CONFIRMATION 

May 16-18, 2026 

Pastor Timothy J. Spaude 

Text: 1 Peter 5:6-11 (NIV 1984) 

 

“IT IS CONFIRMED!”

“GOD GIVES YOU STRENGTH FOR YOUR STRUGGLES!”

 

1 Peter 5:6-11 (NIV) “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 8Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 10And 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. 11To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.” 

 

Have you ever seen salmon heading upstream to spawn? It’s a fascinating sight, especially when they run into a natural dam or man made fish ladder. How do they fling themselves like that? Why do they fling themselves like that? You find yourself thinking, “Fish, you can lay your eggs anywhere. Why do you struggle so to get the place you were born?” There is an answer to that. God said so. The almighty Creator decreed that salmon should spawn where they themselves were born. So the salmon don’t whine or complain. They embrace their struggle and do what the Creator has planned for them. If only we were like that! Often we chafe when we go through struggles in life. We pray for them to be gone. We get mad at God. What we fail to appreciate is that God allows struggles for our good. This weekend is Confirmation weekend at St. Jacobi. To confirm means to strengthen or affirm. The word of God confirms a truth we need to know: the same God who allows struggles for our good gives us strength to endure, embrace and grow. 

The Apostle Peter uses a neat little way of encouraging us. He uses a series of what and why statements. Here is the first. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” God can easily humble us. Not long ago I was visiting one of our shut in members. She was having one of those confused days and thought I was her son. As we were visiting she had the St. Jacobi online service playing on her TV. Out of the blue she says, “I’m not sure I would recognize Pastor Spaude if I saw him anymore. He’s balding. Getting heavier.” I had to sit there and take it. Not only is it not cool to retaliate against grandmas, I mean, she’s not wrong. God can easily humble us. The struggle we face is to humble ourselves. That means daily giving up the arrogant thoughts that we are better than other people, deserving of this undeserved love called grace. It means acknowledging with meaning I deserve nothing good from God. It means praying “Your will be done” from the heart and letting go of our idea of how God should do things. That takes work, a struggle. Why embrace that struggle? God will lift you up in due time. That is a promise God makes and keeps. He forgives the repentant. He guides those who listen. He gives peace to those who stay in their lane, not His. 

Here is another what and why struggle. ”Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Cast your anxiety on Him. Anxiety literally means those things that keep going round in your mind. No matter where you are or what you are doing or how you try to distract yourself, there you are thinking about them again. Most of the time we are anxious about things out of our control. Will I get the job or not? What will the test reveal? What we are to do with those worries and anxieties is cast them on the Lord. That means to give up trying to fix what we cannot and giving it over to the one who can. You wouldn’t think that would be a struggle bit it is.  We want to be in control. We want to fix it ourselves and our way. So God strengthens us with a promise. He cares for you. Literally again the words used here tells that God has us on His mind. Think about it! Of all that is going on in this created world God chooses to keep us on His mind, to think of our needs. We know how far that caring goes. In His love for us He punished Jesus for our sins instead of us! He cares for us that much. What anxieties do you struggle with? What worries keep you up at night? God strengthens you. He lets you cast them on his ‘big enough for everyone’ shoulders. He cares for you. 

What and why #3. “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Someone recently shared with me a book they were reading entitled “The Anxious Generation.” The author posited that children today have more anxiety than ever largely because their parents and media are fear mongering. Snow on the roads. Fires at school. Tornados. Shootings. Car accidents. Certainly these are things to be aware of and people can be harmed by them. But statistically harm from these is actually quite rare. Here is one parents and media should point out. The Devil. Statistically danger from him is 100 % . He and his demons especially target those who promise to stay faithful to Jesus. He hates Jesus. So he hates people who love Jesus. The struggle is to stay alert. The media does not talk about Satan. Satan you cannot see. He’s tricky. I cheat this one time because I forgot an assignment becomes more times and a cheater at school becomes a cheater at work and a cheater in a marriage. One week away from God’s word becomes two weeks and pretty soon a way of life.   A devil that is a roaring lion is waiting to devour you. Struggle to stay alert. 

And... ”Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.” Our 4^th what is to resist him. Resist the devil and stand firm in your faith. To resist means to push against. To say No. To watch and pray. To use the word of God that Jesus used to fight temptation. Why? You’re not alone. There’s an old adage for winning wars that says, “Divide and conquer.” Divide your enemy and you can conquer him. The Devil tries that with us. He tries to get us to throw pity parties for ourselves as though we are the only ones going through the struggles. We hear for instance what the word says about our home life and family and what they are supposed to look like. Then we find that in our own we have to struggle. We have to make love work. We have to work to forgive. Raising children is hard. It’s hard to go against the stream of society. Then we look at someone sitting next to us in church and we think, “They don’t have to struggle. What’s wrong with me?” What’s wrong with you is that you are wrong. Every Christian has to struggle. There isn’t a person or family in this congregation that doesn’t have to struggle to do things God’s way. Every home and family is touched by sin and has challenges, some which will only get fixed in heaven. You’re not alone in this. 

And you are not alone in the most important way. ”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”. Did you hear the Good News? God is with you. He’s right there while you are struggling. You might not feel it, know it or believe it but He is. He is because He said so and God cannot lie. And at the right time God will restore you, make you strong, firm and steadfast. This too shall pass! And these struggles, they are allowed by a gracious God. He takes no joy in our hurt. Like with salmon and the rest of creation God only allows struggle with purpose. To make you strong, firm and steadfast. It’s confirmed, God gives you strength for your struggles. He has confirmed the promises He has made to you. Daily affirm, confirm and keep the promises you make to Him! “To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.”