Reading: Yesterday, we talked about the important qualities of elders and leaders inside and outside of the church.  Today, we look at the important role of submitting to your elders/leaders in your life and clothing yourselves with humility towards your peers.  

Note here that Peter is specifically talking in this passage about how we should relate to elders in the church.  We don’t think Peter would say that these principles apply only in a church setting. God set up the church as a model of leadership structure that we can use in other relationships and institutions in our lives. You can see an example of this in Ephesians 5 when Paul is talking about how marriage is a picture of the church. 

First, let us look at five practical ways we can humbly relate to the leaders in our lives:

1. Respect your leaders – Respect them by listening and learning from them.  Do not participate in gossip or slandering of their name. 

2. Thank your leaders – Send them a note or letter thanking them for their leadership. Have a thankful heart for their investment and example in your life.

3. Obey your leaders – Do not just listen to them, but do what they say.  One of the most practical ways we can submit to the leaders in our lives is by doing what they tell us to do.  

4. Pray for your leaders – This is the most important thing you can do for the leaders in your life.

5. Love your leaders – Love really covers all of these and wraps them in a bow.  Love includes laying down your life for these leaders.  

These are the same ways we should relate to Christ.  Our submission to the leaders in our lives is an overflow of the lordship of Christ in our own life.  If we have not submitted first to Christ, we will struggle to biblically relate to the leaders he has placed in our life.

Secondly, we are commanded to clothe ourselves with humility toward one another. There are two practical steps we can take here:

1. Humble ourselves before God – The first thing we need to do before we can relate rightly with others is to rightly relate to God.  We must come to an understanding of who God is and who we are.  We are not God!  Once we understand the right and authority that God has in the world and in our life then we can rightly relate to one another.

2. Humble ourselves toward others – Paul gives us the most practical way to live this out in Philipians 2:3-4, when he writes, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.”

Reflection: Who are your leaders? What is something you can do today to change how you relate to leaders in your life? Not participate in gossip or slander? Obey without complaining? Pray for them? 

Is there someone specific you struggle to have a humble attitude toward? How can you change that? 

Prayer Prompt: Father, you are in control and I am not. Thank you for the leaders you have placed in my life. Guide them and give them wisdom to lead in your strength. Help me to humbly submit to Godly leadership. Help me to see where I am not being humble toward leaders or others.