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LAMBS NEED A SHEPHERD TOO!
It had been going on for an entire week and
I was tired of it. I understood it all too well as did everyone else
and yet it kept coming up. It had to stop. After all, the issue
had been looked at from every angle, hashed and rehashed, and still the math
teachers at Chandler High School spent their lunch time chewing on it.
Hence, I e-mailed the following memo to the
entire department. Or rather, I created the e-mail and had Lora Matzen,
the current head of the department, send it out early Monday morning under
her name. It read:
Hi All,
It has come to my attention that even though
Jacque (a math teacher at CHS) was appointed the new chair the district is
seriously considering asking a single individual to be the "Department
Head" for all four high schools. He or she would spend some time
at each school during the week with periodic and frequent evaluations at random. Also,
as I understand it, supplies would be centrally located at the Instructional
Resource Center.
I will attempt to verify whether or not this
is actually the case and get back to you at lunch time for your input. Think
about it!Serving to the end,
Lora
Guess what! As of last Monday morning
the math teachers were no longer grumbling about what had consumed them for
a week. They were now up in arms about how stupid the district office
can be at times and are in a fighting mood.
So what was I trying to accomplish? I
was trying to change the conversation. You see, no matter how hard we
try we cannot keep people from talking about something. But what we can
do is change the conversation! We can give them something else to talk
about at lunch time. But more importantly, when we change the conversation
we change the direction things are headed.
Perhaps this is what Peter was hoping to accomplish
when he e-pistled the lambs in I Peter 5:5 - 11, after he had addressed the
elders in the first four verses. We read:
Young men, in the same way be submissive to
those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one
another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 6
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you
up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the
devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9
Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers
throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
And the God of all grace, who called you to
his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself
restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 11 To him be the
power for ever and ever. Amen.
It is important to keep in mind that the church
in Asia Minor was the suffering church. It was in the midst of a painful
trial which had caught some of them off-guard. Consequently it is very
possible, probably likely, that their conversations revolved around what was
happening to them. They were undoubtedly perplexed and agitated by current
events and this must have been reflected in their conversations.
So after addressing the shepherds in vv. 1 -
4 of chapter five Peter addressed the lambs. In particular he told the
young men, the ones most likely to be promoting a radical agenda so as to thwart
those who were persecuting the church, to listen to the seasoned wisdom of
the elders.
For you see, they were probably on the verge
of asserting and inserting themselves into the political arena and Peter told
them that they needed to stop and think through things. In particular,
they needed to invite God and the elders into the conversation. They
needed to have a better grasp of the big picture before jumping into the fray. Otherwise,
they would end up being casualties - perhaps of friendly fire, perhaps of unfriendly
fire. But what would it matter? In the end, they would still be
casualties.
So Peter advised the young men to be submissive
to the elders. He then advised everyone to cloth themselves with humility
toward one another. In the context of some painful trial, I think this
means being quick to tie an apron over our clothes so as to serve one another
at a time when everyone is hurting or is perplexed by recent events. At
a time when many must have thought they needed to stand up and lead others
in revolt, Peter advised those who knew Christ to pick up the towel and serve
one another.
How in the world is that going to do any good? I
mean, if you're listening at all you ought to be saying to yourself that that
is the stupidest piece of advice ever given. Well, in any other situation
you might be right. But, in regards to the suffering church, in regards
to the children of God there is a big difference between humility as the world
knows it, which is equivalent to giving up, and humility under the mighty hand
of God. For God gives grace to the humble; he lifts his children up in
due time.
In practice, of course, this means casting all
our anxieties upon Him - trusting that he cares about us. Notice the
word "all." We are told to literally throw all of our discontentment,
all of our discouragement, all of our difficulties, and all of our despair
upon the One who cares about us.1
As long as we keep any of these worms in the
bucket they are going to eat away at us. They may not kill us but they
will make us sick enough that we don't have the energy or the inclination to
serve those in need.
What's worse is that in a weakened condition
we are vulnerable. So Peter, the one who knew a whole lot about worrying,
tells us to take what concerns us and cast it so far out that we never see
it again. As a fisherman he also knew a lot about casting, so we have
to believe that his word choice in this verse is not simply a matter of showing
off his command of the Greek language. He chose it because it gives
the reader, that's us, the right picture of what to do with our disquietude.2
However, when we cast our anxieties on Him,
this doesn't give us permission to simply be passive in our walk with God. It
gives us permission to be care free, but not passive. For note what Peter
says about our adversary - "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a
roaring lion looking for someone to devour."
We need to note four things about Peter's words
in regards to our adversary. First and foremost, we need to see that
our adversary is real. He is a living being with a personality all his
own. Here, in this verse, as in Job, Peter shows us what he is really
like - he is like a roaring lion constantly looking for someone to devour.3
Of course, those who don't know Christ would
mock the idea of Satan being a real being with a distinct personality. They
would say something like, "In all my years of living I have never met
him. Therefore, I can only conclude that he doesn't exist." They
are partially right, they have never met him. They haven't met him because
they are traveling in the same direction. You can only meet someone like
Satan when you turn around and head in the opposite direction. It is
at that moment when you become his enemy.
This leads us to the second point. Our
adversary takes your "turning" personal. He takes it as a
personal affront to his agenda. He is wounded by it and hence seeks to
destroy all those who have personally offended him and, in so doing, are in
a good position to expose him to the world.
Third, our adversaries goal is not simply to "correct" us
and thereby bring us back into the fold - his fold. His goal is to "devour" us. His
goal is to discredit us and destroy us - preferably in public for everyone
to see. He is vicious and utterly ruthless - that is his true nature.
Fourth, he is hyperactive. He is constantly
prowling around looking for those children of God who have foolishly allowed
themselves to become vulnerable to his fangs. That is, they have foolishly
wandered into his domain. Perhaps they have done it without thinking
or they have done it as if to dare Satan to do something about it. Either
way, they have put themselves in harms way.
Because of our adversary's nature, Peter tells
us to be self-controlled and alert. You can't have the latter without
the former. That is, you can't remain "alert" unless you exercise
a good deal of "self-control."
Look at it this way. Suppose some "nut" is
sitting near you with a hammer in his hand. You have some evidence, hearsay
evidence, that he has used a hammer to inflict blows on others in the
past and have reason to believe that you could also become a victim as he doesn't
seem to like you any better than anyone else. But you're not too worried
because you're well aware of his presence and you have determined to keep an
eye on him.
However, you've underestimated your tendency
to be distracted by anything that glitters and holds out the promise of meeting
some of your felt-needs. So before too long some trinket catches your
fancy. Being altogether too human for your own good, you begin thinking
about what it would be like to possess this trinket. You think about
it so much that you eventually focus your resources and attention on obtaining
this trinket. After all, it glitters and holds out the promise of meeting
your felt-needs. In short you're distracted.
Now you tell me, what is the guy with the hammer
going to do the moment you're caught up in going after this "trinket"? Sure! Unless
God's grace holds back his hand, he is going to use that hammer to inflict
blows upon you. Why? Because you have failed to stay alert! You've
failed to keep an eternal perspective.
In the midst of difficult trials this is what
Peter tells us - exercise self-control, stay alert, and resist
the devil. We don't have to fight him in court or otherwise. We
just need to resist and in due time God will lift us up and make us stronger
than ever. 1 It is interesting to note that as we find Peter in the
gospel accounts we see that he worried about everything. When he attempted
to walk on water he worried about sinking. When April 15th rolled around
he worried about paying taxes. He worried about who would betray Jesus
and he worried about public opinion. But as he matured in his faith he
learned to cast all of his cares upon the One who cared about him.
2 Disquietude? Now that is an example
of someone trying to be clever with the English language. I would do
something like that but not Peter who wrote simply, accurately, and powerfully. Incidentally,
the word means - "worried unease." I looked it up because I
never even heard of the word until I ran across it as I worked on this lesson.
3 Elsewhere in Scripture we see that Satan is
a master of camouflage. In Genesis he presents himself as a serpent to
Eve who evidently wasn't afraid of snakes. And in II Corinthians Paul
warned the Corinthians that Satan masquerades as an angel of light.PETER: THE
MAN AND HIS LETTERS 4/27/08 1
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