GOD CARES - Rev. Dr. Avedis Boynerian

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you (1 Peter 5:7).

“I have a mountain of credit card debt,” one man told another. “I have lost my job. My car is being repossessed and our house is in foreclosure, but I am not worried about it. I have hired a professional worrier. He does all my worrying for me and that way I do not have to think about it.” “That’s fantastic! How much does your professional worrier charge for his services?” “$50,000 a year,” he replied. “$50,000 a year? Where are you going to get that kind of money?” “I do not know. That’s his worry.”

I was wondering if you saw the movie “God Is Not Dead.” If you have not, you should. You can buy the DVD and watch it. It’s worth it. In the movie, every time the college pastor and his pastor friend meet, they greet each other by saying, “God is good all the time, all the time God is good.” Therefore, the premise of this sermon is this: Because “God is good all the time, all the time God is good, He cares.”

From time to time, every one of us has something that tempts us to feel uneasy, something that troubles us and, as a result, we get anxious and worry. We get anxious and worry that if we do not look out for ourselves, nobody will.

According to a statistic, the average person’s anxiety is…

40% on things that will never happen.

30% on things about the past that can’t be changed.

12% on things about criticism by others, mostly untrue.

10% on about health, which gets worse with stress.

8% on about real problems that will be faced.

Anxiety steals our joy, our contentment and our confidence and, more importantly, it steals our ability to trust God – trust that God cares.

The first letter of the apostle Peter is well-intentioned in a couple of ways:

1st, Peter is very practical. Throughout the letter, he gives us specific instructions about how to live and how to practice our faith with our spouse, neighbors and people in church.

2nd, Peter is very rational. Whenever he tells us to do something, he gives us a reason for doing it. It’s almost as if he says,

- “Here’s what I want you to do and

- Here’s why I want you to do it.”

In verse 6 he instructs us to “humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift (us) up in due time.” That is, when we submit to God in humility, God lifts us up.

Humility is essential for our Christian lifestyle. Only when we are clothed with humility, can we come to know who God is and who we are. Thomas à Kempis, a German canon, who is most known for his classic book ‘The Imitation of Christ,’ wrote,

“God walks with the humble;

He reveals Himself to the lowly;

He gives understanding to the little ones;

He discloses His meaning to pure minds,

But hides His grace from the proud.”

Pride is dependence on and confidence in ourselves. Pride always seeks to take the credit. While humility is dependence on and confidence in God.

Humility always seeks to give God the credit, the glory. The great composer J. S. Bach, understood this very well. Every time he wrote a piece of music, he signed it with these words: “To the Glory of God.”

As we see God for who He is, we begin to see ourselves for who we are. In other words, as we see God, as He really is, we should see ourselves, as we really are.

St. Augustine, the great church father, said, “Should you ask me what is the first thing in religion, I should reply, ‘The first, second and third thing therein ... indeed all, is humility.’”

To be humble means,

- When we have made a mistake, we admit it and say, “I am sorry.”

- When we are weak or inadequate for a task, we are not too proud to ask for help.

- We do an ordinary job, spend time with ordinary people and be indifferent to their praises and honors.

Verse 7 tells us what to do with our worry. It tells us that we must “cast all our anxiety on God because he cares for us.”

“Casting all of our anxiety on God” literally means that we are to throw every care and every concern that we have unto God. We can throw it all to God because He cares and He is always ready to receive because He cares. The reason He cares is because He wants to be a partner, a burden bearer because He is good all the time, and He loves and cares for us.

Queen Elizabeth I called for a London business man to go on a mission for her across the sea. He would have to be gone a long time and was concerned as to what would become of his business while he was gone. He was afraid he would go bankrupt. So the queen promised the business man that, if he would go and take care of her business, that while he was gone, she would take care of his business. While he was gone, his business flourished. His revenues quadrupled!

That’s how partnering with God works. We are to cast all our anxiety on Him because

- He cares for us.

- He can do a much better job of handling our anxiety. Can He not?

In other words, we must let God be God and let Him take care of our anxiety.

In his book, ‘A Minister’s Obstacles,’ Ralph Turnbull tells of a pastor who boasted to his congregation: “I am not going to take a vacation this year because the devil never does.” Upon hearing this, Ralph asked himself, “Since when is the devil supposed to be our role model?” He also says that in the space of three years of public ministry Jesus took 10 vacations, times when he decided to “rest awhile.”

When we try to do it all ourselves, without God’s help, we are following the devil’s example! We must let God be God. We must “cast all our anxiety on God because he cares for us.”

In his book, ‘Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life,’ Chuck Swindoll, a Christian minister and author, writes, “Some time ago someone placed this ad in a Kansas newspaper: ‘I will listen to you talk for 30 minutes without comment for $5.00.’” Sounds like a fraud doesn’t it? But the person was serious. Did anybody call? You bet. It was not long before this individual was receiving 10 to 20 calls a day. The pain of loneliness was so sharp that some were willing to try anything for a half hour of companionship.

If we want someone to listen, someone who really cares, we just need to call on God.

We do not need to be lonely and hurt from thinking no one cares, when we can share our anxiety with God and enjoy His presence, friendship and peace.

It’s not just that it is therapeutic to get our anxiety off our chest. It’s not just that God can do something about our anxiety. It’s especially comforting to know that God really cares for us! He really does!

We cast our cares on God because He is big enough to carry them for us. He has broad shoulders! He can carry all of our anxiety! Believe me, He really does!

We should cast our anxiety on God because He cared enough about us to send His Son, sacrifice Him on the cross for our sins and raise Him to new life by defeating death. If He cares this much, how can we think that our lives are without His care?

George Mueller, a Christian evangelist and director of an orphanage in England, said, “The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.”

There was a little girl who had a very large collection of dolls piled on her bed. A guest in her room one day asked her, “Do you love dolls?” Then with tender loving care she spread out the whole collection for the guest to inspect and admire. The guest asked her, “Which doll do you love the most?” The little girl hesitated, then said, “Promise not to laugh, if I tell you.” The guest promised. The little girl picked a ragged doll with a broken nose whose hair had mostly come off and one arm and leg were missing. “This is the one.” “Why?” the guest asked. “Because if I did not love this one, nobody else would.” That’s how much God loves and cares for each of us. He loves and cares for every single one of us. That’s why we must cast all our anxiety on Him because He is good all the time. All the time He is good and He cares for us.