Casting your cares

Sermon Style Sheet

Write that down in your formation Journal

Illustration

Sermon Text

Sermon Text: Scripture

Call to Worship

Psalm 134:1–2 CSB

Now bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who stand in the Lord’s house at night! Lift up your hands in the holy place and bless the Lord!

––––––––––––

Passage:

Formation Journal Page Number: 3:46- 4:30 4:40—5:20

1 Peter 5:6–11 CSB

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you. 8 Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. 9 Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world. 10 The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little while. 11 To him be dominion forever. Amen.

Opening Illustration:

Annual review - you have to rater yourself. My approach was this: I always rated myself high. Like I gave some mid range grades, so that I seemed reasonable, but I figured that nobody is going to stick up for me.

I don’t know if that was the right mindset or not, sometimes, probably not. But this was the mindset of the romans. Boasting was deeply engrained in the culture. It was highly competitive and you were expected to be constantly making the case for yourself.

time

Compelling Lie - Felt/Bible revealed need

time

So then Peter rights into this culture and tells them the exact opposite. If you want to be exalted - don’t boast, humble yourself.

We talked last week about entrusting your life to God is like putting your life in God’s safe deposit box. That you are trusting him. That, this even goes so far as restricting what you do in order to do what God wants you to do. That there is a sacrifice involved in this. There is real sacrifice as you follow him.

As we look at this final chapter in 1 Peter, he continues that idea, but with a twist. He now refers to that as humbling yourself before God.

1 Peter 5:6 CSB

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time,

And so we are going to see that life takes on a counter cultural idea. If you want to be exalted, you first have to be humbled. Humility comes before exaltation.

Now we need to see something here. The first thing is that you are humbling yourself under God’s mighty hand. Rather than trying to compete with God or go against God, instead you are humbling yourself. Acknowledging that God is the powerful one, that he is the mighty one. You aren’t - he is.

Now this type of humility will bear fruit - it will lead to exaltation. That’s what we all want. But here is where the humility and the trusting comes in - the exaltation will happen at the “proper time.”

I think most people are willing to humble themselves before God for a short period of time. That’s the easy part. You see people come to God and follow after him and it takes humility but they only want to do it for a short period of time. The longer it takes, the less patient they are. Real humility comes when you are under God’s mighty hand for the long term.

So how long is it going to take to get exalted by God? Who knows? Your trusting yourself to God. You are putting your hope in him. You are saying - I trust your wisdom.

There’s a common scene in war movies, particularly older war movies, where the main characters are in a line and they have their guns or their pikes or whatever, and the enemy starts charging after them. They are coming to get them. and the general says “hold, hold” he is telling the men to wait until the enemy gets closer to fire. And the enemy get’s closer and closer ,and the tension builds and the general is still yelling “hold, hold” and then right before destruction comes he yells “fire” and everyone fires and then they win the battle.

This is what it feels like to wait on God’s exaltation sometimes. You decide to trust him but life problems are coming at you and they are coming in fast and hard, and you are like “Ok God, when are you going to exalt me” and he is like “hold, hold” It’s in the appointed time, the proper time that he decides to exalt us.

you see your destruction getting closer and closer and closer

But it’s hard. Part of the reason why it’s hard is because we have pride. Sometimes, we want to solve our own problems. We are ashamed of them and we think that we should be better, maybe be stronger. We want to be the one who solves them. Or we don’t want anyone to know that we have them. We don’t want to admit that we are weak.

We become impatient for our own glory - and if God won’t give it to us- well, I guess I gotta handle it myself.

That’s why the first step is the step of humility and it’s only when we admit that we can’t solve them ourselves that we cast our anxieties onto God.

So we are called to humble ourselves, under God’s mighty hand with the promise that at the appointed time, the proper time he will exalt us. But it isn’t easy because we have cares and worries we have anxietes

1 Peter 5:7 CSB

7 casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you.

This passage is probably one of the most famous in the bible. It’s a big deal. It’s important. This little verse containing 11 words, is both sometime that connects to the heart of both the romans and jews.

First, you need to know that Peter is quoting a Psalm - Psalm 55:22

Psalm 55:22 CSB

22 Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

Now, one thing to note, is that sometimes you see these quotes and they aren’t exact - the Septuagint

But he says to cast your burden’s on the Lord and he will sustain you.

There are a lot of people going through things in the church right now. About a third of the church, is going through some financial discomfort. That doesn’t take into account the health problems or family problems. People are going through it.

The odds are that someone within a few chairs of you is carrying a heavy emotional burden today.

So when you hear passages like 1 Peter 5:7 or Psalm 55:22 you can be tempted to think that this is someone going through easy street trying to give real life advice.

Kind of like when the celebrities sang the song “Imagine” during covid to try to make us feel better? Do you remember this. We were all told to stay in our homes to stop the spread and these celebraties were trying to be just like us, except they were singing from their multimillion dollar estates. They are trying to make it seem like no big deal to stay in your house. After all, if they get bored of their resort style pool, they can always just pass some time in their stables with their horses before finishing the day off in their fully equipped media room.

But for the rest of us, it wasn’t like that. Right. Nobody was comforted by them singing “imagine there’s no posessions” when half of them had a choice about which of their homes they wanted to be quarenteed at the moment, or maybe they’ll just take the yacht. Right.

So we can hear this idea of casting your cares on God and sometimes people tell it to us when they aren’t going through anything, and you think, well, that’s easy for you to say!

But even though David was king, he wasn’t having a great time when he wrote Psalm 55

I mean look at what he says in Psalm 55:4-8

Psalm 55:4–7 CSB

4 My heart shudders within me; terrors of death sweep over me. 5 Fear and trembling grip me; horror has overwhelmed me. 6 I said, “If only I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and find rest. 7 How far away I would flee; I would stay in the wilderness. Selah

He is in fear. His heart is shuddering within him. His fear and pain and stress is so much that he just wants to run away. that’s why he wants to be a dove. So he can fly away.

Have you ever felt that way? Your problems are so big, you just want to fly away? You just want an escape from them for a moment?

He goes on in Psalm 55:16-18

Psalm 55:16–18 CSB

16 But I call to God, and the Lord will save me. 17 I complain and groan morning, noon, and night, and he hears my voice. 18 Though many are against me, he will redeem me from my battle unharmed.

He doesn’t just sit there crying - he goes to god morning, noon and night. He is constantly calling on God to save him. He is humbling himself before the mighty hand of God.

Now, this is important, sometimes we think that if we shouldn’t constantly go to God with our problems. Like he knows them. We shouldn’t always be bothering him.

If you kid is always complaining then you get annoyed.

But that’s not the ancient understanding of how things work. You actually honor God by going to him with your problems because you are recognizing that he has the power and the ability to change things!

Rome had a Patron-Client system - every morning.

This was the way of honoring them. You can’t handle it but he can - you aren’t enough but he is enough

Our prayers are sweet incense to God.

Then it’s towards the end of the chapter that he actually gets to casting your cares onto God

Psalm 55:22 CSB

22 Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

And this language of casting is fishing language. It’s like a casting a net with weights out into the sea. That’s what you do with your burdens.

We take them and we give them to God. We say, well God, this situation is too big for me. This situation is dangerous for me. This situation is too dangerous for me. I am going to stop worrying about it and just let you take control of it.

Shardech, Meshach and Abendigo but even if he doesn’t - we won’t bow

Whatever happens, I trust that you know what’s best for me. I trust that you are going to work it out. and I know that even though the enemy is rushing on me like an invading army, I’ll hold until the moment you tell me to move! I will trust that you will exalt me in the proper time!

But again -it’s the proper time. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be any pain. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be any sadness or tears. But we are going to go to him as our patron and ask him to move! We are going to call out in the morning, in the midday and in the evening. When we face situations that we can’t handle, we know he can handle them.

It’s not yours to bear - you give it to God because he cares for you.

But here’s the deal - we have a better deal than the roman patron-client relationship -

Look at verse 7 again

1 Peter 5:7 CSB

7 casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you.

He cares - he is concerned. He is invested in you. he cares what happens.

There are plenty of times where people give you advice but they don’t actually care - online influencers. Think about Dave Ramsey - he gets up there he gets all emotional. He doesn’t really care. His advice may be good, it may be bad, but he isn’t invested in you.

Health bloggers don’t care about you - not you as a person. not as an individual. They may not wish you any specific harm and may even hope that their advice helps people in general, but they aren’t going to sleep with your name on their mind.

You specifically, by name, are on God’s mind and in his heart. He cares for you. I don’t mean you as a group not ustedes not ya’lol or you all - you specifically, by name

Then he goes on to talk about the stakes

1 Peter 5:8–9 CSB

8 Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. 9 Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world.

Will Savell - the animal sound at night. This is a real fear. They had actual lions.

Some of you are facing a roaring lion. Not only are you afraid but your fear is rational. There is something that is big and scary and you roaring. And you look at the situation and you say, “This may destroy me.” You are afraid.

And what the enemy wants to do, is he wants to use your pain and your suffering to destroy you. That’s what he wants.

There’s that God has a wonderful plan for you life - you’ve heard it, God has a plan but the devil has a plan for your life too. He is after you. He wants to destroy your marriage, he wants to destroy your kids, he wants to destroy your life, he wants to destroy your faith. And he is out there roaring and throwing everything he can after you.

He want’s you crouched in fear, huddled in your tent afraid.

Because as long as you are focused the devil’s roars - you aren’t focused on God’s strength.

There is a great quote from the office, where one of the character’s dwight is talking and he says, “Whenever I am about to do something, I think, would an idiot do that, and if they would, I don’t do that thing.”

Here’s how I want you to change that, knowing that the enemy is a roaring lion.

I want you to think, “Would the enemy want me to do that thing, and if he would, don’t do that thing!”

Don’t do it. But it’s hard- which is why God wants us to be sober minded.

here’s what an idiot would do- what the enemy wants you to do - he wants you to hold onto your problems in fear and pride- trusting only yourself

resisting in God’s power - there is a rescuer in Christ!

the comfort of other people going through it. - I am part of weekly prayer call with a group of men in India.

Christians all over the world are going through the same things that you are going through and Christians all over the world are depending on God and christians all over the world are being exalted in proper time.

And here is the promise, that if you humble yourself and cast your burdens on God he will exalt you

1 Peter 5:10 CSB

10 The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little while.

That’s so great! God cares about you. He will restore you. He will establish you. He will strengthen you. He will support you.

be the annoying oak sapling in the devils garden

You are not left alone - you are not an orphan you are a beloved child.

The little while - compared to eternity

As Peter writes this, I imagine him so overwhelmed by God’s goodness that he spontaneously praises God in verse 11

1 Peter 5:10–11 CSB

11 To him be dominion forever. Amen.

He want’s God to have dominion and power forever. He wants him to be in charge forever.

We only want our presidents to have a maximum of 2 terms. a different boss - teenagers - and you think I can’t wait until I get out of my parents house- Peter wants God to be in charge forever!!

The gospel - who is in charge in your life?

Why does this matter for Mercy Hill - the roaring lion is out there. He is trying to get you and destroy you. But what’s more he is attacking your neighbors and your friends. He is destroying them.

I want you to be so filled with compassion and sadness for your friends and family that you pray - let your dominion reign forever! Let’s be inviting people to church and sharing our faith. Supporting one another in this work.

Like shee without a shepherd

We want to make sure that everyone has multiple opportunities to turn their life to christ

We can cast our cares on God because he cares for us, so let’s do that together.

Telling the story

Hadden Robertson - The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching

Chapter Markers:

What Type of Story (different plates)

What is your City?

What is your Dragon?

What is worth defending in the old city?

What's yous best line of attack?

Defining the Enemy

test

time

Hitting the Wall (why we fail)

test

time

Victory in Jesus

test

time

Text:

Lord’s Supper:

On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 

Benediction:

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD makes his face shine upon you and be gracious to you:

The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.