Perfect Peace
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How to Suffer without Anxiety
1 Peter 5:6-7
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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.
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Our study in 1 Peter has been a deep dive into the topic of Christian suffering.
This epistle has sought to equip us with virtually everything we need to handle whatever kind of difficulty that may come our way. Peter has shown us the comforts we have in suffering. He has shown us the calling we have in this suffering: the calling to be obedient and conduct ourselves with the highest integrity.
We can really say that Peter has provided us with a comprehensive handbook when it comes to the whole subject of suffering.
This morning, we find that Peter provides, yet once more, the perfect word; the words that we need for helping to deal with that suffering. For in this passage he deals with a topic that naturally comes with suffering. It is the topic of anxiety; worry.
Perhaps the only thing that may be surprising about his dealing with this subject is that it comes so late in the book. We are almost done with this epistle and he is just now dealing with the issue of anxiety.
I am assuming it is because Peter believes that all the other topics we have addressed are more important. Or maybe he wanted to leave it as one of the last things that he addresses because the last words are the ones that are most likely to stick with you. The last thing you hear is typically the thing that you are most likely to remember.
Whatever the reason may be, Peter knows that this is a very important topic. It is not one that should be overlooked. That’s because anxiety usually accompanies suffering. When the pressures of life start mounting up and the difficulties you are facing hammer down on you, there are naturally a lot of concerns that will be had.
There will be relational cares, material cares (what will you eat? how will you provide for yourself?). There will be issues with your family, and issues with your occupation. You can just imagine all the things that are going to be rattling around in your brain. What are you going to do? What if this happens? What if that happens?
The funny thing about it is that you don’t even have to be suffering to be dealing with anxiety. All you have to do is have some responsibility or some decisions to make. These things can end up taking up quite a bit of space in your mind. You can start fretting over those decisions and responsibilities. You can feel overwhelmed by the stress or frantic about how it all is going to work out.
The good news is that Peter has come to that moment where he deals with this very problem.
It may sound crazy, but our God does not want you to be anxious. To the ordinary person, it may be a little outlandish to even think that the Lord not only wants you to go through suffering, but he wants you to go through these trials and tribulations without ever experiencing an ounce of worry.
But it is true. God’s will for your life is that you would not be burdened down by the cares of life. You may suffer; there may be no escaping that. But the Lord does not want you to suffer with anxiety.
We might even say it this way: There is a particular kind of suffering that is sinful. Call it what you will; call it worry, anxiety, or panic. Call it the jitters, tenseness, or nervousness. You need to understand that it is completely out of line with God’s expectations; it is a breaking of his law to not have the perfect peace of God in your life.
So really, part of the duty you have as a Christian is to bear your suffering with the appropriate mental/spiritual/emotion composure that God requires.
How do you know if anxiety has taken control of you? How do you know if you have gotten entangled in the net of worry? You know you have fallen into the sin of worry when fear has taken control of you. Anxiety is sinful because something other than the Word of God has come to dominate your thoughts and actions.
It may just be that you are paralyzed and don’t think that you can do anything. The cares of life simply have you pinned down or distracted from your God given duties. If that’s the case, then you are in sin.
As a matter of fact, the Puritans would often talk about anxiety as “distracting cares.” There are the cares of life, which we all have. Part of our duty in life is to tend to the cares we have; we care for our children; we care for our husbands; we care for our house and our possessions.
But these things can become distracting cares. The cares can become so big that they distract us from the other obligations we have. Our mind just is consumed by these things and we do not think about the things that we should be thinking about. Or, since we are distracted, we do not do the things that we are called to do. This distraction from obedience to God and His Word is the very nature of anxiety.
Well, the passage we have today speaks to that very issue. God provides here a solution to the problem of anxiety. And if you are obedient to this text, you will never have a problem with anxiety ever again. If you master what Peter says here, you will find that you never lack God’s peace in your life. It doesn’t matter how much suffering you go through; it doesn’t matter how many responsibilities and decisions you have to make, you will never experienced one iota of worry ever again.
If you want to overcome anxiety, all you have to do is make a couple adjustments in your life. God's Word says that, if you want to overcome anxiety, you need to adjust your attitude, actions, and thoughts. The formula is really that simple.
Let's dive in and see what God has to say. The first thing you need to do is adjust your attitude.
I. You Must Adjust Your attitude
Now, I’m going to say something here that will fly in the face of contemporary society. If you were to take what I say here to a psychiatrist, they are going to tell you that this is absurd. The way God deals with anxiety is completely different than what you will find the world (and all its professionals) telling you. As a matter of fact, they will tell you that this is not just wrong, it is abusive or mean. It is degrading and destructive.
Notice how Peter starts. He says you need to “humble yourselves.”
That word humble in the original language means to press down. So Peter says that your view of yourself is too high and you need to push it down. You need to gain a better perspective of yourself because you have an inflated view of yourself.
I’ve heard that some have said that true humility is "having a right view of yourself." Its not viewing yourself too highly and not viewing yourself too lowly. You have to have a right view of yourself.
I understand what they are trying to communicate by that. However, I don’t know that we have ever really had too low a view of ourselves. Our pride doesn’t typically allow ourselves to think about ourselves in a way that is low enough.
But that’s what this is saying. This is how you gain freedom from anxiety. Your anxiety is the consequence of your enlarged ego. And, if you want to find some relief from this cursed feeling, you have to begin to press your attitude down into the very dust of the earth.
You see how this doesn’t fit with our contemporary society now, don’t you? The world is going to tell you that you need to think more highly of yourself. Your anxiety is likely due to your not having a healthy self-esteem. They will tell you that your anxiety is due to the fact that you don’t think you are good enough. You’re full of worry and fear because you need more confidence in yourself and you need to tell yourself how great you are.
That’s the exact opposite of what Peter is saying here. Peter is saying your anxiety is due to your having an attitude that is already greater than it should be.
Let me show you what I’m talking about. What are some things that people may say when they are anxious? Whether you say them consciously or its more of an unconscious thing that is stuck in the back of your mind, what is going through your head? Probably the number one lie that you are believing goes like this:
1) I don’t deserve this
To which we answer, “Says who?” Who says you don’t deserve this catastrophe? What do you think you are entitled to? Do you believe that God is somehow obligated to provide you with a cushy, easy life? Do you think that you have really done so well and been so impressive in the way you have lived that God now owes you better treatment?
I guarantee that this is not the case. I would say that God owes you nothing, except that is definitively false. If you got nothing from God, that would still be a whole lot more than you should. The only thing we have earned is God’s most severe and harrowing treatment.
The sins that we have committed against God have so aggravated him. The offensiveness of them has been more abhorrent than we can imagine. They were committed against a God who is infinitely holy; a God who finds the very least transgression so incredibly egregious that to bring justice to it means He must not only punish it forever, he must press down upon it with the ferocity that this vile thing deserves.
Some of you have been attending our evening study on The American Gospel. One of the things we heard in that video was the seriousness of sin. One of the men that appeared on the video said that you can take a key and you can go to the junkyard and scrape that key along an old rusty car that had been left for scrap. That won’t really mean much.
If you go and take that key and scrape it down the side of my Toyota Corolla, that will be a bit more serious. But let’s say there’s a brand new Ferrari sitting in the parking lot. Its sleek red paint and iconic curvature rouses your attention. And so you take your key and run it down the body of that hot speed demon. What you have just done is vastly more scandalous.
And this doesn’t even begin to compare. Because God is infinitely greater than a fancy car; and your sins are much more than one minor scratch.
Now you may begin to realize how foolish it is to even think the thought “I don’t deserve this.” Such a notion is far from being true. It is a vast overestimation of your standing with God.
And so what should you do? You need to press down your view of yourself. You need to begin to say, “Thank God this world of pain that I am now experiencing is all he has given me!” You should praise God that in his mercy he has not treated you as your sins really deserve. You will find that your anxiety melts away quite quickly when you begin to say, “God is completely just to bring these difficulties my way. I recognize that He is not yet treated me with true fairness. I appreciate that my life is not as bad as it could be!”
Let me give you another example. Here’s another thing you may have flitting through your brain. A lot of people, when they are anxious have an attitude that says…
2) I can’t handle this.
Let’s consider that for a moment. "I can’t handle this." There’s actually another way to say that. When you say, “I can’t handle this” that can be translated into “I can’t control this.” You can’t handle it because you feel that you can’t manipulate things and make them come out the way you want them to.
That’s why you are anxious. You feel anxious because you are not in control. You can’t get the desired outcomes you want. You can’t handle it because you cannot manipulate things and get what you want.
But that anxiety is due to the prideful notion that you are the one who is to be in control. It is a lack of humility because you have your own intentions in mind and not the plans of God.
As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what Peter is getting at in this verse. You are to humble yourself "under the mighty hand of God." Peter is talking about God’s being in control and creating the circumstances which you are now experiencing.
To speak of God's hand is to speak of God's Providence. You do things with your hands. Obviously, God does not have literal hands. He is a Spirit and does not have a body like men. But to talk about God’s hand is a symbolic way of saying that God is doing something. The mighty hand of God means that God is now working by His immense power; He is controlling the events of history. And this moment (i.e. the moment of your suffering and hardship) is all due to God’s mighty hand being active in this world.
If you want to get the relief you are really needing, the thing you have to do is press down your view of yourself. Your attitude needs to be more humble and willing to say, “God, you are the one who is in control. You are the one who handles all things. I know I can’t handle these things because I am a foolish, finite human being.”
You need to be humble enough to say that God’s way of handling things is the best way of handling things. The way things turn out is and will always be the absolute best possible way they could turn out, even if it is not to my liking. That’s because God is in control.
You see, this humble attitude will be willing to submit to whatever God sends your way. That humility will make you willing and able to ride whatever wave comes at you.
There are other types of examples that we could look at. I don’t intend to go through all of them by any means. I simply want to point out that the root cause of anxiety is something that you may not have ever considered. It’s pride. And the first step in overcoming anxiety is downward. It’s pressing your ego down.
It may sound crazy. This is not advice you are going to get anywhere else in the world. If you walk down the street and meet up with a psychiatrist or a psychologist, they will tell you that you how great you are. They will tell you that you are a strong person. They will flatter you with all kinds of notions.
But that is all misguided. That approach will never relieve your anxiety. It will only make it worse because it is inflating your ego all that much more.
What you need to do is humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. You need to acknowledge your weakness. You need to acknowledge your sinfulness. You need to acknowledge God and how He alone is great.
So, it all begins with your attitude. Freedom from anxiety begins with a humble, pressed down view of yourself.
The second step has to do with your actions. In dealing with anxiety, you not only need to adjust your attitude, you have to adjust the way you pray too.
II. You Must Adjust Your actions
Look again at our passage. What does Peter tell you to do next? He says you must "Cast all your anxieties upon the Lord." That means you need to pray.
Now, you might say to me, “But Matt, I pray all the time. When troubles come my way, I pray like there’s no tomorrow. But, to be honest with you, I still feel like I am riddled with anxiety.”
I understand that. I know that many people do. That’s why I want you to pay particular attention to what Peter is saying here. He’s not just saying you need to pray, he’s telling you that you need to pray in a certain way. You do not have relief from your anxiety because you are either not praying, or not praying the right way.
Many people suffer with anxiety because their prayers are not biblical. Their prayers are more a continuation of their worries. They pray in a way that does not relieve their worries, but only makes their worry linger on longer or become more intense.
How then are we to pray? Well, let’s analyze it and find out.
First, it is important to understand the verb that is used here. The word "cast" literally means to throw upon, to fling, or to deposit. The idea is that you get rid of your cares. You unburden yourself of them by hurling them upon God.
For instance, when you make a deposit of money at the bank, you no longer carry that load of cash. You drop it with the teller and you walk out without holding that wad of cash any longer.
That's what you are supposed to do with your cares and anxieties. Those things that you have that are burdens on your heart and mind are to be dropped. You are to fling them upon the Lord and leave them with Him. You are not to carry them around any more in your head.
The grammar here is important to note too. The word cast in the Greek language is in the arorist tense. The arorist tense is often described as punctiliar action. That means it is a one time action. It is not an action that continues or is repeated over and over. It is a definitive act that happens in a singular moment.
So when Peter says, “Cast all your cares upon Him” he means to say, cast them once and for all. Make this a singular action of unloading all your cares.”
Of course, this is not to mean that you don’t ever pray about this ever again. But the idea is that you deposit your worries in God’s hands. You pray, and then you move on. You lift up your cares, and you now seek to act as if the burden no longer weighs upon you.
Let me illustrate it this way. Some of you may have been fishing in your lifetime. You know there are different ways you can fish. Sometimes you take your pole and you cast your line into the pond and you leave it there. You cast it once and you just let it sit there. You may then start doing other things. Once the bobber is in the water, you may put your pole down, take out a snack, or fiddle with the radio. You cast your line and you leave it there until something takes the bait.
Other times you cast the line into the water, and you immediately start to reel it back in. When your lure gets back to your pole, you cast it out there again. Then you start reeling it in again. You repeat this action again and again until you catch a fish.
This is how people often pray. They may cast their burdens upon the Lord, but they immediately pull their cares back and start to fret about them again. You throw them up to God, but you don't really let go. You pull them back. You cast your prayers, but you continue to let your mind be consumed by your worries.
Peter is saying that you have to cast your cares, once and for all. Do not try to keep hold of them. Let your mind rest. Cast your cares upon the Lord and do not let yourself be burdened by them any more. Don’t let yourself continue to worry about them any longer.
This is not to say that you forget the decisions you have to make or ignore your responsibilities. That would be irresponsible. I’m simply saying that when you pray you are to trust that God has heard your prayer, He has taken responsibility for your burdens, and He will provide the answers you need. He will give you the strength. He will provide you with the wisdom. He will bring solutions to the problems.
That is how we are to pray. I lift this to God; I move on with life. I trust that God will work. Now I seek to make wisest possible decisions. If it is time to go to bed, you say, “God, I put this in your hands. I have no more ability to deal with it tonight. I am laying my head down and closing my eyes with the full confidence that you have already begun to answer my prayer and take care of my needs. I am no longer going to let myself think upon these things in such an unnecessary fashion.”
And that moves us into the last thing that we need to change. We’ve said you need to adjust your attitude and your actions. But if you are going to be anxiety free, the last thing you need to change is your thought life.
III. You Must Adjust Your Thoughts
Notice how Peter ends this section. He adds those precious words: “He cares for you.”
Why should you pray? Why should you not be anxious? It’s because the Lord loves you and has a deep concern for your welfare. You shouldn't be anxious because you know God is actively working.
Think of it this way: God's care is His love in action. When Peter says that He cares for you, Peter isn't just saying that the Lord has a deep affection for you. God's care is more than a romantic feeling He has. God's care is His Providence. It is His love that is acting in time and space to bring you help and tend to your concerns.
The thing about anxiety is that it is at is base a form of atheism. At best it is a form of deism. Deism says that God may be out there, but he’s not doing anything for me. He doesn’t love me or have any real interest in me. He is not involved in this world or my life.
That’s why you get all worked up. You are in a frizzle frazzle because you don’t truly believe in a loving God who is actively moving in the details of history to bring about the best possible ends for you.
Now, you may believe these things in theory. Someone may ask you about God and you might be able to tell him that God is infinite love. You may be able to say a great deal about God’s providence and how he governs and sustains every single molecule in this vast universe. But when when it comes to the application of these things and dealing with the troubles that are besieging your heart, you toss all that out the window.
When you need it the most, that’s when you are the least theologically minded. And that’s why you need to preach this to yourself over and over. Your thoughts need to be properly ordered. You need to adjust how you are thinking about life and about the Lord.
And so you need to call to mind the fact that this is the God you follow. Because of what Christ has done for you, God loves you. God cares for you because He has adopted you into His family. He is not an impersonal God. He’s actively moving the world’s furniture in order to take care of you.
I’d like to suggest that you do this one practical thing: Praise God. When you begin to think about how God cares for you and is already answering your prayer, that should make you praise God. After you pray about the concerns you have, you should begin thanking God for the answer He has already provided.
This is the remedy. You need to put off your concerns and put on thoughts about the infinite love that God has for you. You need to stop letting your worries consume your mind and you need to concentrate on the fact that Almighty God is demonstrating His divine care for you.
School got you worried? What should you do? I suggest that you take a walk. Take a time out and get your thoughts in order: Spend time reveling in the fact that you serve a God who is more interested in you than you are of Him. Praise God that he is not some deity that is far away and has no concern about you at all. He is a God who has already begun to answer your prayer. That's because He cares for you. His love is set in motion.
Conclusion:
This is how you put an end to anxiety. Peter has laid out three simple steps that you need to take in order to stop worry in its tracks. You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars in counseling fees. You don't have to purchase any kind of medication. All you have to do is make these three simple adjustments: Humble yourself, pray prayers where you truly cast your cares upon him once and for all, and think about the nature of God. Understand what it means that He cares for you; grasp the fact that His love is in motion. Do these things and anxiety will be a thing of the past.
This epistle has sought to equip us with virtually everything we need to handle whatever kind of difficulty that may come our way. Peter has shown us the comforts we have in suffering. He has shown us the calling we have in this suffering: the calling to be obedient and conduct ourselves with the highest integrity.
We can really say that Peter has provided us with a comprehensive handbook when it comes to the whole subject of suffering.
This morning, we find that Peter provides, yet once more, the perfect word; the words that we need for helping to deal with that suffering. For in this passage he deals with a topic that naturally comes with suffering. It is the topic of anxiety; worry.
Perhaps the only thing that may be surprising about his dealing with this subject is that it comes so late in the book. We are almost done with this epistle and he is just now dealing with the issue of anxiety.
I am assuming it is because Peter believes that all the other topics we have addressed are more important. Or maybe he wanted to leave it as one of the last things that he addresses because the last words are the ones that are most likely to stick with you. The last thing you hear is typically the thing that you are most likely to remember.
Whatever the reason may be, Peter knows that this is a very important topic. It is not one that should be overlooked. That’s because anxiety usually accompanies suffering. When the pressures of life start mounting up and the difficulties you are facing hammer down on you, there are naturally a lot of concerns that will be had.
There will be relational cares, material cares (what will you eat? how will you provide for yourself?). There will be issues with your family, and issues with your occupation. You can just imagine all the things that are going to be rattling around in your brain. What are you going to do? What if this happens? What if that happens?
The funny thing about it is that you don’t even have to be suffering to be dealing with anxiety. All you have to do is have some responsibility or some decisions to make. These things can end up taking up quite a bit of space in your mind. You can start fretting over those decisions and responsibilities. You can feel overwhelmed by the stress or frantic about how it all is going to work out.
The good news is that Peter has come to that moment where he deals with this very problem.
It may sound crazy, but our God does not want you to be anxious. To the ordinary person, it may be a little outlandish to even think that the Lord not only wants you to go through suffering, but he wants you to go through these trials and tribulations without ever experiencing an ounce of worry.
But it is true. God’s will for your life is that you would not be burdened down by the cares of life. You may suffer; there may be no escaping that. But the Lord does not want you to suffer with anxiety.
We might even say it this way: There is a particular kind of suffering that is sinful. Call it what you will; call it worry, anxiety, or panic. Call it the jitters, tenseness, or nervousness. You need to understand that it is completely out of line with God’s expectations; it is a breaking of his law to not have the perfect peace of God in your life.
So really, part of the duty you have as a Christian is to bear your suffering with the appropriate mental/spiritual/emotion composure that God requires.
How do you know if anxiety has taken control of you? How do you know if you have gotten entangled in the net of worry? You know you have fallen into the sin of worry when fear has taken control of you. Anxiety is sinful because something other than the Word of God has come to dominate your thoughts and actions.
It may just be that you are paralyzed and don’t think that you can do anything. The cares of life simply have you pinned down or distracted from your God given duties. If that’s the case, then you are in sin.
As a matter of fact, the Puritans would often talk about anxiety as “distracting cares.” There are the cares of life, which we all have. Part of our duty in life is to tend to the cares we have; we care for our children; we care for our husbands; we care for our house and our possessions.
But these things can become distracting cares. The cares can become so big that they distract us from the other obligations we have. Our mind just is consumed by these things and we do not think about the things that we should be thinking about. Or, since we are distracted, we do not do the things that we are called to do. This distraction from obedience to God and His Word is the very nature of anxiety.
Well, the passage we have today speaks to that very issue. God provides here a solution to the problem of anxiety. And if you are obedient to this text, you will never have a problem with anxiety ever again. If you master what Peter says here, you will find that you never lack God’s peace in your life. It doesn’t matter how much suffering you go through; it doesn’t matter how many responsibilities and decisions you have to make, you will never experienced one iota of worry ever again.
If you want to overcome anxiety, all you have to do is make a couple adjustments in your life. God's Word says that, if you want to overcome anxiety, you need to adjust your attitude, actions, and thoughts. The formula is really that simple.
Let's dive in and see what God has to say. The first thing you need to do is adjust your attitude.
I. You Must Adjust Your attitude
Now, I’m going to say something here that will fly in the face of contemporary society. If you were to take what I say here to a psychiatrist, they are going to tell you that this is absurd. The way God deals with anxiety is completely different than what you will find the world (and all its professionals) telling you. As a matter of fact, they will tell you that this is not just wrong, it is abusive or mean. It is degrading and destructive.
Notice how Peter starts. He says you need to “humble yourselves.”
That word humble in the original language means to press down. So Peter says that your view of yourself is too high and you need to push it down. You need to gain a better perspective of yourself because you have an inflated view of yourself.
I’ve heard that some have said that true humility is "having a right view of yourself." Its not viewing yourself too highly and not viewing yourself too lowly. You have to have a right view of yourself.
I understand what they are trying to communicate by that. However, I don’t know that we have ever really had too low a view of ourselves. Our pride doesn’t typically allow ourselves to think about ourselves in a way that is low enough.
But that’s what this is saying. This is how you gain freedom from anxiety. Your anxiety is the consequence of your enlarged ego. And, if you want to find some relief from this cursed feeling, you have to begin to press your attitude down into the very dust of the earth.
You see how this doesn’t fit with our contemporary society now, don’t you? The world is going to tell you that you need to think more highly of yourself. Your anxiety is likely due to your not having a healthy self-esteem. They will tell you that your anxiety is due to the fact that you don’t think you are good enough. You’re full of worry and fear because you need more confidence in yourself and you need to tell yourself how great you are.
That’s the exact opposite of what Peter is saying here. Peter is saying your anxiety is due to your having an attitude that is already greater than it should be.
Let me show you what I’m talking about. What are some things that people may say when they are anxious? Whether you say them consciously or its more of an unconscious thing that is stuck in the back of your mind, what is going through your head? Probably the number one lie that you are believing goes like this:
1) I don’t deserve this
To which we answer, “Says who?” Who says you don’t deserve this catastrophe? What do you think you are entitled to? Do you believe that God is somehow obligated to provide you with a cushy, easy life? Do you think that you have really done so well and been so impressive in the way you have lived that God now owes you better treatment?
I guarantee that this is not the case. I would say that God owes you nothing, except that is definitively false. If you got nothing from God, that would still be a whole lot more than you should. The only thing we have earned is God’s most severe and harrowing treatment.
The sins that we have committed against God have so aggravated him. The offensiveness of them has been more abhorrent than we can imagine. They were committed against a God who is infinitely holy; a God who finds the very least transgression so incredibly egregious that to bring justice to it means He must not only punish it forever, he must press down upon it with the ferocity that this vile thing deserves.
Some of you have been attending our evening study on The American Gospel. One of the things we heard in that video was the seriousness of sin. One of the men that appeared on the video said that you can take a key and you can go to the junkyard and scrape that key along an old rusty car that had been left for scrap. That won’t really mean much.
If you go and take that key and scrape it down the side of my Toyota Corolla, that will be a bit more serious. But let’s say there’s a brand new Ferrari sitting in the parking lot. Its sleek red paint and iconic curvature rouses your attention. And so you take your key and run it down the body of that hot speed demon. What you have just done is vastly more scandalous.
And this doesn’t even begin to compare. Because God is infinitely greater than a fancy car; and your sins are much more than one minor scratch.
Now you may begin to realize how foolish it is to even think the thought “I don’t deserve this.” Such a notion is far from being true. It is a vast overestimation of your standing with God.
And so what should you do? You need to press down your view of yourself. You need to begin to say, “Thank God this world of pain that I am now experiencing is all he has given me!” You should praise God that in his mercy he has not treated you as your sins really deserve. You will find that your anxiety melts away quite quickly when you begin to say, “God is completely just to bring these difficulties my way. I recognize that He is not yet treated me with true fairness. I appreciate that my life is not as bad as it could be!”
Let me give you another example. Here’s another thing you may have flitting through your brain. A lot of people, when they are anxious have an attitude that says…
2) I can’t handle this.
Let’s consider that for a moment. "I can’t handle this." There’s actually another way to say that. When you say, “I can’t handle this” that can be translated into “I can’t control this.” You can’t handle it because you feel that you can’t manipulate things and make them come out the way you want them to.
That’s why you are anxious. You feel anxious because you are not in control. You can’t get the desired outcomes you want. You can’t handle it because you cannot manipulate things and get what you want.
But that anxiety is due to the prideful notion that you are the one who is to be in control. It is a lack of humility because you have your own intentions in mind and not the plans of God.
As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what Peter is getting at in this verse. You are to humble yourself "under the mighty hand of God." Peter is talking about God’s being in control and creating the circumstances which you are now experiencing.
To speak of God's hand is to speak of God's Providence. You do things with your hands. Obviously, God does not have literal hands. He is a Spirit and does not have a body like men. But to talk about God’s hand is a symbolic way of saying that God is doing something. The mighty hand of God means that God is now working by His immense power; He is controlling the events of history. And this moment (i.e. the moment of your suffering and hardship) is all due to God’s mighty hand being active in this world.
If you want to get the relief you are really needing, the thing you have to do is press down your view of yourself. Your attitude needs to be more humble and willing to say, “God, you are the one who is in control. You are the one who handles all things. I know I can’t handle these things because I am a foolish, finite human being.”
You need to be humble enough to say that God’s way of handling things is the best way of handling things. The way things turn out is and will always be the absolute best possible way they could turn out, even if it is not to my liking. That’s because God is in control.
You see, this humble attitude will be willing to submit to whatever God sends your way. That humility will make you willing and able to ride whatever wave comes at you.
There are other types of examples that we could look at. I don’t intend to go through all of them by any means. I simply want to point out that the root cause of anxiety is something that you may not have ever considered. It’s pride. And the first step in overcoming anxiety is downward. It’s pressing your ego down.
It may sound crazy. This is not advice you are going to get anywhere else in the world. If you walk down the street and meet up with a psychiatrist or a psychologist, they will tell you that you how great you are. They will tell you that you are a strong person. They will flatter you with all kinds of notions.
But that is all misguided. That approach will never relieve your anxiety. It will only make it worse because it is inflating your ego all that much more.
What you need to do is humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. You need to acknowledge your weakness. You need to acknowledge your sinfulness. You need to acknowledge God and how He alone is great.
So, it all begins with your attitude. Freedom from anxiety begins with a humble, pressed down view of yourself.
The second step has to do with your actions. In dealing with anxiety, you not only need to adjust your attitude, you have to adjust the way you pray too.
II. You Must Adjust Your actions
Look again at our passage. What does Peter tell you to do next? He says you must "Cast all your anxieties upon the Lord." That means you need to pray.
Now, you might say to me, “But Matt, I pray all the time. When troubles come my way, I pray like there’s no tomorrow. But, to be honest with you, I still feel like I am riddled with anxiety.”
I understand that. I know that many people do. That’s why I want you to pay particular attention to what Peter is saying here. He’s not just saying you need to pray, he’s telling you that you need to pray in a certain way. You do not have relief from your anxiety because you are either not praying, or not praying the right way.
Many people suffer with anxiety because their prayers are not biblical. Their prayers are more a continuation of their worries. They pray in a way that does not relieve their worries, but only makes their worry linger on longer or become more intense.
How then are we to pray? Well, let’s analyze it and find out.
First, it is important to understand the verb that is used here. The word "cast" literally means to throw upon, to fling, or to deposit. The idea is that you get rid of your cares. You unburden yourself of them by hurling them upon God.
For instance, when you make a deposit of money at the bank, you no longer carry that load of cash. You drop it with the teller and you walk out without holding that wad of cash any longer.
That's what you are supposed to do with your cares and anxieties. Those things that you have that are burdens on your heart and mind are to be dropped. You are to fling them upon the Lord and leave them with Him. You are not to carry them around any more in your head.
The grammar here is important to note too. The word cast in the Greek language is in the arorist tense. The arorist tense is often described as punctiliar action. That means it is a one time action. It is not an action that continues or is repeated over and over. It is a definitive act that happens in a singular moment.
So when Peter says, “Cast all your cares upon Him” he means to say, cast them once and for all. Make this a singular action of unloading all your cares.”
Of course, this is not to mean that you don’t ever pray about this ever again. But the idea is that you deposit your worries in God’s hands. You pray, and then you move on. You lift up your cares, and you now seek to act as if the burden no longer weighs upon you.
Let me illustrate it this way. Some of you may have been fishing in your lifetime. You know there are different ways you can fish. Sometimes you take your pole and you cast your line into the pond and you leave it there. You cast it once and you just let it sit there. You may then start doing other things. Once the bobber is in the water, you may put your pole down, take out a snack, or fiddle with the radio. You cast your line and you leave it there until something takes the bait.
Other times you cast the line into the water, and you immediately start to reel it back in. When your lure gets back to your pole, you cast it out there again. Then you start reeling it in again. You repeat this action again and again until you catch a fish.
This is how people often pray. They may cast their burdens upon the Lord, but they immediately pull their cares back and start to fret about them again. You throw them up to God, but you don't really let go. You pull them back. You cast your prayers, but you continue to let your mind be consumed by your worries.
Peter is saying that you have to cast your cares, once and for all. Do not try to keep hold of them. Let your mind rest. Cast your cares upon the Lord and do not let yourself be burdened by them any more. Don’t let yourself continue to worry about them any longer.
This is not to say that you forget the decisions you have to make or ignore your responsibilities. That would be irresponsible. I’m simply saying that when you pray you are to trust that God has heard your prayer, He has taken responsibility for your burdens, and He will provide the answers you need. He will give you the strength. He will provide you with the wisdom. He will bring solutions to the problems.
That is how we are to pray. I lift this to God; I move on with life. I trust that God will work. Now I seek to make wisest possible decisions. If it is time to go to bed, you say, “God, I put this in your hands. I have no more ability to deal with it tonight. I am laying my head down and closing my eyes with the full confidence that you have already begun to answer my prayer and take care of my needs. I am no longer going to let myself think upon these things in such an unnecessary fashion.”
And that moves us into the last thing that we need to change. We’ve said you need to adjust your attitude and your actions. But if you are going to be anxiety free, the last thing you need to change is your thought life.
III. You Must Adjust Your Thoughts
Notice how Peter ends this section. He adds those precious words: “He cares for you.”
Why should you pray? Why should you not be anxious? It’s because the Lord loves you and has a deep concern for your welfare. You shouldn't be anxious because you know God is actively working.
Think of it this way: God's care is His love in action. When Peter says that He cares for you, Peter isn't just saying that the Lord has a deep affection for you. God's care is more than a romantic feeling He has. God's care is His Providence. It is His love that is acting in time and space to bring you help and tend to your concerns.
The thing about anxiety is that it is at is base a form of atheism. At best it is a form of deism. Deism says that God may be out there, but he’s not doing anything for me. He doesn’t love me or have any real interest in me. He is not involved in this world or my life.
That’s why you get all worked up. You are in a frizzle frazzle because you don’t truly believe in a loving God who is actively moving in the details of history to bring about the best possible ends for you.
Now, you may believe these things in theory. Someone may ask you about God and you might be able to tell him that God is infinite love. You may be able to say a great deal about God’s providence and how he governs and sustains every single molecule in this vast universe. But when when it comes to the application of these things and dealing with the troubles that are besieging your heart, you toss all that out the window.
When you need it the most, that’s when you are the least theologically minded. And that’s why you need to preach this to yourself over and over. Your thoughts need to be properly ordered. You need to adjust how you are thinking about life and about the Lord.
And so you need to call to mind the fact that this is the God you follow. Because of what Christ has done for you, God loves you. God cares for you because He has adopted you into His family. He is not an impersonal God. He’s actively moving the world’s furniture in order to take care of you.
I’d like to suggest that you do this one practical thing: Praise God. When you begin to think about how God cares for you and is already answering your prayer, that should make you praise God. After you pray about the concerns you have, you should begin thanking God for the answer He has already provided.
This is the remedy. You need to put off your concerns and put on thoughts about the infinite love that God has for you. You need to stop letting your worries consume your mind and you need to concentrate on the fact that Almighty God is demonstrating His divine care for you.
School got you worried? What should you do? I suggest that you take a walk. Take a time out and get your thoughts in order: Spend time reveling in the fact that you serve a God who is more interested in you than you are of Him. Praise God that he is not some deity that is far away and has no concern about you at all. He is a God who has already begun to answer your prayer. That's because He cares for you. His love is set in motion.
Conclusion:
This is how you put an end to anxiety. Peter has laid out three simple steps that you need to take in order to stop worry in its tracks. You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars in counseling fees. You don't have to purchase any kind of medication. All you have to do is make these three simple adjustments: Humble yourself, pray prayers where you truly cast your cares upon him once and for all, and think about the nature of God. Understand what it means that He cares for you; grasp the fact that His love is in motion. Do these things and anxiety will be a thing of the past.