“6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”
The ten-day forecast changed since we decided to put the focus of this service on prayer. It now looks warmer and drier than it did before. That is encouraging but it provoked a strange response within me. Looking at the new forecast, I suddenly felt less urgency about prayer. I found myself trusting more in the encouraging forecast than in God’s promises. I needed to remind myself that, “man lives not by forecasts alone but by every promise that comes from the mouth of God.”
It is right and good to be encouraged by an encouraging forecast but if you find yourself trusting a forecast more than you trust God, something has gone awry; you have begun trusting circumstances more than you trust God.
That is easy to do. The Bible regularly shows people trusting circumstances more than they trust God. The Bible regularly shows God training these same people to trust Him more than they trust circumstances. Faith involves trusting God more than you trust circumstances. That is the claim of this sermon: faith involves trusting God more than you trust circumstances.
We will consider God and circumstances in two points. First: God’s mighty hand. Second: God’s listening ear. We will focus on God’s mighty hand in verse 6 and God’s listening ear in verse 7.
First: God’s mighty hand. Different circumstances cause us to ask God, ‘why?’ Job asked God ‘why?’ when he suffered grievously. The Psalmists regularly ask God ‘why?’ If you are asking God ‘why’ you are in good company.
When you ask God ‘why?’, you assume the doctrine of providence. You assume that God is involved in the details of this world and in the details of your life. If you didn’t assume that, you wouldn’t ask Him.
Peter assumed the doctrine of providence when he wrote this letter. Peter wrote to Christians who were being persecuted for their faith—“humble yourself under God’s mighty hand.” Peter told them to trust in God’s providence.
He could have written the Catechism’s answer about providence, you “can be patient when things go against [you], thankful when things go well, and for the future [you] can have good confidence in [your] faithful God and Father that nothing in creation will separate [you] from His love. For all creatures are so completely in God’s hand that without His will they can neither move nor be moved.” Peter wanted this church to remember that, “leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty—all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but by His fatherly hand.”
You must humble yourself under that hand. That is true when it comes to persecution. That is true when it comes to inclement weather. That is true when it comes to illness. That is true when it comes to financial hardship.
If you trust in God, you can be thankful when things go well because you know whom to thank. If you trust in God, you can be patient when things go against you because you know that God is in charge and that this trial has not and will not separate you from His love.
Peter told these persecuted Christians to trust in God’s providence. He wrote, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.”
You can humble yourself under that hand of providence or you can grumble about it. You humble yourself by acknowledging that you don’t know all God might do in and through these circumstances. You aren’t God. God is God. Joseph didn’t know what God was doing and in through his imprisonment. Ruth didn’t know what God was doing in and through her bereavement. The disciples didn’t know what God was doing in and through the death of Jesus. The church to which Peter wrote didn’t know what God was doing in and through their persecution. We don’t know what God is doing in and through the rains and flooding. You humble yourself under God’s hand by acknowledging that you don’t know how God might use this trial.
You also humble yourself under God’s hand by trusting that God and God alone will sustain you. There is a difference between trusting that God will sustain you and trusting that God alone will sustain you. We see this in Paul. He found himself in circumstances that were beyond his ability to bear. If anyone tells you that God won’t give you more than you can handle, remember that God gave Paul more than he could handle. He told the church at Corinth about it. He said, “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” Paul was forced to realize that God and God alone could sustain him. You humble yourself under God’s hand by trusting that God and God alone will sustain you.
You humble also yourself under God’s hand by recognizing that your insufficiency to obey in this circumstance. You humble yourself right now by confessing to God that you need His help to obey Him in this trial. You need His help to be patient since things seem against you. You need His help to be kind because left to yourself you are worried and quick to snap. You humble yourself under God’s hand by acknowledging that you are insufficient to obey in this circumstance.
You also humble yourself under God’s hand by trusting that God will lift you up. We see this in the rest of verse 6, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.” The goal of humbling yourself is not just to be humble. The goal is exaltation. You humble yourself so that you will be lifted up.
Now you might be lifted up soon. We want to weather to turn to our favor now, and it may. Perhaps the Lord’s purposes through all this rain have been achieved. Perhaps it was for the purpose of us humbling ourselves and of men and women all over this country humbling themselves. That was doubtlessly one of the reasons He sent this rain, but remember, “God is always doing ten thousand things in your life and you may be aware of three of them,” as John Piper put it.
The Lord does give kindness upon kindness in this life, but you won’t be lifted up the way you hope until the last day. Peter was most likely thinking about the second coming when he wrote, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.” He was most likely thinking about that moment when these persecuted Christians and their persecutors stood before Christ and received what was due them.
We need to keep that last day in mind because even if the Lord gives the uninterrupted warmth and sunshine for which we long, there will be other trials. We might be here praying for rain in a couple of years. We will be here praying for loved ones who are ill. We will be here praying for situations that would break your heart and we will be doing so until the last day. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.”
The Lord gives kindness upon kindness in this life. Trust that but know that the life for which you long will not come until the resurrection.
Jesus is the perfect illustration of this. His exaltation took place at his resurrection too. It happened because he humbled himself. “He humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God highly exalted him.” “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.” Follow Jesus. You will be exalted at your resurrection similar to how he was at his.
So, you humble yourself under God’s mighty hand by acknowledging that you don’t know all that God might do in and through these circumstances. You humble yourself under God’s mighty hand by trusting that God will sustain you. You humble yourself under God’s hand by recognizing that you are insufficient to obey in this circumstance. You humble yourself under God’s hand by trusting that God will lift you up. You also humble yourself under God’s hand by prayer. That is our second point: God’s listening ear.
I chose this passage because of the tension between providence and praying. Trusting in the Father’s providence involves accepting what God has given. Praying involves asking God for what you need to obey in this situation. We Christians are to accept what God has given while asking for what we need to remain faithful. There is a tension between those two and any child of God lives in that tension.
The Son of God lived in that tension. Jesus humbled himself under the mighty hand of God as he asked God for what he wanted. He prayed, “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but Yours be done.” Jesus is the best illustration of these verses, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”
Jesus trusted in the Father’s providential care and so he prayed. Notice that he didn’t say to himself, ‘well, the Father cares for me, and He knows what’s best, so He doesn’t need my input by way of prayer.’ He took the Father’s providence as a motivation for prayer. He took the Father’s care as a motivation for prayer.
You pray because you trust the Father’s providence. You trust that He is in charge and that He cares for you. “Cast all your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you.”
The Father cares for you, in part, by giving you what you need to remain faithful. Karen Jobes is right, “God is neither unaware nor unconcerned about what His people are going through in order to remain faithful to Christ.”
What was needed most in persecution was not relief but faithfulness to Christ. What is most needed for us is not favorable circumstances but faithfulness to Christ. That doesn’t mean that favorable circumstances aren’t important. They are incredibly important. It just shows how much more important faithfulness to Christ must be. We don’t often think about that in difficult circumstances. We just want the circumstances changed. The Father knows how important that is, but He also knows how much more is at stake.
We want circumstances to change. We want the weather to be favorable and that is a good desire, but remember we live not by circumstances alone but by every promise that comes from the mouth of God. Faith involves trusting God more than you trust circumstances.
God wants you to trust. He doesn’t want you to worry. Thomas Schreiner is right, “Believers are humbling themselves by casting their worries on God. Conversely, if believers continue to worry, then they are caving in to pride… worry is a form of pride because when believers are filled with anxiety, they are convinced that they must solve all the problems in their lives in their own strength.”
Many of us have most likely caved into that pride over the past few months. We have been convinced that we must solve all the problems in our lives using our own strength. God has invited you into this sanctuary to tell you that, that is not the case. “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” That is not a psychological trick. It is an act of faith.
Cast your cares upon God because He cares for you. Cast your cares upon God because He is in charge. You don’t just go to God as a therapist—someone who is not a participant in your circumstances. Going to a therapist can be helpful to better understand how to relate to your circumstances but even the best therapist can’t change your circumstances. God can.
Ask Him to change your circumstances. We are praying this morning in hopes that the Father will change our circumstances. We have wet fields and we want them changed. We are unable to dig basements in order to work and we want that situation changed. We care about people in this church who are stressed, and we want their circumstances changed.
Wanting circumstances changed is not wrong. Trusting circumstances more than you trust in God is. Remember what Jesus prayed, “Father, if You are willing, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not my will but Yours be done.”
Every prayer we offer this morning is a reminder that God is in control. Every prayer we offer this morning is a reminder to you that God cares for us. Every prayer we offer this morning is an act of humbling ourselves under God’s hand. Every prayer we offer this morning is a declaration that we trust God more than we trust our circumstances. Every prayer that you offer in the coming days and weeks is a reminder and declaration of that as well. So cast your cares on Him. He cares for you. Amen.