ANNOUNCER: 1 Peter 5:7 says, casting all your care, your anxieties, on Him, for He cares for you. What is the best way to cast your anxiety on the Lord? Is the verse we all need to apply at some point? What are some examples of how to apply this verse? Stay with us, we’ll talk about it here on Grace in Focus, and we are just delighted that you’re joining us today, friend. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. We love it when you check out our website, faithalone.org. We have many articles, even hundreds of articles there that you can review, read and study, research, for free. So take advantage of that also information about our online seminary and our free subscription magazine. Find it all at faithalone.org. 

And now with today’s discussion on 1 Peter 5:7, here’s Bob Wilkin, along with Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right Bob, we’ve got a question from Brad. This is something we’ve talked about before, but people just are still worried and still anxious, so I guess they’re going to still keep asking about it. Right. But his question is, can you explain 1 Peter 5.7 and provide examples of how Christians can cast their cares and anxieties on Christ? So 1 Peter 5.7, I’ll read verse 6 first. He says, “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.” Seven, “casting all your care upon Him for He cares for you.” And then there’s some more. This is in his closing remarks of this letter, so there’s some other encouragements and then a farewell. But how can Christians, what does it mean to cast our cares and anxieties on Christ? I think is the first question, but then how do we do it? 

BOB: Yeah, so to cast our cares upon Him is to put our cares in His care, or put our concerns in His care. And so ultimately it seems to me the number one way we do this very specifically is prayer. We pray and we tell God what is a concern for us and ask Him to aid us with this, to help us with this. 

SAM: And we have good examples, so many of the Psalms are exactly this. It’s my enemies are surrounding me. The world is crumbling around me. The sky is falling. You know, everything’s going wrong, but he always cries out to God. And sometimes it’s extremely emotional the way he does it. It’s not a polite, please God, please do this. It’s a crying out, screaming sort of prayer. And it’s very emotional, but that is the way that David expressed his prayers to God. 

BOB: Yeah, I like that. And of course, you remember, David said what God desires is a broken and contrite heart? Peter says that same basic thing in the verses preceding 1 Peter 5:7 that Brad was asking about, notice starting in verse 5. “Likewise, you younger people submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be closed with humility for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” A big part of casting our cares or anxieties upon Him is to be humble. Notice he says, “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you and due time.” I take the exalting in due time, refers ultimately to the Judgment Seat of Christ, although it probably has ramifications in this life that He can exalt us in this life as well. But in order to cast your cares upon Him, you’ve got to humble yourself. 

SAM: And I think that’s exactly what we see if we go to Matthew 6:25. And it’s all the way through verse 33. It’s a really long passage, but it’s really, really good. 

BOB: In the sermon on the mount. And this is the passage that ends with “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things when we added to you,” but the preceding that is we’re helpless to add anything to our lifespan or to our height depending on how you understand that and that we need to be casting all of our future upon Him. 

SAM: And 25, he says, “Therefore I say to you,” and this is Christ speaking, Christ is telling us, don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat, what you will drink, nor about your body. And he gives the example of the birds and the air, the birds, they don’t sow, they don’t reap, they don’t gather in barns, yet you’re heavenly Father feeds them. And so He’s not saying here, you don’t need to eat, you don’t need to drink, you don’t need to have clothes. 

BOB: And you don’t need to work. 

SAM: Right. That’s not what He’s saying. What He’s saying is the Lord provides for you, so there’s no need to worry about it. And then verse 33 where He says, “but first seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you.” So these things there, I think, is the things that they’re worried about. The most basic human anxieties and worries, food, water, clothing, shelter, it’s natural that we are worried about those things. But what He’s saying is, if you fix your eyes on the kingdom of heaven, then God will provide those things for you. 

BOB: Now notice verse 34 also, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” So when He says, don’t worry about tomorrow, what you just said helps answer all of this, because I’ve talked to lots of people and they say, but I am anxious. I am concerned about where my next meal will come from. I am concerned about how I’m going to make the car payment or how I’m going to pay the rent to my apartment or how I’m going to pay the mortgage. I am concerned about those things. What is it, Philippians 4? Is it 6, 7, and 8 where he says, being anxious for nothing? 

SAM: Yeah, that’s one of my favorite passages in the New Testament, the closing remarks of the letter of Philippians, but he says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.” So that’s exactly what you were saying. the first step is prayer. That’s the instruction we’ve been given by Scripture, but then he goes on to say, “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” 

BOB: I don’t know if you’ve ever heard Sam something called generalized anxiety disorder. I’ve never been diagnosed with that, but I’ve kind of self-diagnosed myself, because I tend to be anxious all the time. 

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BOB: It’s not that I’m anxious about where’s the next dollar going to come from? Where’s the food going to come from? I just have a sense of anxiety. My heart will race at times, and my breathing gets off at times, because I’m just going through anxiety that’s hitting me for no logical reason. 

Well, I don’t consider that to be a violation of Philippians 4:6, or 1 Peter 5:7, or Matthew 6:25-34. What I consider that is a feeling. We have lots of feelings, and we can’t just wave away the feelings, so you can be anxious, but not anxious in the sense of Philippians 4:6 anxiety. The anxiety in Philippians 4:6, I like your point. How did you put it? What we focus on? If I’m focusing my attention on these things, I’m obsessing on these things, it seems to me I’m inviting anxiety. 

The part of the problem, however, is there are people that have what’s called obsessive compulsive disorder, and I’m close to that too. I don’t think I’m OCD, I think I’m OC, because like I’ll check doors and locks, and I have to be careful to, yeah, I know the garage door went down, and I know I’ve not left anything burning in the house or whatever, but there are people that are beyond that, and in those cases, I think, many, if not all of those people need to take medication, so that they’re thinking can be regulated, because otherwise they’re going to have the obsessive thinking. 

But if my focus is on Christ, and I love Christ, and looking forward to being with Him forever, and that’s where my focus is, on His soon return, and on pleasing Him, I’m casting my cares upon Him as they come up. Well then, if I have anxiety, I have fears and things that hit me. That’s not a violation, it’s not like, the Scriptures can actually, if you’re thinking be anxious for nothing, and yet you’re experiencing anxiety, you can think, well, I give up, because how can I do this if I’m experiencing anxiety? 

SAM: Well, I feel very strongly that all three of these passages are not a legal command given by Christ or by the apostles, that as soon as you were, you’ve committed sin, go ask for forgiveness. I think these are encouragements that are supposed to teach believers how we should be, because here’s the thing, if Christ didn’t come to earth in a human body, live a righteous life, die, resurrect, and then go to heaven, then you should be worried. You should be worried about your present circumstances, about what you’re going to eat, what you’re going to do, and you should be terrified of where you’re going to go when you die. 

But these are written to believers who we already know we’re secure, we know where we’re going to go when we die, so there’s no reason to worry logically, but like you’re saying, logic does not dictate human experience, and so we’re going to have these things, but these are guidelines for how we should consciously choose to live, but we can’t let ourselves, the experiences we have, the feelings we suffer, we can’t let those things determine like, okay, I was anxious yesterday, That means I was consciously an anxious person, that doesn’t mean you chose to be that way, that’s something you experienced, but what you can choose is how you react to that, and if you react with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, then God is going to bless you with a peace that surpasses all understanding. 

BOB: Let me give a quick illustration, tax time. I’ve been dealing with the CPA and trying to work that through, I’ve been experiencing some anxiety, because the CPA was saying, and it was confusing to me, I don’t understand it. Well, I prayed about it, Lord helped this get resolved, but I didn’t want to just say, well, whatever, I’ll just pay, we were going to end up and be paying, I think, $151, which that’s not bad, but I seemed like I was paying too much, so I ended up and asked some questions, I prayed about it, I asked some questions, did I experience some anxiety? Yeah, but I prayed about it, and I did ask the CPA to look into it more. Ultimately, it turned out we’re getting 2,300 back instead of paying 151, and they finally figured out, well, also I had made a mistake on something, and they pointed that out to me, and so all in all, it worked out. 

But fear and anxiety are emotions that God gives us, so that we will pray, so that we will look to the Lord, so that we will ask the questions and do what we need to do. We shouldn’t want a life that’s free from all cares, or free from all anxieties, we need those, when we have those, we humble ourselves, realize we need the Lord, we need His people, and by the way, that’s another thing, solicit the prayers of others, your spouse, your children, your trusted people, have your mentor pray for you, and you can ask for the whole church to pray for whatever this is that concerns you. 

SAM: Yeah, I’d say prayer and focus are the two answers to this question, because that’s what God told us. 

BOB: And that’s perfectly fitting because we need to keep grace in focus. Amen. 

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On our next episode: what is the call to salvation? What is a clear salvation message? Be sure to join us again and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.