Dethroning Anxiety
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
June has been dubbed “International Pride month.” This month long celebration of all things LGBTQIA+ It is yet another way that we are seeing the continued push of soul-crushing, life destroying ideology.
It is paraded on our screens, celebrated in schools, encoded in company policies.
Christians are rightly disgusted by the open defiance toward God, and yet it is but one issue joined by other worrying trends that are either outright opposed to our faith, or trends that we suspect do not have our best interests at heart. Name just about any hot-button topic right now and there are red-flags for Christians plastered all over it.
We feel pressured, we feel out-maneuvered, we feel like the underdog, and so our instinct is to mount our defence. Circle the Wagons, drop the portcullis. Then we stand on the walls surveying the horizon for the next attack. We are on hyper-alert for the next offensive.
We have missed the signs before, and so many churches, denominations and schools have fallen to Satan's wiles.
So we peer outward, guessing at what bad intentions lie in every shadow, or under every rock.
And it is good to be ready to defend Truth, and resist the temptations of the latest popular perversion! Yet, with our constant peering out there at the circus going on around us, I fear that we may not be tending our own garden!
It is easy to point out the flagrant sin of others, and much harder to tackle the hard issues of our own heart. To complain at the state of our neighbor's garden, while weeds come up in our own!
How quick we are to discuss the latest outrage, and opine the lost culture of generations past, and how slow we are to encourage one another in Christ and pursue heavenly matters!
I am the worst for this! I have set a bad example among you! So do not think this word is for others an not just as much for myself!
But you know, it is easy to take cover from the internal challenges that we face by bemoaning the external evil.
It’s easier to deflect attention away from my own inadequacy and shame to the obvious inadequacy of outsiders.
It’s easier to rally people to conflict with enemies of the Gospel, and much harder to face the conflict that comes with sorting out sin in our own ranks.
Yes, defend the faith! Yes, look for the signs of the times! Yes, destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God (2 Co 10:5), but do it without neglecting the health of your own heart.
Today brothers and sisters, we are going to do a little “self care”, not the guff of self-help books or so-called experts, the kind that God calls us to! We’re going to pull some weeds that are growing up in God’s house by taking a short break from our trek through John’s Gospel to focus on just 2 verses from Peter’s first letter. After some of the mammoth portions we have tackled, I hope this is a refreshing change of pace, at least for this week!
The text is 1 Pe 5:6-7. It says:
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
Each of these two verses is divided into two parts. So that gives us 4 main headings.
We bemoan the pride of the world! But these two verses give us an antidote to pride in our own midst. We must deal with pride here, before we can ever face it out there. With this straightforward truth, we can be equipped to do some home maintenance in God’s Church, today, and quell the trouble that threatens to undo us.
Humble Yourselves...
Humble Yourselves...
Firstly, “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of GOD!”
For the Christian, hopefully this is not a radical idea. This should be obvious to you! Yet, it cannot be too obvious, because Peter felt the need to remind his readers about it.
Peter wrote this letter to a people who were under great strain, they were in a much worse condition than we are: they were being openly persecuted for their faith.
They were facing great trials. They were being tested. They were suffering.
Yet Peter thinks one of the important things that these Christians needed to hear was “humble yourselves”.
“Humble yourselves”
This is what we need to hear too. We may not be in their shoes specifically, but this is a timeless truth!
We need to be humble, to be brought low under God.
We are not God’s equals. Many of us have lost the respectful fear of God, and grown flippant with the Lord who is a consuming fire!
We treat Him as if he were our servant to fetch us what we want, and leave us alone when we have it.
But perhaps that is not you, you treat God with more love and admiration than that, but you still perhaps think that God owes you something, or that he ought to do things a certain way. Perhaps like Jonah you dare to rebel against God where you think he’s got it wrong?
Our God is the Great Holy God. The one who should crush us under his wrath against sin, yet who instead brings life in Jesus Christ.
He gives grace. He gives favour.
Yet the way into that favour is through humility.
“Humble yourselves!”
We have no right to stand before God, we are not worthy of his attention or favour, yet, he provides this way in through Jesus Christ.
The way in is through Faith in Jesus.
What does this faith look like?
It looks like giving up your own plans, notions and intentions, and accepting God’s in their place.
It looks like acknowledging your mistakes and failures for what they are, sin, and saying “I reject my sins. I turn away from them and towards Jesus Christ.”
Faith looks like recognizing that you cannot deal with the weight of shame and guilt that you’re carrying around on your back, and that you need Jesus to do it for you.
So you, as it were, kneel at the feet of Christ, confess your inability, confess your sinfulness, confess that He is the only one who can save you.
You humble yourself before God!
You humble yourself under the mighty hand of God!
Yet, even in our day to day Christian walk, it is not as though the need to humble ourselves has finished, it is an ongoing practice of putting away our pretentions of self-rule, putting away our own ideas of godliness, putting away the desires of the flesh, and instead submitting to God’s rule, God’s order, God’s Way.
If you go looking, you will soon see that the “Mighty hand of God” is always tied to Salvation and Judgment.
God’s “mighty hand” is the hand that wrought salvation for the Israelites trapped in Egypt, and brought Judgment on the Egyptians.
The Israelites had to humble themselves, and simply follow the commands they were given. For instance at the first Passover, they had to take the blood of a lamb and put it on the doorposts. A simple thing, but that simple acts of humility was the sign of their faithfulness to God, and lead to rescue for them! The proud Pharaoh on the other hand, would not submit to God, and so God opposed, and deposed him.
English Standard Version Chapter 5
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
It is a secure and comforting place to be, under the mighty hand of God when there is reason to be afraid of opposition. For the first readers of this letter, this way that Peter calls to mind the mighty hand of God reminds them that as they come under God, and can find security in their humble obedience.
Yet interestingly, this is not where God leaves his people. Although they give up themselves, and submit to God in humility, they are not left in a perpetually lowly state, no, God will exalt the humble!
… God will Exalt You.
… God will Exalt You.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,
This is not the way of the world. The world says go out and take what you want, earn it, win it, steal it, just go get what you want to get ahead. Put yourself first. Seek your own interests, over those of your friends, or even your spouse, pursue what you want so that you can get to the top and be happy!
Yet this is a fleeting joy, and not a true exultation. At the end of the day you’re left empty and probably alone because of the bridges you burned to get there. Instead, for lasting joy and true honour, we need to follow God’s way.
An old puritan prayer put it well:
“Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.”
This of course is the path that Jesus took - Jesus...
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Humble yourself like Christ was humbled, then like his exultation, we will receive our own kind of honor.
Ah, some will say, I will work the system - I want the good stuff, so I will go low, humble myself so that I can get what I want. But it cannot work like that! You cannot truly be humble until you give up self-promotion and selfish desire. Those who are humble are willing to remain there, content in their estate without honor, but the prideful will not stand.
The pretenders and prideful who set themselves up will be brought low:
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
God will exalt his humble people, but it will be at the proper time. For now the humble will remain looking like the fools and outcasts of the world. We will remain humble, yet the day is soon coming when the all eyes will see Christ return, and he will lift up his people and vindicate them. We will be lifted up to rule and reign with Christ.
Yet, there is a special way that this humility works out in the life of the believer - that is in the area of anxiety or worry. God says...
Cast Your Anxieties on God...
Cast Your Anxieties on God...
casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
Friends, as we look around us we see that anxiety is rapidly spreading. It is like a pandemic going from house to house. And the church is not immune, there are many who call on Christ who have become crippled by anxiety.
And yet this is strange, because God speaks very specifically on anxiety, and what to do about it.
Now I do not want to lash the anxious with guilt, but we need to consider things plainly. We need to be open and upfront about this issue. For the sake of your heart!
Because God loves you, you need to hear this!
Too many of us have become deceived by the world on this front.
We view our anxieties through a lens of worldly mental health. We go to worldly counselors and doctors to address our anxiety and do not consider seriously what the Lord specifically says on this matter. We accept platitudes and prescriptions rather than going to the Physician of our souls!
What happens when we turn to Him?
What does the Lord say?
There are at least 6 clear commands in the NT: “do not be anxious.”
There are a couple things we can deduce from this:
You are not passive in your anxieties, God expects you to do something in order to stop being anxious, and,
Anxiety is a sin. If you have something that God clearly tells you not to do, especially 6 times, then it’s pretty clear. It is a sin to be anxious. If you continue in anxiety, you are disobeying the LORD.
What we’re talking about here is not the “good anxieties” such as being eager for the Lord’s return, or a concern that sends you to action/prayer. We’re talking anxiety over life, food, houses, money, the way of the world. Both the things in your control, and those outside your control.
This looks like fear, worry, uncertainty, and concern. It can be intermittent thing, that you sometimes remember.
It can be the anxiety that leads to an endless loop of fears that cripples your faith and hope.
You see, Anxiety is a sin, because it is a refusal to trust God. It is as though we hold onto that which God has control over, and then we obsess over it as if we had more control than him. As if we could do a better job than the Lord of all, Creator and Sustainer of the universe.
Anxiety is pride. The opposite of humility.
This is why this verse is right here next to the one on humility! This is part of humbling yourself under God - casting all your anxieties on Him!
If you would humble yourself, cast off your anxieties!
Give them over to God! Let go and let God as the cliche says.
As you hold onto them, you are being prideful.
Let’s take a moment to explore some of the avenues of anxiety:
Anxiety from unconfessed sin - You will be weighed down by guilt and shame. Holding onto it will not do you any good. Deal with it!
Anxiety for the future - We, more than any other people in history have unfettered access to what’s going on across the world. Natural disasters, tragedies, are spread across the world at the speed of light. We are constantly bombarded with the problems of the world, and the failures of governments etc. to deal with the problems we face. There is a question about how healthy this is for us, but regardless, our concerns for the world that seems to be spinning out of control can provoke worry for the future. Yet God is in control, and so worrying about it is not going to make him more or less
Anxiety from your past - You have made mistakes, and they haunt you. You wish you could undo them, or change them. But what’s done is done, you may have messed up, and it may have brought you great shame and regret, but can you change the past by worrying? There is one who can, and does, turn the greatest evils for good, and who is working all things for good! Turn to him lay those problems before Him and let him deal with them. Carrying them around will not help you or honour God.
Anxiety for others - You have a great love and care for others, you want the best for them. But you cannot control their heart or actions. Your efforts to influence them for good have been rebuffed. What can you do? Love them, Seek the Lord, and do not hold onto a responsibility that is not your to bear.
Anxiety for yourself - What if I loose my job? What if I can’t afford the next repayment? rent? Where will we get money for clothes? You cannot turn one hair of your head white or black, why would worrying about any of those things change it?
It is hard! No one said it would be easy!
Spurgeon:
It is no child’s play to cast all our cares on our Lord when there are six little children, shoes worn out, cupboard empty, purse bare, ... Here is a work worthy of faith. You will have to lift with all your soul before the burden can be shifted and the anxiety cast upon the Lord. That effort, however, will not be half so exhausting as the effort of carrying your load yourself.
CAST - Heave it over - big throw!
ALL your anxieties! Not a few, not most, all!
How can I cast them on the LORD? In prayer
Philippians 4:5–6 (ESV)
The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
… Because He Cares for You.
… Because He Cares for You.
casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
We can take all these cares to God, because he care for us.
He will not leave us high and dry. He loves us, he sent his son to save us. Do you think now he is indifferent?
God cares for our needs. And giving them over to Him means that we can trust him to deal with them appropriately. Either
Not a real issue, you anxiety was for nothing
I will fulfill this need in my time
This is a trial for you to face, and your anxiety over it will not help. Trust me and face the trial ahead with my care & guidance.
When we cast all our anxieties over, we have shed the load. We have taken a burden off ourselves, because we were carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
You will say, “this is old stuff from back in the day, but we have modern problems and solutions now.” But do you really think that God was unaware of you and your anxieties when he wrote this?
Because He cares for you, he calls you to cast your anxieties to him.
So What?
So What?
God opposes pride, not just out there, but in the church as well.
We are called to humble ourselves under God, make yourself low.
God exalts the lowly.
We must be humble by casting our anxieties on God.
He cares for us, He hears us, He will supply our need.
Holding onto anxieties is prideful.
At the end of the day this is the question: Who will you trust? Will it be yourself or God?
God invites you to hand over the burden, and give up struggling for control, let him give you a humble yoke that is easy and light.