"Christian Vocation: Youth" Midweek in Lent4 April 2, 2014 1Peter 5:5-6
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." Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. 1Peter 5:5-6 The pattern we have been following has been consistent. We are recipients. We are hearers. We submit to our God who gives to us and loves us and keeps us in His care and guides us. Vocation is never carried out apart from God working in us and through us. His vocation, as it were, is to love us and give to us. Our vocation is to receive, to rejoice, to give thanks. Our vocation, then, is to carry out the callings He gives to each of us so that He may love and serve and give to others through us. We love and serve and give to others as the way we love and serve and give thanks to God for His blessings He gives us of forgiveness and life and salvation. So tonight's vocation isn't so much about youth as it is about what vocation is all about. As we saw last week, children honor and obey their parents because in doing so they are honoring and obeying God. So with youth, they are submissive to their elders not because older people have some divinely sanctioned position to rule over youth, but because in submitting to their elders youth are submitting to God. Again, the pattern was set when God first spoke to Adam. Adam's first vocation was to hear. To receive. To simply live under the grace of God. And from there out we saw how employers and employees, husbands and wives, and parents and children are hearers and receivers of God's grace and blessings and only then are able to love and serve others. It would be easy to simply say that youth are to be submissive to those who are older. Easy, but that would give an incomplete picture of what's going on. This is how the apostle Peter states it: "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.'" We have talked about submission during our look at Christian vocation. Submission is at the heart of vocation. Submission doesn't mean you give up your identity or your dignity. It means you receive. It means you place yourself under the good and gracious will of God. In turn, you do this to those He has called to be in authority over you. They are given to you by God to love you and serve you and care for your welfare. So, yeah, Peter is talking about youth, but would that we all would follow the counsel given here so that we may see that all of us are better off--that is, blessed by God--if we submit to those God has given to us to submit to. "Clothe yourselves with humility," Peter says. When you interact with others, do so in the clothing of humility. Who are you anyway? Who are you to be above others? How can you consider yourself better than someone else? Arrogance and pride will bring you down, far greater than you would ever be when you humble yourself. But back to the first question: Who are you? You are a child of God. You are a Baptized child of God. You are a recipient of His grace, of His mercy, of His love. You are one whose vocation it is to first receive and then to carry out your vocations God has given you. So when you interact with others, do so in the humility of knowing that you are not above others in terms of being better than they are, but rather in the knowledge that you are recipients of God's love and have only His love to share with them. Think also of what you are giving them. You are giving them what you have received. You have received Christ. Your new life in Christ has been given to you in Baptism where you have been united with Christ. It now no longer you who live but Christ who lives in you. The one who submitted Himself to His Heavenly Father in becoming flesh and suffering and dying on the cross is the one you are united with and live in. The one who Himself, though He is God, submitted Himself to His earthly father and mother and His elders, is the one who lives through you so that you may realize that as He entrusted Himself to them so you may with those who are above you. Sometimes youth is associated with rebellion. True enough. But part of the reason why it's so important for all of us to hear this exhortation to youth is that we all are rebellious toward God. Our sin bears this out. Our lack of trust in God shows our rebellion. So when God commands us to submit to those who are in authority over us and they command us to do things that we don't want to do, what do we do? We rebel. Even if we do what we're commanded, if we do it in an ungrateful spirit, we are rebelling against God's good gift of giving us those in authority over us. So we need Christ. We need to live in Him so that His humility and His love shine through. Another thing often associated with youth is pride. When you are young, you have idealism. You see so many things that are possible. You can't understand why those adults are stuck in a rut and seem content in it. Why they are stubbornly practical rather than impulsive, willing to experiment, to take chances. Obviously, though they claim to have wisdom, they don't know much, because as youth we see things so clearly. Those of who have grown out of youth can remember back to those days when we felt like this. Those of you who are still young, perhaps you are thinking and feeling along these lines. It's true that sometimes adults hinder youthful idealism. Sometimes adults do get stuck in a rut. It's true also, that one of the antidotes to thinking you know so much and those adults really don't know as much as they let on is to see beyond yourself. Pride is the affliction of being one who does not need to receive. If an adult is giving you advice and you are rolling your eyes then you are not seeing yourself as one who needs something beyond what you already have. You may not agree with the advice, but you need to come to learn that there is always so much more to learn, that humility is the way to go because then you will be the recipient of blessings you could never gain on your own. When we were looking at parents and children one of the things we saw was that the Fourth Commandment--Honor your father and your mother--was the first one with a promise, "that you may live long on the earth." In other words, not only are you to honor your parents and those in authority over you because God has commanded you to, but when you do you are blessed by Him through that. In the same way, when he says, "'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'" Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand," Peter attaches this promise to his exhortation to youth: "that He may lift you up in due time." When you realize that God has given those older than you to be there for you for your good, you begin to see that God will lift you up. You don't need to bypass all those things adults lay upon you in order to get where you want to be, rather you need to be submissive to them and God will do the work of raising you up. He will help you see that as you grow older you will be given by God the vocation of serving others in this way that adults serve you. You will be placed into positions of authority over others so that you may serve them as God has called you to do. As this happens in your life you will see that being lifted up by God is not you having power and being better than others. You will see that it is a joy to love others and to serve them. You will see that it is fulfilling to humble yourself as your Lord has humbled Himself to love and serve you. You will see that the more you learn, the more you need to learn and hear and study God's Word. You will see that as you grow, you need to more and more grow and be strengthened in God's Word. You will see that you will be daily in need of being humbled, of living in your Baptism, daily dying to your sinful nature and rising to new life. You will see that it is a great privilege to be served by your Lord as He comes to you in humility in bread and wine at His Table where He gives you His body and blood for your forgiveness of all of your sins of pride and arrogance and thinking you know so much and don't need to submit to those who are over you. Your Lord humbly and joyfully forgives you of those things. He graciously and continually takes upon Himself your sin and guilt so that you may joyfully and freely love and serve others. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
