Called into glory: humbly submit and boldly resist.

Sermon for Trinity 3, July 7, 2019

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

1 Peter 5:6–11  ⁶Therefore humble yourselves under God’s powerful hand so that he may lift you up at the appointed time.  ⁷Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.  ⁸Have sound judgment.  Be alert.  Your adversary, the Devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.  ⁹Resist him by being firm in the faith.  You know that the same kinds of sufferings are being laid on your brotherhood all over the world.  ¹⁰After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who called you into his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you.  ¹¹To him be the glory and the power forever and ever.  Amen.

Called into glory: humbly submit and boldly resist.

Dear friends in war and peace,

            I recently saw a list of the ten longest wars in history, ranging from the Vietnam War at 19 years to the Hundred Years War lasting, obviously, one hundred years, but there is a war that supersedes all other wars both in its length and in the number of casualties.  The true longest war is the one begun by the serpent’s lies in the Garden of Eden, for that rebellion has been raging ever since, and it cost the life of every man, woman, and child who has ever been conceived and born.

When we think of war, we usually think about struggles between nations, opposing tribes and races with bloody wounds inflicted and bodies being destroyed.  We think of bullets and bombs, sword fights and sinking ships, but St. Paul warned that, primarily, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12 NIV 84)  Peter, too, writes about this epic rebellion, reminding Christians what is at stake in this war against God—our very souls and eternal lives.  Thus, we are Called into glory, to humbly submit and boldly resist.

In this battle for our eternal souls, there could not be a greater contrast between the warring sides.  The leader of the rebellion seeks only your destruction, and he doesn’t have even the remotest care for those who are deceived by his lies.  On the other side is God, who is love, who loves us so completely that He willingly provides for friend and foe alike, who gives us a time of grace on earth so that all people might hear of the salvation and life He offers, who works saving faith through the power of His Spirit in Word and Sacrament, and who gave His own beloved Son into death so that our rescue from the rebellion would be accomplished. 

In view of the great love God shows us, Peter wrote, “Therefore humble yourselves under God’s powerful hand so that He may lift you up at the appointed time.”  Having been corrupted by sin, humbling ourselves under God’s authority doesn’t come easy.  The moment Adam and Eve sinned, they no longer trusted God, so they hid from Him and falsely accused the God they had once loved.  Their weaknesses followed along throughout the generations down to you and me.  We too find it hard to trust God’s mercy, His providence, His kindness, and His protection.

Does that seem farfetched?  Well, consider whether you have ever worried about anything: whether you would be able to keep your job, or have enough money to pay your bills.  Did you ever worry about getting sick, injured, or dying?  Did you ever look up at the sky in terror as the lightning flashes or the wind starts to swirl in the fury of a storm?  Did you ever wonder whether those who look different than you might be a threat?  When the fields are flooding, do we wonder about our futures in the farming community?  Do the promises of politicians playing on our fears ever sound good to us?  These, and a thousand other worries and doubts trouble all of us, but every worry indicates a lack of trust in God to take care of us.  So, what do we do now?

Peter’s answer to our worries and doubts is to do this: “Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”  No matter how troubled we might be, no matter what danger we might face, or how far into despair or sin we might have fallen, God cares for us—His only concern is to rescue us from the clutches of the evil one, so He kindly invites us to bring every worry, doubt, failure, or sin to Him.  Whether we understand it or not, and even for those who have never heard of the true God, God wants to bring everyone home to heaven.  God wants restored peace with all of us.  He wanted that so much that the only begotten of the Father became one of us to live for us, and finally to die in payment for the sins of our rebellion,  and now raised from the dead, He invites us to come to Him for free forgiveness and true peace. 

Could you imagine a worldly leader ever loving so much those who rebelled against Him that he would give his life to set them free?  God’s Son, Jesus, willingly took the punishment your sins deserved, and the abuse of all His rebelling enemies, so that you and I could be reconciled with God forever.  And, on top of all that, Jesus promises to hear our prayers and to answer them.  He promises to be with us and defend us, and His resurrection from the dead confirms that His victory for our salvation is accomplished.

Now, having said all this, we are still living in the war zone, and though Christ has already won the victory, the devil has not laid down his weapons, and that will not change before Judgment Day.  Some people don’t like that, but it is part of humbling ourselves under God’s plan.  Jesus didn’t come from heaven to immediately take us out of this world, but rather, to make it possible for God’s house to be filled with the multitudes who would believe and trust in Him.

Because we still reside in the war zone, Peter tells us to “Have sound judgment.  Be alert.  Your adversary, the Devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.  Resist him by being firm in the faith.”  Satan doesn’t steal away his victims by killing our bodies; he gains his victories by getting people to listen to his lies.  The devil tells us God won’t take care of us when we face troubles.  The slanderer tells us that God must not love us if other people have more money or better toys.  He tells us that we need to trust political solutions to the world’s problems.  He tempts us to seek our joy in temptations of the flesh, or the lusts of our eyes, to find peace in a bottle, a pill, or a smoke.  Satan even goes so far as to convince people there is no God. 

But, none of this is new.  Every generation since Cain and Abel has faced the same lies, the same temptations, the same trickery, trials, and temptations.  Every believer ever has been tempted to break God’s commandments, and just as challenging, almost ever believer has had to face the mockery and hatred of the unbelieving world.  Satan always has his misled allies doing his dirty work.  That type of trauma seems to be growing again in our times, just as it has risen up in times past.

However, what does the God of love offer you?  “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who called you into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will Himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you.”  Remember, God has already called you into His kingdom.  Through faith in Christ Jesus given to you through the Gospel and baptism, God called you into His heavenly glory.  Believers in Christ, you are now, already, citizens of the glorious heaven none of us has yet experienced.  What we experience on earth is the trauma and difficulty of living in a battlefield of ongoing guerilla warfare.  Satan won’t rest until he is finally locked away for eternity with all those who have followed him. 

That doesn’t mean the devil can still win the war.  His fate is sealed, but that of the people is not.  When Jesus said, “It is finished,” the rebellion was crushed.  From that point forward, the devil can only launch his sneak attacks intended to drag the living down to death.  That’s why the Holy Spirit warns us to beware the devil’s lies, whether he pretend that we are good enough that we don’t need a Savior, or that we are too sinful for God to forgive us, or that God has forgotten us or been unfair to us.  All of those types of lies and temptations are just the devil slandering God and accusing us of sins that Jesus has already paid for.

On the other hand, dear friends, rejoice that God is not finished with us.  He will never forget or abandon those who trust in Him.  Rather, the Lord leaves us here in this troubled place to serve as His hands of kindness to others, as His ambassadors to a world caught in the web of Satan’s lies, and as His teachers and preachers of the truth of all that God has done to reconcile us with Him. 

Furthermore, this is not our end.  Either at our deaths or when Jesus returns to judge the world, “the God of all grace, who called you into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will Himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you.”  As St. Paul put it, “We will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.  For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.  When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’" (1 Corinthians 15:51-54 NIV 84)  Thus, God has certainly promised us that He will take care of us in the here and now, even through any trouble, persecution, or temptation this world might throw against us, and He will take us home to live in glory forever with Him in heaven. 

Therefore, the message for us from this text is this: Called into glory: humbly submit and boldly resist.  We have been called to faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.  That call gives us the forgiveness of all sin and the assurance of life everlasting with our God and Savior.  For that gift of grace, God asks us to show true humbleness by trusting Him completely and without reservation, confessing our sins, but receiving also the holiness of Christ Jesus in exchange.  And then, the Holy Spirit tells us to stand firm against the devil’s attacks, to resist the lies the deceiver uses against us, and the accusations Satan can no longer support, for God has written over our record, “justified for Jesus’ sake.”

Dear friends, boldly resist the devil and his cohorts, but at the same time humbly submit yourself to the loving God who gave all to make you His own redeemed and dearly loved children.  Doing so, you will receive, and enjoy forever, the glorious inheritance Jesus has prepared for you, for by His sacrifice, you will have a life of glory never ending.  Amen.

Now to Him who is able to strengthen you—according to the gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, . . . to God, who alone is wise, be glory forever through Jesus Christ.  Amen.