19 Jul Resist the devil

1 Peter 5 : 5-11

5  Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 6  Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7  casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

8  Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9  Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

10  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. 11  To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Today we will take a break for one week from the Book of Daniel; Against all odds series. I do really enjoy the series. It is just timely with what we as Christians experience in this world. We live in that tension between following the world or following God and at the same time that we have to be a good influence in our culture for sake of God’s glory. From Book of Daniel, we learned how Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego resist to bow down to babylon man-made god even if they were threatened to be dumped into the fire. Yes they resist to bow down. And, the word that we want to learn today is RESIST. How can we resist the devil? How can we resist when we are in similar tension like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?

When I was preparing this sermon and thinking about resisting the devil, somehow, my mind flashed back to my time at junior high school. There was Chinese movie about zombies. I always watched it every Saturday. The zombie was wearing chinese traditional Chinese outfit. They do not walk. They jump. Most of you are thinking “what a weird zombie”. Maybe, Ps Yosia, Jejep and Ps Sem knows what I am talking about. How the good guy stops the zombie is by putting the yellow paper with chinese mantras written on the paper and putting that on their forehead. When I think again, I agree it is a weird way to stop zombies. Another example of resisting the devil from Hollywood movies is by wearing a big cross sign on your neck. But that is not the kind of devil we want to talk about.  That’s not how we resist the devil. And, the devil that we face every day is not really that kind of devil. This is how Peter describes the devil. It is like a roaring lion. In verse 8 Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. He is like a hungry lion. He is always sneaking behind you and ready to “eat” you anytime and anywhere.  This is how the devil tries to “eat” us; he is throwing all the lies. He tempts us with all temptations. It could be sexual sins, pornography, entertainment, jeolousy and other things. Peter warns us “Resist him!”

Before we start, let’s quickly see the context. We are now at the end of a letter from Peter to suffering Christian who spread over nations. If you are a regular RSI, you are aware that the context of this letter is how Peter tried to encourage fellow Christians who suffered because of their belief. They were accused. They were rejected. Not because they did something wrong but mostly because they believe in Jesus Christ. At the end of his letter, Peter leaves his fellow believers with many practical applications because Peter knows they faced increasing pressure and the possibility of sliding back into old ways was very real. It would be very easy for them to take a short cut and stop living as Christian and back to their previous life which is becoming like the world.

Like those Christians, we also face continuous and constant battle. We face a dilemma every moment when we are in tension; whether we should trust God or give in and follow the world. We are now living in the world where we can lose our job when we stand firm in our faith. When we say “what the Bible says”, we could be in trouble. We could lose our job. We could lose our friend. We might be rejected by our family. And, it is so tempting to take a short cut; to just give in to the world. It is easy. It is less headache or possibly less suffering. Then we sugar-coated to justify our decision. Like Ps Yosia said a few weeks earlier, we put our rational reason and wise reason to justify our decision. We say “But my decision could be a blessing for other people”. Or, we say “just for this occasion. Just this. I promise”. Most of the time, it won’t be the last one.

Two (2) things that Peter wants us to remember how to resist the devil

1. Be Humble
2. Be Sober Minded

1. Be Humble
   5 Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

First one is to be humble. If we really think and compare with our culture right now, it is a bit uncommon. The devil attacks us and then Peter wants us to be humble. It seems weak. It seems defensive. Instead of being humble, we should attack him back. No, Peter wants us to be humble. Why did Peter ask Christian to be humble to resist the devil?

Before we answer that question, let’s find out what humility is. What does it mean to be humble? Let’s see how we normally use the word humility. This is how we normally use the word humble or humility, when our friend does a good piano performance and we give him a compliment and then he/she replies with a humble response “no, it is nothing compared to others”. Our response would be “wow, he is very humble”. If a person replies arrogantly “Yes, I am the best in the class”. People would say “He is not humble”. In my company, my CEO; the top boss, everytime he comes to our factory. He specifically comes to every person and says hi. I keep saying to my friend that “he is so humble”. There is nothing wrong with that. That is how the world defines humility. With that understanding, it means that there are two types of people; humble people and not really humble people. If that is the case, these verses do not belong to humble people; only for not humble one. But when Peter talks about humility here is different to how the world defines humility.  Peter talks about true humility

This true humility is for every christian. Peter says in verse 5 that Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another. Peter says all of you; clothe all of you with humility towards one another. There is no exception for every christian; they have to clothe themselves with humility.

In this verse, Peter uses interesting word to explain humility. He uses the context of clothing. It seems weird but if we do really know his point, it does make sense. It is like every morning you will spend 5 – 20 minutes picking out outfit for the day. I normally spend less than one minute choosing my clothing. Normally I pick whatever is on the top of the stack. Ps Yosia may need much longer than that. The cloth that you pick normally represents your personality or their character. You can tell whether people are K-Pop fans or not from their clothes. Therefore, Peter wants to remind us that humility must be our outfit every time and everywhere we go; not only in church; not only in MC. This is the outfit for how we talk and treat other people on Sunday in church, Monday in your work, Tuesday in your uni, every single day.

Ok, we understand the meaning of true humility and now why do we need to be humble? Why as Christian we must dress with humility. One of the straight-forward reasons from Peter in verse 5b is because “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” It is because God does not like the proud. One of the worst things that might happen to us is when God who is mighty and powerful opposes us. It is nothing worse than that. If you think that you want to resist the devil by your strength, I would tell you that it will not work. Instead of resisting the devil, you will fall into their trap. You will fall into the same sin again and again. You will into his temptation again and again. And the good news is He gives grace to the humble. God loves the humble people. Therefore, instead of relying on our strength, Peter says in verse 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God.

This verse is so important in how we understand the word humility. You might say that “I know its definition. I use it every day and I am working on that every day. I am even going the extra mile by buying a book with the title “5 steps to Humility”. Many of us define humility as something that brings us down or does not say anything or shake everyone’s hands. Those things could be true but if they are not doing it for God, it is not humility.

Most of us consider word humility as a good word. When Peter talks about humility in this chapter, he talks about true humility. What do you mean? If we are not careful, we could be trapped in what I called humility pride. We still call that humility but instead of leading us to mighty God, it leads us to pride. It is ironic because the opposite of humility is pride. But now, you are saying that you can fall into prideful sin by exercising humility.

That’s why I think it is important for us to understand the difference between true humility and humility pride. Without realizing it, we might fall into humility pride. What is humility pride? Basically, we become proud that we are humble. You humble yourselves that lift you up. You humble yourselves so that people can see that you are a humble person. You humble yourselves that you can gain honor for your own sake. We humble ourselves for the praise of others. If that is the case, I think we do not humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God but we humble ourselves under our prideful desire and that is not true humility. If you are trapped in humility pride, you will be tired, you will be frustrated because you do not get the recognition that you expect.

But the good news is true humility does not make us frustrated but joyful and hopeful. True humility is so critical when we are living in this world; when the devil tries to get into your mind; when we face a lot of tension between following the world or not; when we face tribulation because of our faith; when we face suffering. And that is the context of this letter; Christians are under pressure. They get persecuted. They are rejected because of their faith. And one of the messages from Peter in verse 6 to them is resist the devil by humbling yourselves under the mighty hand of God. To answer the question at the beginning; Why did Peter urge every Christian to humble themselves in order to resist the devil? Because when you humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, you say to yourselves that “God, I can not carry this burden! It is too heavy for me. I am weak and I want to submit my heart to You and humble under the mighty hand of God”.

Therefore, Peter says in verse 7, when we humble ourselves in midst of our suffering, it will lead to casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Church, our prideful heart stops us to cast all our worry and anxieties on God. Our prideful heart can blind us to see that God cares for you. It makes us say in our heart that “I am OK. I don’t need God”. Humility relies on our confession that we are undeserving sinners in desperate need of God’s grace. We never graduate from that. God who is almighty and powerful cares for us. What beautiful promise! When we can see that God cares for us so that we can cast our anxiety to Him, it should help us to live a life free of condemnation, free of insecurity.

One thing that we have to understand of being humble is that we can not do that if God is not in the picture. This is an important thing that we need to understand. It means that before we humble ourselves to other people or to the government or to elders of church, firstly we have to humble ourselves before God. If we tried to be humble without God in the picture, it is humility-pride. We tried to be humble so that people can see that we are so humble. Your attitude toward God will determine your attitude with other people. That is true humility. We realise that we are sinner and hopeless and we need God. Humility is about realisation of our dependence on God.  

We might be living in sin and we feel hard to resist the temptation. Why do I keep falling into the same temptation again and again? You may rely on your strength to fight your temptation. It may be the time for you to humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God and surrender to God.

2. Be Sober-minded

The second thing that Peter wants us to do to resist the devil is to be sober-minded. 8  Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. I am planning to put another word for this such as clear-thinking  but I thought it is quite important for us to understand this word because you will find this word sober-minded a few times in the bible. What is sober-minded? The opposite of the word sober is drunk. It is like Peter says that do not be drunk-minded; do not think like drunk people. I do not know whether you know this or not, what I heard is that drunk people can not think clearly. Is that true? Can anyone come forward and give testimony what you feel when you are drunk?  Drunk people can tell anything. Even they can tell all bad things about their boss in front of their face. That is what I heard. You can not even walk straight. You will keep laughing and do not stop.

Peter says when the devil tries to tempt you or when suffering hits you really hard, be sober minded! Think clearly! Have you ever faced the hardest suffering? During that time, what is first come up in your mind? Do you straight away remember God’s promise? So often, our mind is clouded with all negative thoughts. We often do silly things. We often run away from God and try to satisfy our pleasure. Peter says during that time, be sober-minded.

One of the reasons why we need to be sober-minded is we have to realise that the devil is real.

8  Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Why do we need to get reminded that we have the enemy which is the devil? When we are living in this world, we have to realise that the devil is everywhere. The devil does not have a favourite time to attack or tempt you. The devil does not see whether you have been christian for 15 years or one day. The devil does not only pick new christian. He will go after everyone; you are a pastor, you are going to bible college. Those things do not stop the devil from going after you. So, Peter says be sober minded and be watchful.

When you are living in this world, there will be lies thrown at you. The devil’s main goal is only one which is to make christian to give up their faith. Therefore Peter says in verse 9 “I want you to resist him and firm in your faith” Do not give in to him. Do not give up your faith. Especially when we are in midst of our suffering, I think that is the time when we become vulnerable to the devil. He will throw any lies into your head. At that time, Peter wants us to be sober minded; to realise those lies are work of the devil. Have none of it!

How can you tell whether it is a lie or not? You can only tell the lie when you know the truth. That’s the only way to know the lie which is to know the truth. This is one of the main reasons why we need the Gospel. This is the reason why we need sound doctrine. . We need to know the truth so that we can tell the lies from the devil.  Otherwise, we will receive anything that comes to our mind.

Here are some common lies from the devil. We normally have this thought when we are on the bottom of our life; we face suffering or problems. For example, we lose our business. We lost our job. We have misscarriage. We received bad news about our health.

Here are some common lies from the devil;

1. “God does not care about you”

I think we will face this situation where the devil throws this lie to us. “Why would God allow this?” “Does he really care?” At this time, the devil wants us to think that God has left us and that He does not care about you anymore. But the truth is, in verse 7, He cares for you. He is crazily in love with you. God loves you and He cares about you. Now the second lie from devil;

2. “You are the miserable one”

So often when we face suffering, we think “why only me?”. Then, we see other people, they seem to have a good life. We checked their instagram and compared our life. You will think that you are single out by God. It seems that God forgot about you. But Peter reminds us in verse 9  Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

Peter says that you are not single out, my brother and sister. Peter says “I want you to be sober minded and realise that there are millions of Christians in this world who are suffering like you. You are not alone in this battle.” And, at the same time, I also want you to realise that God is not surprised by those things. God has purpose in your suffering.

3. “Just do whatever you want to ease your pain. Satisfy your human pleasure. Do silly things. It will make you better”

The third one is “Just do whatever you want to ease your pain. Satisfy your human pleasure. Do silly things. It will make you better”. How often do we have that kind of thought when we are in the midst of craziest suffering? We try to run away and do silly things. Do you feel better? Of course! But it is just temporary! It seems helpful to ease your pain but in reality, it leads you to further destruction. Apostle Peter uses the word sober minded a few times in this letter. One of them is in 1 Peter 4 verse 7  The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of prayers. Church, when all negative thoughts come to your mind, apostle Peter reminds us “remember that God still hears and cares for you and we need to pray”. If I have to borrow Ps Yosia terms, we have to be active Christian at any time especially when we are in midst of our problems. Humble yourselves and pray to God. We have a tendency to be passive christian when the problem hits us really hard. We are stuck in our feelings. We are looking for a short cut. We are looking for a temporary solution. Pray to God!

How to resist the devil? Be humble and be sober-minded. When the devil throws all the lies to you, be sober-minded. But, I do not want you to go home today with wrong understanding by saying “I need to be a humble person or I have to clear my mind all times. That is my new resolution for this year”. Yes, Peter says to resist the devil we need to be humble and sober-minded. But without God in the picture, those things will become pride. I hope we understand that both points; be humble and be sober minded, have one same purpose; which is dependent on God. That is the key of resisting the devil; temptation; all his lies. We humble ourselves because we realise that we are hopeless and we need to depend on God. When we have the proper view of who God is and realise how undeserving we are, we will be overcome with humility. We need to be sober-minded because we need to keep reminding ourselves that we are just sinners that need God’s grace every single day. 

In this world, we will experience suffering so do not be surprised. This should not make us live this life complaining, grumbling or whining. Why? Because we have eternal hope and assurance. It is like we are going to war knowing that the win is waiting for us. That’s encouragement from Peter for us in verse 10 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. There is a crown of glory awaiting us. We will suffer little while in this world, and at His time, we will be exalted. When Peter says “little while” in this verse, it does not mean few weeks or few days or few years. Basically, Peter means that when we are still in this life, we will experience some kind of suffering. But why did Peter put “little while”? Because compared to eternal life, this life is just a short moment. It is like this piece of paper, this life is just like a very very very small dot in here which you can not even see. Yes we will suffer little while but then we will be restored from our brokenness, we will be strengthened from our weakness, we will be restored from our sickness. Wow! What a promise! But we can have that hope not because of what we have done. Peter clearly says 10 who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we can have that assurance. Not only that, Jesus is always with us; in midst of our suffering. He gives us strength to finish our race and crown with eternal glory. Whenever the roaring lion comes at you, humble yourselves, be sober minded and remember Jesus is with you and you can run to Him.

Conclusion

I will close with this. The devil uses everything to really grab and eat you like a lion. In this context, the devil used suffering to make Christian give up their faith but he can use anything. Whatever he uses, the purpose is the same which is to grab and eat you. The question is what is distracting you from God and  allowing the devil to come to you without you even realizing that he is taking you slowly? Is it your relationship with your boyfriend or girlfriend that makes you drift away from God? Is it your money or your job that makes you blind? It makes you blind from God and also makes you blind from Devil’s lie.

The devil will do anything to take you away from God. He will also do anything to create division or friction within the church, within the family or between brother and sister in Christ. He will make people not want to read the Bible. He will make children disrespect their parents. He will make clashes between Pastors or elders and congregations. The devil will throw all those things to us without any warning and many times we fall into that temptation. Peter reminds us in this chapter that humble yourself  under the mighty hand of God so that you can respect your parents. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God so that you can submit to elders of the church.

Be sober-minded so that you can be alert of the devil’s lie. Let your mind be filled by the Gospel so that it does not have any more space for Devil’s lies. John Piper puts it this way “Satan devotes 168 hours a week trying to deceive you. Do you think you can resist the devil with a ten-minutes glance at The Bible everyday?”. We have to be alert and be watchful and also let your brothers and sisters watch your back as well. That’s why the Gospel community is so important when we are living in this world to remind each other, to encourage or to rebuke each other.

Discussion questions:

1. When the Bible refers to the devil as our enemy, what comes to your mind? Do you think of the devil as your enemy in your daily life?
2. Gives some specific examples of how the devil could attack you in everyday life.
3. What is the difference between true humility and humility pride?
4. How does humility help us to resist the devil? Give specific examples.
5. Look at the three main lies of the enemy. Which one struck out the most for you and why?
6. How does being sober-minded help us to resist the devil? Give specific examples.
7. Spent time praying for one another so that God in his grace will help us to resist the devil.