Seeds for 06/27/2024 - 1 Peter 5:6
Scripture:
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.
Observation:
This verse is central to the Christian life and Jesus’ teaching on God’s kingdom. We find this essential teaching in Jesus’ ministry in a few contexts and we find it in the Letter of James as well.
In Matthew 23:12, Jesus is warning against hypocrisy as religious teachers and leaders. He punctuates His teaching like this: “The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
In Luke 14:11, Jesus has been teaching about how people select their seats at a banquet, instructing His disciples to take the lowest place so that they might be invited to move up. By contrast, they should not scramble for a higher status seat in case they are told they must move down. Jesus says, “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
In Luke 18:14, Jesus punctuates His short parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector who both came to pray at the temple with the same pithy instruction: “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” In His example, the Pharisee prays proudly while the tax collector prays humbly, establishing a powerful example for Jesus’ followers.
James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”
I find it interesting and compelling that Jesus taught this principle of the kingdom three different times that we have recorded in the Gospels, in three different contexts. Then, two of the most prominent leaders of the early Christian movement, James (the brother of Jesus) and Peter (the leader of the Twelve apostles), both bring a version of the phrase into their letters.
Humility is to be the default setting for Christians.
James is typically concise, but Peter makes the point with a touch more.
In all instances, there is an implicit promise that God works differently that the world. Instead of clawing and scraping for everything you get, followers of Jesus trust that their status does not depend on their own grasping but on God’s sovereign wisdom. They are not elevated by their own striving but by God’s wise provision.
This is illustrated clearly by Paul in Philippians 2.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage;
rather, He made Himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
He humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place
and gave Him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Yes, Jesus took the low place, the humble place. He was exalted in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and He will be exalted one day in the voices of every person in all creation.
Jesus’ life and ministry are the pattern of humility and exaltation that we are to trust God with in our lives too.
Peter adds two important points.
First, “under God’s mighty hand.” When we humble ourselves, we do so into the strong care of God. It’s not only choosing a way of being, it’s choosing to entrust ourselves to the Lord.
Second, “in due time.” God will lift us up. We must not apply our own time frame to it. He will do so according to His timing. Trusting Him with the lifting is trusting Him with the timing.
Application:
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, help me to trust in your strong care and your wise timing, that I may practice humility born of a growing faith in you. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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