1 Peter 5:8-11 | Five Ways to Fight the Temptation to Give Up

Sunday Morning | February 23, 2025 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

In his sermon "Five Ways to Fight the Temptation to Give Up," Pastor John, drawing from 1 Peter 5:8-11, encourages believers to persevere through trials by adopting key spiritual disciplines. First, he emphasizes the need to stay alert, likening spiritual vigilance to the awareness required in the wild, as illustrated by photos from Africa. Second, he urges believers to practice active resistance, citing James 4:6-7 as a call to stand firm against the enemy. Third, he highlights the importance of strengthening one’s spiritual immune system, fostering resilience through faith and discipline. Fourth, he reminds the congregation that they are not alone, pointing to the stories of faithful believers in books like Shadow of the Almighty and Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, which provide inspiration and encouragement. Finally, he encourages focusing on the future promise, looking beyond present suffering to the eternal glory God has prepared. Through these five strategies, Pastor John offers a roadmap for enduring hardship with faith and perseverance.

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Transcript

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You know, there's great security in knowing you're a child of God when you know whose child you are. There's security in that. Perfect love casts out all fear. And if you are his child, he loves you perfectly in a world of imperfect love. What a powerful way to start a message today when we've been journeying, journeying, I have to say that we're journey going through a book about suffering for many, many weeks. But at this point. But you can find perfect security, perfect love, and knowing he is my Heavenly Father. He loves me when so many others have failed. That's the kind of security we need. In fact, I was reminded of a story. You hear me mention him often? No perfect leader, but very famous in history. Winston Churchill, Prime minister of Great Britain during World War two. There's a famous speech he gave in 1941. He was asked to give a commencement speech. And they're just two years into the war at this point, but they've already encountered so much. You know, the war for them was very different than the war for us. They had the Germans wanting to invade, actively attack their island. We didn't have that. We have a gigantic ocean between us and them. But he was asked to give a message. What have you learned up to this point about how to endure? Share this with our soon to be graduates. What will be an encouragement to them for how to succeed in life? And he got up and he gave some introductory comments. But then he got right to the point and he said, here is the key. Here's the key idea you need never give in. Never give in. Never never, never, never give in, never give in. And anything great or small. And he said that a year ago, many of the surrounding countries thought it was over for us, though we never doubted. Never give in. Don't give in to tyranny. Don't give in to the supposed strength of those who are attacking. He said, because we have stood firm now, all we need to do to conquer is to keep persevering. I thought of that message and I thought about Peter's audience, who is suffering. And let me tell you, when you're suffering, the temptation is to give in. I've had enough. I don't know if I can last any longer. It's too much. Lord, why are you allowing this to continue? I guarantee you, many of the people in Great Britain felt that way in 1941. I don't know how much longer we can hold out. When you're suffering the temptation is to give up, to quit, to give in. But Peter has a message for that audience today. In fact, we're going to be in first Peter chapter five, in the last, nearing the very end of first Peter, if you have a church Bible that'll be on page 789, we have Bibles for you. At the connection corner. You can slip out and grab one at any time. Page numbers on the screen match up to those Bibles. Those are for you to keep a hang on to to read from. We want you in God's Word regularly. We're going to see in today's passage five ways to fight the temptation to give up when you face that temptation. I don't know if I can last any longer. This is more than I thought I could bear. How do we fight that temptation to give up? Instead, persevere to stay engaged. We're going to see five ways to do that here. But let's just read these eight, these verses here in first Peter chapter five, starting with verse eight. Verse eight. Be sober minded. Be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking to someone to devour. Resist him. Firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world 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 to him. Be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. In here today, we're going to see five ways to fight the temptation to give up when you're feeling overwhelmed. And the first one here is in these first two words in verse eight. And here it is. Stay alert. First and foremost, stay alert. The words we have here. Be sober minded and be watchful. We've already seen that word multiple times at first. Peter on be sober minded, we start chapter four, verse seven. Be sober minded. Be self-controlled for the sake of your prayer. Have an awareness of presence. Don't be. Don't let your mind be numbed by what you intake by this world. But to be present. But hear these two words together. Be sober minded. Be watchful that only occur together. One other place. And it's in first Thessalonians chapter five. And first Thessalonians, and especially chapter four in chapter five are all about encouraging people to be ready for Christ's return. He's going to come back. Be ready. Be watchful. Be on the alert. And when you think the end is near, you're going to have a heightened awareness around you to be on the watch, to be more alert to everything in life. Jesus uses at least that be watchful word. He also uses that in the garden with the disciples. You may remember Matthew 26. He asked them, he knows the end is near for him. He knows he's about to be betrayed. And so he brings some of the disciples with him to the garden, and he asks them to do one simple thing. What does he ask them to do for him? Just to pray. That's all I want you guys to do. Just pray. And he goes off to pray and he comes back. And they treat a prayer like I do often. I took a little nap instead. And he's like God. Here's what he says. Wake up. Wake up. It's the same word. Be watchful. Be attentive. Be ready. Be on guard. Be present. What are you doing? You think this is no big deal? You don't understand what's at stake here. Be watchful. When you know the end is near, there is a heightened awareness. There is a presence of mind. There's an attentiveness. Stay alert. A continual effort to stay alert. Stay present. Stay mindful now. Why does he say that? That is important. Because it's not just that. Yeah. I'm coming back someday. Be ready for that. There's a real reason why he says to be mindful. Look back here at verse eight. Be watchful. Be sober minded because your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Part of the reason we need to stay alert, be watchful. Be mindful. Be present. Be aware of what's going on around us because there is a real threat around us. And it's interesting that he uses the imagery of a lion, because other places in Scripture, a lion is used for Christ, the lion and the lamb to speak to his might, splendor, strength. Okay, but here he uses a lion and relates that to the devil. Why would he do that? Well, he is speaking to the the danger of a lion. In fact, if you live at this time, one real threat for a Christian was to be fed to lions in the Roman ampitheater. That would have been an ever present threat. There are church fathers who spoke of this. I know someday I am likely to be fed to the lions. One guy said, I am like wheat, and being ground in the teeth of the lions will turn me into the bread of Christ. That's one way to look at it. This is how I will enter into his presence. That sounds rather challenging. Rather difficult. I'd rather avoid that lion altogether personally. And he says, be on the alert. Some have taken this passage. I've heard this taught where they say, look, what this means is that, you know, old lions were the only ones who really roar and they don't really have teeth. Are all bark, no bite. You don't have to worry about that. That shows that they're throwing out their last efforts. Well, I've. I've been to Africa. I've been. In fact, we had a student that we kind of hosted for a season in little Rock. He was from Africa. He had come from Rwanda to learn at the college, and he was supposed to go back. And it was a partnership they had between countries. But while he was there, different Christian families were hosting some of these kids to help. Just love on the media and live with us. But he come over, hang out, have meals, learn about American culture. And so one day I actually had the chance to go visit his family in Rwanda. I was already going there to teach at a Bible college. In fact, here's an image you'll see of their family. We went to their little village, and we got to meet some of their family. And we saw their village. We saw their home. Go ahead, put that image up on the screen. Now, if you would. And this was probably a third of their entire family that were all there in this one little house. Just four little rooms. And it was just packed with people and and people from the whole village. In fact, they told me when I came, they said, you may be the very first white person to come to this village, and this is where he grew up. Now the interesting part of this village is they were on the edge of one of these large national parks where a lot of the wild animals are, and these are these are huge parks and there's no, there's so big, in fact, put up the next image. My mom actually had a chance to go with me and my youngest son. And here we are. Me and my mom. As we're about to enter into the park. That's a skull from an elephant. There. Great place to get a picture. We head into the park, and it was hours and hours of driving without seeing any. Anybody else, any other cars or anything. Just huge park. They don't put fences around these parts. It'd be like trying to put a fence around the Red River Gorge or something. Around the whole kind of area. Except there's no lions in the Red River Gorge, by the way. As far as I know, maybe a mountain lion or something, but not the same. And if you are in his village and you hear a lion, they do have lions in this park. This is actually a picture of a lion in the park. That's not how I don't mind him staying there. But if they can do that, that's dangerous. If you're in his village and you hear a lion roaring. You better take note. You better be cautious. You better be alert to just go. Walking along aimlessly with no sense of caution would be utterly foolish. And yes, the devil has been defeated. We know the ultimate outcome, and yet he's still allowed in this in-between time before the final time when Christ returns, he's come is defeated. Death. He's going to come back him. In this in-between time, he's allowed to continue to influence the world. And I think what's fascinating about the devil strategy in this day and age, people are a lot less likely to see him as a lion prowling about. They're a thousand times more likely to say he's not real. He doesn't exist. Come on. Really? What are you worried about? Which is probably his best strategy. We've been lulled to sleep, thinking he doesn't exist, thinking I've got nothing to worry about. Now there's two extremes you can swing to. When you think about the devil. One is he doesn't exist. No big deal. I don't have to worry about him at all. Even though Scripture says he prowls about like a roaring lion seeking to destroy, seeking to devour. The other extreme is to see him behind every single thing that happens in your life. You know your tail light goes out. The devil's against me again today. He's after me. I know it well. The devil is not omnipresent like God. He's not everywhere. He's probably not singling you out day in, day out. Though. Demons certainly can be. There can be attacks. A lot of what we face is just the natural consequence of a fallen world. But the reality is he does exist. He is at work. He is seeking to disrupt God's plan and especially seeking to see those who are pursuing Christ persecuted. And that's who Peter is speaking to. Now, what do we do about that? What is our strategy? Because when I'm being attacked, I don't like that there's a temptation to want to give up. This is too much. This is too hard. I don't like this. It doesn't even take a roaring lion. It may just take a tail light being out to be enough to be like, I'm out is a hard day. Can be two fickle at times. What are our strategies? Well, it continues with the next one here. Looking back at verse eight, the devil prowls around like a lion. Roaring lion. But in verse nine, we get our second way to fight the temptation to give up. Look at verse nine. Resist him. Firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. The second way is to practice active resistance. Practice active resistance because it works. Resist him. In fact, the text I want you to look at is James four, 6 or 7, which is just 1 or 2 pages back in your Bible. Just go back. A couple of pages of the book of James comes right before first Peter. There's a passage in there that's real similar to some of what we've seen in first. Peter, if you go over to James four, six and seven. Verse six says, but he gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. We saw that last week. We talked about humble yourselves, therefore, the mighty hand of God here. And the fact quoted that same verse got a person opposes the proud. Give grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. And here's the here's the phrase from today resist the devil. But he added a phrase that's not in first Peter resist him and he will flee from you. This is why resisting is important. You want to know how to get the devil to leave you alone. Resist. Actively resist. And there's this mindset that the devil is so powerful. There's nothing I can do to keep him from bothering me. That's not biblical. Yes, the devil is powerful. He is. But we're not called to fear him. We don't. We don't fear the devil. We fear God alone. Now, that doesn't mean you dismiss him or treat him flippantly because he is powerful. But I don't fear him. In fact, I actively resist him. You see this in Scripture. You see this with Jesus. When the devil attacks him, he actively resists him. In fact, we're going to see that in our next point. How do we go about actively resisting? There's different ways you can do that. To say resist is one thing. How do we actively resist? Practically resist on an ongoing basis? This is in this verse, verse nine, resist him standing firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. Here's how you resist him actively. Number three strengthen your immune system. I'm not talking about your physical immune system, though. That's great. After it seems like it's taking a month for me to recover from whatever. I had the flu or something. Strengthen your immune systems on the physical side of life. It's great to have a lot of remedies for when you do get sick, whether it's the doctor or essential oils or whatever you use to try to ward off sickness when it comes. But what's way better? What's a million times better, is to have a really strong immune system so that your own immune system can fight off whatever comes that. There's too many things that are going to come at you. So to be strong, help protect you more than the medicines you can take after the fact. And the same is true spiritually. You want to be really strong spiritually, to be able to withstand the attacks of the enemy. In fact, the way we do that is what he says here in verse nine. Be firm in your faith. Be firm in your faith. So going back to that example of Jesus, Jesus spent 40 days at the front end of his ministry in the wilderness, fasting and praying for 40 days. And he comes out of that. And the first thing that happens is that the devil attacks. By the way, I've noticed this in life. Have you experienced this? It seems like some of the times I'm most vulnerable to an attack is when I've had a really high spiritual moment. But then. Yet maybe that's left me really low physically. Really tired. Jesus would have been at a pinnacle spiritually. 40 days of fasting. Talk about a heightened awareness spiritually and yet probably at a very low point. Physically he was probably very hungry, angry, lonely and tired. Probably what? He was angry in the right way. But you get what I'm saying. Like you've been there. You've been hungry. You've been like, I don't. I can't take anything else. The slightest little thing might that set me off in that moment. And he comes and attacks in that right. The high point spiritually, I've been to the mountaintop. We've been to the top of Everest. We've done the hard part. But it's the descent where most people encounter the biggest problems. I gave all my energy to that. And now I'm weak and tired and I'm coming back down. And the devil attacks him right then. And how does he ward off the attacks of the devil? What does he do? I think I heard someone say it. Scripture. It quotes Scripture. Of course the devil quotes scripture. It's like he misquoted. He quotes, but he misused the scripture to try to deceive, manipulate. He loves to use a partial truth. He'll do that to you, by the way. Who do you think you are going to church? I know what you've done. Who do you think you are? He'll use a partial truth in your life. Like God can't save you, rescue you, redeem you because of what you've done. He loves to use a partial truth and use Scripture. And Jesus responds with Scripture. Now, the reason he could quote God's Word to Satan is because he knew God's Word and one. Look, there's no shortcut to this. One of the ways to be firm in your faith is to hide God's Word in your heart. There's no shortcut. Psalm 119 9 to 11 says, I have hidden your word in my heart so that I might not sin against you. I've got to be actively hiding His Word in my life. I've got to be actively absorbing and meditating on His Word so that when times come up when I need it, it'll be there. I've hidden your word in my heart so that I might not sin against you. We see Jesus call on God's Word in that moment and if you're not regularly memorizing scripture, let me just encourage you to start. I'm not here to put you down for what you haven't done. There's plenty people that want to do that. We want to do that to ourselves. Just start somewhere. Pick any verse that matter. Sometimes you'll get overwhelmed by. What part should I remember? Just open it up and point to a verse. It doesn't matter. Start memorizing God's Word. I'll encourage you two other places to start our memory verse for the church this month with first Peter five, six and seven, which we talked about last week. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time. Cast your anxieties upon him, which we did last week. We had a table down here. Half of us were here about last week because of the snow. We had a table, which is fine, I understand. We had a table down here and people actually took us no card and wrote their anxiety on it and laid it before him. I'm going to lay it down. I'm going to cast it on him because he cares for me. Maybe first Peter five six and seven is a great one. We've been talking about it. Humble yourselves. Cast your anxieties on him. But it's not that. Pick one. Whatever that anxiety was that you wrote down. Pick a verse related to that. Because reality is, I'm guessing this week that some of us were tempted to come back to church, find it, pick it, back up. I like that down, but I'm not sure I'm ready to. I don't know that I can trust that to him yet. I want to worry about it some more myself. Who here was tempted to do that this week? I laid it down, but I wanted to come pick it back up. Okay, two of you now I know, but we got another thing to lay down here this week. Okay? There's a few more. I saw them come up. Yeah. Pick a verse related to that anxiety that you wrote down, whether it was finances, whether it was salvation of a friend or family member or child, or maybe it was just anxiety in general for me. There was a season where Matthew six, the later part of that chapter, I was quoting it constantly. I felt like I was up with worry and anxiety and that whole section he talks about do not worry about what you eat, what you wear. The pagans run after all these things, but your heavenly father knows that you need seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all those things will be added to you as well. You know, worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow has enough worry on its own. Each day has enough trouble of its own. It cares for the birds. It cares for the flowers of the fields. He knows how to meet your needs. I quoted that multiple times a day and it was a deep comfort to my soul. So if you want to be firm in your faith, one strategy is to know His word, be in his word, memorize his word. There's no shortcuts around that. We've got to hide His word in our heart. Another is staying on the example of Jesus. This prayer. Jesus spent 40 days. Maybe he knew the attack of the devil was coming and he spent 40 days preparing in prayer. Talk about a heightened spiritual awareness, fasting and prayer. But there were plenty of times where he just got away by himself. I got to pull away from everything else the madness that's going on around me and just connect with the father. I just pray. There's no shortcuts in spiritual growth. We need to be memorizing His Word, and we have to carve out time to pray. That's going to look different for everyone depending on your phase of life. There's different ways to do that. I'd encourage you to, if you like, using a calendar and a schedule, put it on there somewhere. Set an alarm on your phone for sometime, even if it's just one minute of focused prayer. Just get started somewhere. There's an app I like to use sometimes called pray as you go. It's an awesome app. It's just guided prayers and it's just a few minutes, 10 to 15 minutes. It is so helpful. Those are great resource. Find something that encourages you to grow in prayer, because we want to be firm in our faith to build up our immune system. Be ready for the attacks that will come. Be strong. Be prepared. Have a firm foundation. Now, the next way we are able to keep from giving in. When life is hard. From giving in to the temptation to give up. Look at the second half of that verse in verse nine. Resist him. Firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. Here's the fourth thing to remember. Remember, you are not alone. Remember, you're not alone. When you're suffering, it's easy to feel like I'm the only person who has ever experienced this. I'm the only person who has ever faced this. But remember, you're not alone. If you read this, we've read the stories of Elijah. There came this point, by the way, right after a huge victory against the prophets of Baal, where he set up the altar and he got consumed by fire. I mean, you want to talk about a big moment? That's something that you would never forget if you've experienced that. But then right after, not long after it all, one person starts attacking him and he's like, it's all over. I got to go hide. How could this happen? I had this huge victory, and now this person's against me. And God says to him, I have 7000 prophets who have not found the need to bail. You think you're alone? You think you're the only one left. And there are thousands. You're not alone. You make. And the. And the enemy loves to get you. Isolate you, get you feeling alone. And we live in a very. Even though there's lots of noise going all alone in a crowd kind of dynamic. Many of us get very isolated. This is why a couple of things are important one. Be reading good Christian biographies. Last week I mentioned Elizabeth Elliot and we read a long quote from her. She's written a book, and in fact, go ahead and put that list of some different Christian biographies up on the screen that I've read that are fantastic. The book she wrote, she wrote a bunch of them, but one I read shadow of the Almighty. That's about the story of their time ministering to the Alka Indians. Or I think they're called something else. But they were the Indians and Ecuador and the tragedy of her husband being killed. You want to read a good Christian biography to remind you that plenty of others have faith. What I'm facing. And far more difficult. Hudson Taylor's spiritual secret. Briscoe is another missionary biography, child. The Insanity of God is a newer one that captures a lot of stories of efforts to reach people in China, Muslim countries. Journals of David Brainerd that was written. Those were actually collected by Jonathan Edwards, who was so impressed with this young missionary who was reaching Indians in America early in America's history. The point is, be reading good stories of other Christians who have gone before you so that you don't feel alone. And if none of those books sound interesting, let me just point you to one book. It's called acts. Turn to the book of acts. Read the book of acts. Read how the disciples lived. Read what they stood for. Against persecution. You want to talk about a powerful testimony for the truth of Christianity? You don't live that way for a lie. You don't lay down your life like that. Stand up to everyone who is saying you can't keep preaching. We got to obey God, not you. You don't do that for a lie. Here's what you do for a lie. You know what? If I want to make up my own religion, let's add in things like I can have as many wives as I want. Like Joseph Smith and the Mormons. That's what you do when you're making up your own religion. Well, you know what? I could really use my own git and helicopter and mansions. That's what you do when you're making it up for you. But you read the book of acts. To follow in the model of Jesus. And you're not alone. So many have gone before. Remember, when you're tempted to give up, you're not alone. Now lastly, he says here, number five verse Peter, look at verse ten. After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace was called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you. Restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you. Focus on number five. Here's how you fight the temptation to give up. Focus on the future. Promise. Focus on the future. People who seem to be able to make sacrifices in the moment are often able to do so because they have a clear picture in their head of a future reality that they want to experience. Some examples of this. If you have a retirement account right now, you're putting away money that you could really use right now. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars a month you're putting away. Knowing that I'm going to need this in the future. Even though you have no idea if you'll be alive or be able to use it or not. But you know, I'm going to sacrifice now because of a greater future reality that that I'm anticipating. That's an example for old people. Let's talk about young people. Get kids every single day, are willingly experiencing taking on pain for the promise of a greater future. You'll see this every day. Their parents will willingly take their child who wants to go to some office where they drop them off and they go in and an adult comes toward them with some kind of plier like torture device, shoves it in their mouth and twists on a wire. And then for the next couple of days, they're whining about how much their teeth hurt, and then they go right back. Next month. With the hope of a future of straighter teeth. I'm willingly enduring. I'm willingly sacrifice. I'm willing saying no to myself now for a future promise. And here's what he says. Here's what Peter says that the future holds. Look back at verse ten after you have suffered a little while. By the way, it never feels like a little while in the moment, but to God, it is a little while. And when you look back, you realize it wasn't as long as it felt in the moment. But after you have suffered, it will end after you have suffered a little while. Look at what he says. The God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. We could spend the next four weeks on each of those four words. I just want to focus on one restore. If anybody could write these words restore, confirm, strengthen, establish. It's Peter. Because if you think about what happened with Peter, in fact. In fact, flip over to the book of Luke. Luke chapter 22. It's on page 29, in a church Bible. Luke 22. Verse 31, 33, 34. In that range Luke 2231 Jesus tells Peter how this is going to go. Here's what's going to happen. Peter. Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat. Yeah, he was experiencing the devil prowling about like a roaring lion seeking to devour, destroy, kill. Saints demanded that. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. Peter attacks. Going to come. Peter. I'm praying that it may not fail. Peter, I'm praying that you do not give up and stand firm. But look at what he says next. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. Peter. Guess what? You're going to fail, but you're going to come back. I will restore you. You're not going to stand firm. You think you are. In fact, he says, Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death. No, Peter, the rooster is going to grow, and you will have denied me. And when that happens, strengthen your brother. If anybody could say the word restore and say it, knowing that that is the future reality, it would be Peter. Here's what I want for us today. Who needs that word restore as a future reality? Okay. Some. It's restore. What about confirm? Who needs to be confirmed in your faith to know him intimately. Who needs that word today? I need to be confirmed in him. Secure in him. What about the strengthened man? If anything, today I want to be strengthened so that I can stand firm to the attacks of the evil one. Ephesians chapter six. Stand firm in your faith so you can face the fiery darts of the enemy. Put on the full armor of God. Breastplate of righteousness. Shout on your feet. And then he says, hold the sword of the spirit, the Word of God. Strengthen in your faith. Lastly, we need this word established, established, rooted, that there is no other foundation in my life. The root of everything is in Christ. I need established who needs that word today? Yeah. Look, whatever word it is, here's what I want you to do is to pick one of those four words today. Write it down in your notes. Circle it in your Bible. Put it somewhere in every day this week. Look at that word. Trust that that's a future reality that Christ has for you. And he has promised you. And lean on that. When you're tempted to give up. Confirm. Strengthen. Established. Root deeply in him. That's what he did for Peter, and it's what he'll do for you. You're not alone. You're not alone. One of the ways we will actively remember what he's done for us is today, we're going to take communion together. In fact, if you are one of the men who helped serve communion, you can go ahead now and