that God has given you. And it is their strengthening buttressing making it firm. And when St. Peter says, Be firm in your faith, it is the faith that God gives you, that is the foundation of that through the gifts of the church that you receive. The other aspect of this is being firm in God's word. Because we can't just live as human beings on this mysterious grace. Our brains really like to make us run on one astray. Because we think a lot, you know, if we were unable to think it would actually be a whole lot easier to be faithful, right? Just let the Holy Spirit do the thing, and then your brain wouldn't get in the way. But very often, it's that that anxiety, our mind puzzling about things, that we have to rein under control, and understand the world through God's promises to make sure that we remain firm. And the key one that St. Peter hits over and over and over again, is the problem of suffering. Right? How many times in the last Easter season? Have I talked about suffering a lot? I'm kind of getting bored of it, or, you know, maybe not. And there's a reason why he puts this in so close to the Satan's temptations. Because every generation of the church has thought, Well, if God is on my side, my life should be better. Right? Our minds just do that. That's what the pagan Romans thought if you sacrifice the right sacrifices and do the right rituals, then you too, will have a good life. You can bribe God to love you. And St. Peter knows this, he says, You're going through the same thing as everyone else.
And he constantly has to reframe their sufferings not as a bad things are examples that Jesus has abandoned them, but his participation in the suffering of Christ. And we have to reframe, and understand our suffering as well. Sometime in the past, I don't know how many years the Christian church in America started saying things like if God is on your side, you're alive. If you get better, God's grace will solve your problems. And you've probably heard that right? That there is something about God that makes your life better. Satan loves that kind of thing. Because what St. Peter is actually helping us see that the devil doesn't go after non Christian. He's already got them. The world doesn't attack non Christians. They don't care. The world comes after us. We should expect our lives to be maybe a little worse. We should expect to face problems that other people don't face. I honestly don't understand how one can read the Bible and see what Jesus went through and see what St. Peter writes and think God's grace is going to make your life better. God's favor on Jesus meant suffering and dying. God's favor in the book of Acts meant being stoned and beaten and hurt and killed. God's favor with St. Peter here means that the Christian church was suffering everywhere. Being firm in understanding these things, means that when that happens to us, we don't say, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. My life's not supposed to be like this. It means we can say, Oh, yeah. This is what Jesus promised. What a surprise. And when we understand God's promises, when we really focus in on what Jesus has to say, we can be ready for what Satan throws out. When he tries to tempt us, we can say no, no, this is what God says. When he tries to throw up contradictions, we can say, no, no, no. This is what God says. And we can rest firm and true in his promise.
This is why I'm so picky. You may have noticed about doctrine,
about our teaching, why I want to be so clear about what the actual Bible says about our actual law. Because what Satan really likes, is when a false idea creeps into the church, and it doesn't match reality. And then what he does is he goes, this doesn't match. And he lets it work in your mind. And not you and tug at you. Until you go, Oh, yeah. God's promises must not be true. It's why I focus so hard on making sure we understand exactly what the Bible says. And think about exactly what the teachings of the Church so that we can truly understand what God is telling us about our lives. We need to be able to interpret reality, the way God does, to be able to understand what happens and say, Yes, I was expecting. The joy of this is that even though we, we ended up suffering a little in the church, even though we ended up having to work hard to understand these teaching, is the promise that St. Peter tells the people of his day, right after this where he says, 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, comfort, strengthen, and establish. You see, as we face down the devil and all his Wiles and temptations and all the problems. We know that God of grace has a problem. This restoration, conformation, strengthening and establishing. We know that he is coming and He will raise us on the last day and that there is nothing that we face now. Whether suffering or Satan, that can diminish and that is the piece that we cling to, with the hope of Jesus Christ. In his name amen
Transcribed by https://otter.ai