Grace Baptist Church, Nokomis, IL.

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There’s only one phrase left to talk about in 1 Peter 5:7 – the last two words of the verse.

Jesus not only cares for all people, He cares for you specifically. The message of the gospel isn’t merely for everybody in general, it’s for you specifically. I wish I could sit down with each one of you one on one and tell you how much Jesus cares for you. It seems like the intimate, personal touch of Christ’s love gets forgotten when preached before so many people. Imagine that you’re the only person I’m talking to right now when I say this: God loves you.

I want to back up a couple verses, though, because there’s an important aspect of this that we haven’t talked about yet that’s absolutely crucial to our understanding of how we cast our cares upon the Lord.

“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.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your cares on him, because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:5-7)

First, I want you to notice the relationship between verse 6 and verse 7. In the original language, these two verses make one sentence. I’ve been treating verse 7 as if it were a command in itself. But it’s actually a very practical way to apply a previous command, written right before it.

There’s one concept in verses 5-6 that we must all practice in our lives: humility. Humility is brought up twice in these two verses. Verse 5 tells us to be humble toward one another. Verse 6 tells us to be humble before God.

Being humble toward one another means serving each other. Philippians 2:3 tells us to consider others as more important than ourselves. The next verse tells us to look out for the interests of others. Have you ever been in a grocery store, just getting a couple things, and everyone in line lets you get in front of them because you just have a couple things? We might just say that they were being nice, but really they were practicing humility. They were putting your needs above their own.

Being humble before God means realizing who we are in relation to God. God created everything, including us. Since God created us, we are His. And since we are His, we’re to serve Him. How do we serve God? We serve Him by obeying His Word. We serve Him by serving the people around us.

Humility is a characteristic that’s largely ignored by those outside the church. Why should we consider others better than ourselves? Why should we serve others as if we were serving God? If you don’t believe in a God, then humility doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. People who put themselves first in the world generally get better jobs. People who don’t mind ignoring the needs of others get to keep all of their money and things for themselves.

But these verses give us two huge benefits to practicing humility. God gives grace to the humble. God will exalt the humble when the time comes.

If you are to receive God’s grace, you must be humble. I’m not so much talking about your actions, but about your attitude (although your actions will reflect your attitude). Someone who is proud says to God, “I don’t need you, or anyone! I can do just fine on my own!” But someone who is humble says to God, “I need you. I need Jesus to forgive me. I need Jesus to live through me. I need you to take away all my sins, and all my burdens, because I can’t handle them on my own.” When you do that, trusting in God and not in yourself, God gives you His grace.

Once you have God’s grace, continue to be humble. Wait on the Lord, and when the time comes, He will exalt you. He will change you from a lowly sinner into a perfect saint. This happens when we go to live with Jesus forever in Heaven. But even there, when we’ve made perfect, we’ll have no reason to boast. We will only be there because of the grace of God.

The gospel is very simple. God is holy, and we’re sinners. We all deserve death and Hell because of our sin. But God loves us, and made a way for us to not go to Hell, but to Heaven instead. God did this by sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins.

Humble yourself today, trusting in what Jesus did for you on the cross, and God will give you grace.