1 Peter, 5:5-7

If you'll notice, and I'll just draw it to your attention now, I goofed on your handout and put 1 Peter 2.5 here, and I don't know how or why or what inspired me to do that, but I did. So it must be uninspired inspiration of mistakes. Well, I just, and the worst part was, You all caught the one down here. I had left it there too. Oh, there it is. So I felt twice. I felt goofy. So anyway, but there it is.

So just so you're not confused, you can change it on your handout. Don't change it in your Bible because that'll make the whole thing wrong. Okay, 1 Peter 5, 5-7. Let's try to read that together. Yeah, 1, 2, 3. Younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. For God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. Marvelous, marvelous. Okay, so I put as the title for our study, even though it's kind of jumping down to the bottom, it says, don't sweat the stuff. Don't sweat the small stuff, but more so don't sweat the stuff.

So how much time a week would you say you spend worrying in one facet or the next? Minutes? Hours? Seconds? I'd probably spend hours. I teach a small Korean youth group as well after we meet here, and I asked them, when we were talking about this same verse, I said, just on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you worry?

All of them had 8 to 10. Every one of these kids. I mean, they're kids! What do you have to worry about? all said they spent 8 to 10, I mean 8 to 10 on a scale of 10, worrying and wringing their hands, and concerning and fretting with this anxiety. It's just amazing, you know? It's like, I always think of being a kid as being kind of a carefree time, and yet they were all sure that they spent, and I believe them, they're pretty serious little kids.

But anyway, so what are the sorts of things we worry about? Families? Absolutely. Relationships? What else do we worry about? I'm the only one who worries? We worry about what is going to happen, or could happen, and we worry about what isn't going to happen. And we worry about what did happen.

That's pretty all encapsulating. Being a new parent, I'm already getting ready to say, oh, it's all my fault. Might as well. Oh my. So we worry about, what an all-encompassing. I don't think you can add anything to that list. What is going to happen, what isn't going to happen, what did happen, maybe what's happening. There we go. So I put down a small list. Does anybody worry about finances ever? Worry about your jobs? Worry about politics? Yeah? Worry about who's in office, or who's going to have to do what, or who's making the decisions, and are they qualified?

I mean, yeah, there's a whole lot. We talked about there was a book written not so long ago called, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. I can't actually speak to the quality and character of it because I didn't read it. But it seems an awful lot like the idea that, you know, don't spend your time fretting over the little things like, you know, the oil or a tire going out on your car, because there's going to be big stuff to worry about and spend your energy, your emotional energy worrying about that, which is all well and good from the world's perspective. But as believers, I think we have a radically different paradigm. We have no need to sweat the big stuff either, as we'll find in our passage today. And I think what's really cool about these verses, that really opened my eyes about these verses, is that it lets us in on, or I believe it lets us in on some of the special causes of our worrying.

Some of the unique, some of the things that I don't think of. You ever heard the cliché, whatever, that the problem is not the problem? And so often the problem is not the problem, like you're in this huge fight over this, but really it has to do with something else. It's not that the toilet seat was left up again, it's that da-da-da-da-da and you never listen when da-da-da-da-da and the problem is not the problem. I think in the case of worry, we'll find today, more often than not, the problem is not the problem. So, yeah, it means, let's see, so we also get some insights into the causes and consequences of our worry and what that means in terms of our relationship with the Savior.

Alright, looking at 1 Peter, that'll be 5.5. You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility towards one another. For God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Just a little more on submission.

We've talked about submission a lot. In fact, it'd be a key theme of the letter. If I could pick one, I think it would probably be submission or suffering. Both big, big themes. So this is, we've talked about time and time again, so I'll just go over it.

Submit is to be subject to. It's hupotasso, to under-attach, to uplift and to uphold. take a role of submission and attaching oneself under something in order to support it and lift it up. And that does involve obedience and it does involve interchange and listening, but mostly all things in a supportive role, being the idea of this subjection. So what kind of submission have we talked about? Don't cheat and look ahead. What kind of submission have we talked about so far in the Book of Peter?

I knew that one would come first too. Slaves and masters, husbands and wives. What else? Anyone? Absolutely. Younger to the elder, it's in there. Absolutely. Citizens to authorities. The government. We talked about any authority, any human authority. I think we actually nailed most of them. We're only missing one as it seems.

Angels and authorities and powers in their submission to Christ, which isn't fair because it doesn't directly apply to us. So we're not told to subject the angels to... No, it doesn't make any sense. So the things that we've discussed so far is that the submission to human authorities in 1 Peter 2.13 Submission of servants to masters in 1 Peter 2.18. Wives to husbands in 3.1 and 3.5.

Angels and authorities and powers to Christ in 1 Peter 3.22. And in our verse today, the younger to the elder, and the one that is definitely cheating because we haven't covered it yet, is every believer one to the other. Clothed in humility towards the other, which we'll talk about is a slightly different case, but kind of holds the same concept. So, a related word in the next verse brings all this submission to its ultimate and logical basis of our being submission to Christ. So, why do you think Peter is focusing on submission? What's the big deal about submission?

There's kind of an old saying that there's too many chiefs and not enough Indians. If everybody's trying to run the show, nothing ever happens. Nothing ever gets accomplished. Absolutely. Just for the sake of anyone who didn't hear in the back, Nancy just said that there's, as the saying goes, there's too many chiefs and not enough Indians and when everybody's calling the shots, nobody's doing the work.

So if that's a fair enough summation. That our submission to one another helps us be productive as a body. And probably more importantly, that if the church is under submission to Christ, we're an example of what that looks like to the world. I think that's paramount. I think that's absolutely it. I think that our submission is beautiful to God. Our submission to authority, our submission to each other, our submission to youngers, to elders, and all that stuff, I think that glorifies the Lord deeply. I think He takes pleasure and delight when we submit to one another, to authorities. I think that's the character of Christ who submitted Himself to death on the cross. I think that's the character He wants us to have. I think there's a level at which if you If you disrespect your earthly father, how are you going to obey your father whom you cannot see?

So I think that's a big part of it. Thank you, Nancy. That's absolutely right on. Okay. Younger to the Elder. Actually, after having written this, I was reading a commentary by Chester McCalley, which is really interesting because he takes the immediate context. Of course, the last few weeks, we've been talking about elders, elders, elders, elders, elders of the church, the elders with the definite article. And so he says, well, this is younger men being submissive to the elders based on the context of the greater chapter.

And I think that's an incredibly viable possibility. I think that's good scholarship and he is an amazing scholar. However, I kind of lean the other way and seeing his submission is such a key theme to this letter anyhow. I think that... I think that he's generally laying down a principle, partially just because of the general character of submission in this letter.

I think he's generally saying, younger church members be submissive to older church members. And we find in the Greek New Testament, in the original autographs, as we can presume, thee is not before elders. There's no definite article there that I could find. So the fact that he's not saying, younger submit to the elders, to me insinuates that he's giving us a general principle of how the church ought to behave.

And that's, as we talked about, the beauty and the wonder of submission and the greatness of submission. I think that's where he's directed, that's where he's getting at, that's where he's pointed at. However, if you really want it, If you really wanted to interpret it as submission to the elders, we wouldn't have a huge argument over it. It's just, I think that he's laying down more of a general bet. So, otherwise, if you look, see in that section there, it says, Oh, it is in the active voice.

So younger believers are not to be waiting for a command to explicitly submit to, not just to be sitting around, but actively looking for a way to uphold and serve the older members, to follow and be subject to those older members in an active way, not just kind of like hiding behind the pews, hoping they don't get picked on. And this is generally, like you talked about, there's no definite article. So it's not, you know, the younger or the younger men. It's just kind of more this younger's subject to elders. Yes?

Doesn't it make such a huge difference in art when we understand what this hupotasso means, that, you know, we typically think of submission as somebody grinding you under their thumb or their heel. And in fact, this is the way, how do I hold this person up? How do I encourage them? How do I support them?

That's a hugely different concept of submission. It's not at all the way we have, that I grew up in has interpreted the word. Oh, absolutely. Because when we think of submission, we think of pro-wrestling or something. Or like two kids on the playground trying to bend the other's hands back. Do you submit? Say uncle! And that's submission. You submit because you're forced to submit.

And there is an interpretation of that word that can be taken that way, but the biblical use of that word is never. like that, to my knowledge, at least in these passages. It's always, always, always, always talking about this voluntary submission and the submission that holds the other up.

In trying to smooth out the English, they added some extra words saying, you younger men likewise be subject to you elders, But it's definitely in keeping. Obviously it's a principle that can be traced throughout scripture from the very fact that choosing of the word elder to be the primary office and earthly authority of the local church body, the caretaker of the church body, to the exhortation of Paul to Titus that elder women are to be instructing younger women. So there's this kind of sense throughout Scripture that that's the way things need to be going, that younger need to be upholding and uplifting the elderly, and the elder believers need to be teaching, supporting, and encouraging the younger believers to Christian maturity. So it's kind of another cool function of the body of the Church that Christ has set up. Alright, what are you wearing? We're addressing the relationship of submission between younger and elder. Peter instructs his readers about the general attitude of one in whom the Holy Spirit is at work. This certainly echoes Paul's words to the believers in Ephesus, subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ. So it is the idea of mutual subjection of the believer to one another and not unique to this verse.

So when have we used clothing? When have we seen clothing before in the letter of first Peter? This isn't the first time he's mentioned it. We talked about clothing prior to this. Absolutely. Just to cover us with humility, clothe ourselves and cover ourselves with humility. Does anybody remember in Peter chapter 1, where maybe clothing was referenced? There's a reference to clothing, he didn't say the word clothing. Anybody? He said, gird up the loins of your mind.

Remember when we talked about, it was 1 Peter 1.13, if you want to look at it. It says, gird up the loins of your mind.

And what we talked about was, especially the more eastern and central folks of this area would take their huge long flowing robes and tie them up and bunch them up in a large belt or tie them around themselves so that they had freedom to move their legs. And it says, gird up the loins of your mind. in order to, it's talking about a preparation for action, whether it's for battle or for doing some task. This is girding up, well this word, we wouldn't know it from our English translation, because I can't imagine how you translate this in any way briefly, but this word here is very related to that. And this word is derived from a slave's apron that he would use to gird up his robes much in the same way so he could serve, better serve in a given situation. So it's like an apron that you would tie around your waist and then when you needed to have free motion of your legs, have the ability to move and serve, just tie and hook that up under the apron.

So here, what I think is really cool, or really fantastic about it, is that our humility, We're supposed to clothe ourselves with humility, and that prepares us for service. That prepares us to act as a body. Our humility isn't just a nice thing to do, or it's not just purely so that we can be better, or abstractly so that we can be more like Christians should be, but it specifically prepares us for work in the body.

If we're prideful, as we have pride in our lives, we are unable to work in the body, as Nancy pointed out just a few moments ago. Too many chiefs, not enough Indians. Too much pride, nothing gets done. So, how else does pride disable us from working together and fulfilling God's plan for us as a church?

Anybody? Absolutely. What about me? What about me? Who's going to recognize me? Who's going to tell me? Who's going to... What about... I want to... All these things, this me, me, me, and my, my, my, and I, and mine, and all this, it absolutely disables us from working together, from moving forward, from being a body, because we're just too, too, too self-centered in it.

Okay, so now it gets into what God opposes. God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. That to me is like a huge red siren alarm. Anytime it says God opposes something, I want to make sure not to be there. Just as a general rule of life, if I could always be not on the God opposes against side, I'll be probably a happier person. All for the better.

Here the word opposes, and this is wild to think, the word opposes here talks about actually a king or a ruler drawing their armies out. So as Wiest and McAuley both noted, it says pride draws out, calls out the armies of God. That's how they translated this verse or expanded this word. Pride calls out the armies of God. I threw this quote by C.S. Lewis.

And where he referred to, it was in, gosh, I didn't put the book in there. If you care to write it down, it's in Mere Christianity. But he refers to pride as the great sin. And it's about this great sin that he wrote. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness. I'm sorry. Drunkenness and all that are mere flea bites in comparison. It was through pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice.

It is the complete anti-God state of mind. I just think that's it. It's the complete anti-God state of mind. If you are in a prideful state of mind, I know I am from time to time for sure, if not more than not, that is the complete anti-God state of mind.

That's the farthest at some level from God as believers that we can be. That's the farthest, the most broken in our relationship, is in a prideful self-centered state of mind. So, while pride is thinking of ourselves too much, or thinking too much of ourselves, humility is a strange counterbalance. So how does the world define humility?

Anyone but Nancy. Kind of weak. And that's it. Weak, isn't it? People who are humble are wimpy, right? Milk toast. All the time. Flabby. Wimpy. Denigrating. Oh, self-denigrating. Isn't that it? Oh, he's really humble. He goes around just telling people how bad and awful he is and how bad he smells. Right? Is that what humility is? That's how the world defines humility. I think weakness is it. I think the world sees humility and says, ah, that's weakness. We all go out into that world every day and we know. The people who get ahead are oftentimes, or more often than not, the people who are saying, I'm the strongest, best, most wonderful person in the world.

You can watch movies about it. I had a friend who was in sales and his favorite movie was Boiler Room, which is not really worth the rent if you have time. This is a movie about, like, aggressive outside sales. And these guys would just talk themselves into this absolute prideful mess.

And just, oh, I'm the best, I'm gonna go, and da-da-da-da-da, and just so convinced. Would just convince themselves of things that they obviously knew were not true about themselves. Because that confidence could make a sale. That confidence could get a promotion from the boss.

That confidence, that false confidence though it may be, prideful though it may be, So the world looks at humility as weakness. And the world also looks at humility as self-denigration, which is interesting, because I don't think that that's at all the biblical principle of humility.

Humility isn't us whipping ourselves on the back and saying, Oh, woe is me, I'm such an awful human being. No, that's not humility either, per se. That's just self-denigration. And if we are indeed a new creation in Christ, if we are indeed God's creation, I wouldn't say that it would be a good thing to just defile God's creation and say how bad and how awful and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, because I don't think that's a godly frame of mind either. So as we talk about this humility, I would like to suggest, and I think there's a fair amount of literature behind me in Christendom, that humility is simply a realistic view of the self. We think of humility that is making our gifts and skills and abilities out to be less important or less exceptional than they may actually be.

But this is not humility at all. It's that realistic view of self. A proud person feels that he or she is the smartest, best, most important person in the world, just the center of the universe. A humble person simply knows what he or she is. saved and blessed entirely out of grace. To note with a footnote, believers are of course no longer sinners.

And yet, without Christ's sacrifice, without what He did on the cross, that's all we are. We're not the best, strongest, this, this and that, but we're who God made us to be. And we are that because God made us to be that. It's not something that we should run around glorying because we did it, right? It's glory in what God has done. So we're powerless to save ourselves and we're powerless to save others.

Humility teaches us that we are not to run around lauding our own accomplishments, nor are we to spend all of our time in self-centered thought or competition with each other. A humble person can abide in Christ and rely on his resources. A humble person alone can truly rest in Christ because he or she does not feel the burden of looking out for him or herself. I think we're going to discuss that as we continue on, because humility doesn't exactly leave the verse yet. So 1 Peter 5, 6, Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time. Logical negative, therefore, puts us back to the previous verse, because God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. What should we do? What's the logical action that comes out of that? The English versions do a good job of bringing across the imperative. It is an imperative. It says, humble yourselves. But actually, it's in the passive voice.

Remember, we saw that verse that actually had always given me absolute fits before, I believe it was Jean that taught on it. It says, be holy. God says, be holy because I am holy. And I always thought, oh my heavens, how am I ever going to be holy as He is holy or be holy because He is holy?

I just can't do that. And it's interesting that that's also in the passive voice. Be made holy as I am holy. And in this case, it's the same thing. Weiss puts it, and I think very well, suffer yourselves to be humbled. Suffer yourselves to be humbled by what God has done. Suffer yourselves to be humbled by what God's doing. Suffer yourselves to be humbled, and He will lift us up in due time.

A couple of incredibly important things that need to be brought across about this. Firstly, the context of this is surely no accident. Peter tells us first that the elders are not to lord their authority over the believers in their care, and that the young are to submit to those who are more aged than themselves. then all believers should be dressed in humility and prepared because of the proud are opposed by God. This verse is like a capstone. We are to show the submission and humility before each other because ultimately God is the father and master of us all. We are all under his authority.

The real problem of pride is that it rages against the authority of God. God's opposition to that condition is an act of mercy if it brings the proud person to humble submission to Him. Does that make sense? It's kind of counterintuitive, but God calling out His armies against a proud person is actually a merciful act. It's an act of mercy, at least in my life I've found it's an act of mercy. When I'm being prideful and God suffers me to be humble, I find that that brings me back to where I need to be with Him, in my relationship with Him. And that's, to quote C.S. Lewis again, that's a severe mercy, a severe mercy.

And secondly, we're not to be whipping ourselves or running around lamenting on how bad or horrible we are, because that is just another form of being self-centered. The goal is more of a self-forgetfulness. It is not about focusing on all our faults or shortcomings, neither on all our problems, issues or inabilities. is a resting in who Christ has made us, a trust in the fact that we are His workmanship and that we will spend eternity praising Him for what He has done. We won't spend eternity congratulating ourselves or each other on what we did with it. So, to me, this is miraculous, powerful, powerful stuff. Does it make sense that only in humility can we trust in Christ? Only in absolute true humility, knowing who we are, who we're made to be, can we rest in Christ?

Okay, we'll talk about the other side of that in just a moment. When do you think the proper time might be? At the proper time. At the proper time, He will lift you up. When would that be? Anyone? Take a stab at it. I know you know, you're just not listening. Okay.

Yeah, when we have our glorified body, I think that's it. The Bema Judgment has been one of the suggested times, but ultimately we're brought to glory. And actually, as we'll talk about next week, in more depth, that all this suffering, all this difficulty is just for a little time. And there is a time coming, a proper time coming, when God will share His glory with us. And how amazing that will be.

We don't need to be after man's exaltation, because ultimately, isn't that what our pride can get us? Granted, even some people can be so excessively prideful and filled with hubris that they can cause their own demise on the earth. But for the most part, if you have just the right amount of pride, you can really get lauded by humans, by people, by your coworkers, whatever. We don't need to be after that. It's wasteful and vain.

We can also be encouraged by the fact that there will be a judgment for us believers as well. And at that judgment we will be shown what we can be congratulated for. For resting in Him. For trusting in the Lord. We'll be given crowns and rewards on that day for resting in Him, relying on Him, and trusting in Him in every situation. Furthermore, we know the Lord will spend eternity showing us the amazing, limitless, unbound grace that He has, taking us from glory to glory. And there's a number of references to look up there if you're interested. That that time is coming, and I just love how Peter constantly keeps that in sight. He constantly keeps that in view, and it's so powerful. You get to 1 Peter 5, 7, "...casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you."

Has anybody ever fly fished? April's fly fished. April knows how to fly fish. Anybody else? Maybe you go to a park sometime, and you see people fishing for lawn trout. You ever seen that? When you're fly fishing, the best place to learn how to cast is not out on the river, but you'll see people from time to time just casting into the lawn so they can get their cast right. Sometimes casting towards a paper plate or something like that to hit it. So, the Greek here could literally be thrown upon or to cast upon. We call it casting with fly fishing because you're throwing that fly out there, right?

Actually throwing the line, though. Don't get confused. The fly doesn't have enough... Oh, never mind. Sorry. Tangent. Okay, the Greek word here could literally translate to throw upon or to cast upon. So, like fly-fishing, we may tend to see this as a repetitive action. Casting.

Oh, there's a worry, cast it out. There's a worry, throw it out. There's a worry, throw it on Jesus. There's a worry. And that may be effective. Like, if you see a worry or something that you know makes you fuss or struggle, come to give that to the Lord and to cast that on Him. That may be effective, but that's not exactly what's being discussed here.

It's not cast your anxieties on Him, but cast your anxiety on Him. It's not about simply each individual burden, although I'm not saying that's a bad thing to deal with them as they come in that way, but it's to generally cast our entire... well, I guess to put it into question, as we read it, is it cast some of your anxiety on him? Cast the ones that we can't handle? Cast the anxieties that we think he can handle, or that he has time to handle?

Just cast all your anxiety. Every last bit of it. Imagine it more like a unit. Your anxiety. The whole frame of mind that goes with worry. Cast all that on Him. All at once. Not as a simply repetitive, like, oh, there's a worry, throw it, there's a worry, throw it, there's a worry, throw it.

But throw the whole idea, the whole worry, all the anxiety in your being onto Him. if that makes any amount of sense, because he can be trusted with it. The difference here is the idea of casting all our care and all our worry on him all at once. The reason why we can do this is because he's our father and our great provider. He's seen to all of our needs and he's able.

So often we recognize this truth with our mouths, assent to it, but we are so often so quick to take that worry and anxiety back, that if we may be convinced that God can take care of these things, those which we worry, but we're not totally convinced He will. However, that concern Peter puts to rest. God cares for us, and that means He will see to the things that we worry about. To sum that up, because it just didn't come across as well as I would have liked, To sum that up, it is to say that He cares for you.

It's paramount to saying, you are His charge. He has taken responsibility for you. It's not just this emotional, oh, He cares for you, He'll buy you flowers on your birthday. You're His charge. You're His responsibility. He's taken responsibility for you and for me. if you can see the difference there. It's not just an emotional care, an emotional love, but that certainly is a part of it. But, heavens, you're His charge. Is God going to flake out on His responsibility? If He's taking responsibility for us? No, certainly not. Certainly, if anyone will fulfill, I mean, does He speak and then not act? No, of course not. So that's the amazing thing. So it seems to me, well, we'll talk about worrisome pride here.

It amazes me how quickly things fall out of joint. This is one of my favorite memory verses, and I think one of my favorite memory verses for a lot of us. It's short, it's punchy, it comes quickly to mind, and worry is something we do fairly frequently. So it's kind of one of those nice memory verses. Once again, we have to connect it to what precedes it. We have to connect it to the context.

Not because we're in danger of misinterpreting it and building a heresy around it per se, but because it loses so much of its power and it loses so much of the thrust of the argument if we take it out, I guess you'd say. It's amazing that Peter connects all this great thinking about humility and the reasons that we should be humble and effects of our humility and then tacks on the idea of casting our worries on him.

Why would he do that? Doesn't that seem like an abrupt change? Be humble, be humble, be humble, be humble, be humble, and don't worry! It's not a real smooth step, at least not when I read it, not as I read it. If I were dividing up, like translators put those little divisions, I probably would have put one between these two verses, read like this.

Why does he do that? How can you relate humility or pride to work? Can we trust Him? Absolutely. In our humility, we can trust Him. In our right view of ourselves, can we trust Him? It's not an option, it's a necessity. The prideful person might be able to cast their cares on Him like this, Well, Lord, I can handle it, but you know, if you want it, you can do it. It's not cast all your worries on Him because you don't have time to bother with that. That's not it at all. It's cast all your worries on Him because you're not made for that.

Absolutely. We're not going to fool the Lord, right? With an ingenuine heart. Absolutely. Doesn't our being anxious assume that we're better at handling it than God is? Absolutely. It doesn't hurt being anxious. Assume that we're more capable to handle it than God is.

I'm going to put this forth now. I was actually going to say this at the end, but I'm going to say it right now. I think, and this might be oversimplifying it, and I'm really fine with that. That is to say, if you come up with a third category, tell me and I'll addend my worksheet. But it's not on yours. So, you know, if you want to write it down, you have to do that.

We worry for two reasons in my mind. One is pride. We have the desire to be selfish and self-centered. Even the worry for others is a worry or concern of what we should do and an inability to trust God. So I think we worry for pride. And the other major reason we worry, and I sometimes wonder if it's as much as the other, is a lack of faith.

This is too big for God. I have to handle this. This is too much. Many years ago, and it was on the side of this church, but they had a big Baptist church down in South Brooklyn, in Englewood, and painted on the side of it, it said, Why pray when you can pray?

It's quite profound. Absolutely. And I would propose to that statement, I think we all kind of want to This is moving on to my... I mean, I completely agree. I'm not contradicting you at all, but I think... Oh, doesn't he, though? I mean, humble people can fully rely on the Lord, but proud people are going after the things that they want, or the things that they think they need, or they deserve, but in any event, they can't fully rely on the Lord for what they need. It's impossible for the proud person. Absolutely.

And isn't that it? I mean, really, I think of worry as the flip side of the coin of pride. I mean, what is pride? Pride is thinking too much of yourself and too much about yourself and being preoccupied with yourself. Self, self, self, self, self. What is worry? Self, self, self, self, self.

Oh, what about me? Oh, what about this? What about that? Oh, what about, what about, what about? Even our most noble worries, which I would say, you know, worry for the world or politics or worry for our friends who are in trouble. Even our most noble worries are ultimately a lack of faith. If we can't commit that to the Lord in prayer, that means we can't trust Him with it. Can't trust Him with it, that's sin, isn't it? Even though God knows everything you do, you may not want to... Talk to him about it, because you think it's so horrible, how could he even want to listen? So you bury some more, and you kind of get screwed up about it, don't you? Absolutely. Oh man, do I do that?

I do that a lot. I keep a prayer journal, because I write. It's what I do. You can tell I don't speak. I write. I love to write. So everything I do, I write, and I even write my prayers. And I read my prayer journals, and I find out that I have a hard time telling God the bad things. I have a heart. I don't want to bother him about that. I don't want God to think I'm whiny. You know, I mean, I read through my prayer journals and I do think I had a great day every day. I tell you, I didn't.

And yet, just like you're saying, it's so hard to take those big things to God, partially because you're like, well, you know, God's busy. He's got a lot to do today. Bringing the son off, doing all that. But the reality is, He wants us to cast our worries on you. The persistent widow. He wants us to be the squeaky wheel. God wants us in His face. He wants us up talking to Him. That's why I love the Psalms.

David, just never afraid to say, Con, what's up? Where did you go? He could say that and not have this huge faith crisis. Am I doubting the existence? No, it's not that. It's where did you go? I love you. I need you. Where did you go today? It's amazing. So anyway, lack of faith, not trusting in God's sovereignty. So, that's where I leave us.

Worried about my job, my looks, whether or not I am liked. Sometimes we worry just because we like to fuss and talk about ourselves. We may be considered the weaker brother of pride. It is sort of a covert form of selfishness and therefore can be far more dangerous. We often are very quick to spot pride in others and ourselves possibly and label it as sin or sinful.

Do we however do the same for worry? If worry is a refusal to trust the Lord, is that not a hindrance to our relationship with God? Likewise, if we worry, If our worry is just an excuse to drive us to focus on ourselves, at the exclusion of God and the others, is that not just as likely to drive a wedge between us and our Lord?

That's what pegged me this week, this last two weeks actually, I've been looking at this. I've never, I've looked at my worry as wasteful, I've looked at my worry as maybe silly or pointless, but I've never looked at it as sin. I've never looked at it as specifically sinful behavior until this week.

And boy, man, when you see it for what it is, it's so convicting. I mean, you may have already made this realization in your life, but no one told me. I just memorized that card that said 1 Peter 5, 7. And that's great. But the reality is that, my gosh, if that's something that's going to... You know, it just seems like such a nice, cute little verse. God just wants to take your problems and give them to Him. But it's so much bigger than that. It's not just He wants to because He's nice or He wants to because He likes you a lot.

It's He wants to because if you don't, it's going to negatively affect your relationship with the Savior. You live in broken fellowship with Him. It's a disobedience. So anyway, that was the thing that blew my mind when I realized that my intimacy with the Lord has been massively hindered over the years, the days and the months, over my ridiculous worry. Because the Lord has always provided before, and He always will.

We have like six more seconds. Does anybody have anything they want to say? That's a fine question. The question was how does... I think that's a fine. But the question was, how does concern just for the tape? How does the concern? I'll say, I'm not thinking, I'll say, oh, don't worry about that. It's all OK. And she says, worry is a sin. So don't be concerned. Does anyone have any thoughts on the relation of concern to worry? I can honestly say I didn't put time and I don't want to talk before I put some thought into it.

You can sometimes contribute to make something better, but it's not like like a sin. It's not like worry. It's like simple. It's like, OK, you can get up and go do something where you have empathy, but you're not like with a simple worry. Oh, I don't know. That's kind of like that. I think that's that's fantastic.

Concern will cause you to take it to the Lord. When it's concern that doesn't get taken to the Lord, then it's worry. Yeah, for the tape, in case the back didn't hear. Concern causes us to take it to the Lord. And if we can't take it to the Lord, it's worry.

Thank you very much. Absolutely. Well, good. I didn't think to draw that distinction. That's fantastic. Does anybody else have anything? before we move forward. All right, let's pray and we'll call it. Heavenly Father, we praise you for your words to us, for your Bible, Lord, for the gift of having communicated clearly and having given us the ability to understand, Lord, and thereby to know you. and have an unbroken, intimate, and loving fellowship with you. Lord, as you designed it, as you planned it, Lord, this week, let us obey and cast our anxiety on you. It just seems like such an easy thing to do, something we'd so much want to do, and yet the old man in us continues to try to reach after that pride. Pray that we might walk in the Spirit and through your power and through your ability that you give, through resting in you, cast our anxiety, cast our worry on you. And Lord, suffer ourselves to be humbled this week. Pray for all our concerns here spoken and none. Pray that we could worship you in the service through your word, through song. And above all things, lift up your name and glorify you in Jesus' name. Amen.