How Humility Helps Us | Theocast

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When you hear humility, what do you think? What do you feel? When you think about how a pastor maybe in your past has talked to you about the fact that you need to be humble, how does that land on you?

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How has that gone? In today's episode, John and I are gonna have a conversation about humility and about humbling ourselves before and underneath the mighty hand of God.

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And the purpose for that humility though is something that you might not be thinking about right now. That humility is gonna lead to a lot of good because God is mighty to save and to deliver us.

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And he is our faithful God who loves us and who desires that we come to him with all of our anxieties and all of our burdens.

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And all of that is wrapped up in being humble before him. We hope this comforts you and encourages you in Christ.

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Stay tuned. If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word. It's called pietism. You ever felt like the

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Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy, that you wake up worrying about how well you're gonna perform instead of thinking about what

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Christ has done for you. It's dread versus joy, really. That's pietism. Pietism causes

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Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing.

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And we have a little book for you. It's free. We want you to download it. And we're gonna explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism.

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Reform theology, really. How it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ.

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And when Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like? You can download it on our website.

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Just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast.

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Our aim here is to encourage weary pilgrims. That's you. That's us.

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To rest in Christ. Because he is a mighty and sufficient savior. And we aim to do that by taking the clutter off of the gospel, clarifying it, and thereby reclaiming the purpose of the kingdom of Christ.

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A kingdom that is already here and is not yet what it one day will be.

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So we await our savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord. And we look forward to the day that heaven comes down.

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Until then, we're gonna do podcasts, as long as the Lord gives us life. And your hosts today are

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John Moffat, who is pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. And I am Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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This is our second of two. John and I are recording on a Thursday. Again, not our typical

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Wednesday. So if the product is subpar, we'll blame it on that. Our second of two episodes today.

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And John, it's been good to be with you, man. I was encouraged by what we just laid down. And I hope the saints were encouraged listening to it last week.

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We're gonna have another conversation today. Just a couple of announcements. We didn't talk about this beforehand, but I think this is fine to do.

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I wanna encourage all of you, especially if you're new, to check out the Theocast Community. That's an app that you can join and you can partake in some really good conversations and interaction with other people like you who are thinking through the same things you are.

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And it is like a social media platform without all the ads and the nonsense and the flame throwing and stuff.

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So I think you'll like it. You can find out information about all that over at our website, theocast .org.

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We're also, God willing, planning to have a conference next April in Asheville, North Carolina, April 11th and 12th, if I am correct.

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We're gonna be considering the law and the gospel. Not only John and myself, but we'll have our friends Chad Byrd and Ken Jones joining us.

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We look forward to it. We're gonna build in a lot of time to hang out and enjoy each other, enjoy the food and the drink here in Asheville.

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And we're gonna sing. And you'll hear some, hopefully, some good talks on the subject of the law and the gospel, something that is near and dear to us and we trust to you if you listen to this podcast much at all.

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You love the law and gospel distinction. So we'll leave that to you. There are limited spaces available.

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So if you wanna come to the conference, we would encourage you to register sooner than later. Don't do the thing, you know, where you're like, ah,

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I really wanna go to the conference and I'm just gonna register like seven days or seven hours before. Don't do that.

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There might not be space for you. All right, John, we have met to podcast, not give announcements.

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And I'm gonna let you launch us out, man. You're preaching 1 Peter. Wonderful book of scripture. I mean, rumor has it all the books of scripture are profitable, but 1

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Peter is a wonderful book. And you're right near the end of it. And there's some really, in all sincerity, some really good things that the apostle writes to the saints and to us there.

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And I'll just let you take it away and tee it up for us, man. And hopefully this will be a good conversation. If you've seen the title,

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Why Humility Helps Us. And you're kind of like, 1 Peter 5 and humility. Interesting.

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Okay, where are we going? That's right. Yeah, I've been loving 1

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Peter. 1 Peter 5 says, humble yourselves therefore. And then as every good pastor has ever said, what's the therefore therefore, right?

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It's always in retrospect. I have heard that once or twice. You have heard it once or twice. We are lava well on our accents this morning.

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Thankfully offline. Peter is pulling everything that he has said up to this moment to remind us of what our disposition is to be.

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And in doing so, the result, like what does humility look like? This is, I'm stealing this from another pastor.

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It's casting your anxieties on him, right? It's the ability to say, I am insufficient and you are all sufficient, right?

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Say that again. That's a good. I am insufficient and you are all sufficient, right? That's good there.

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Yeah, you want a word, there's your word, right? You could tell we're on our second podcast.

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No, that's good. I mean, for real. I am insufficient, you are all sufficient, amen. That's right. That's probably the greatest definition.

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It's a good definition of humility. Yeah. I love how Martin Lloyd -Jones says, the doctor,

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I sometimes think that the very essence of the whole Christian position and the secret of a successful spiritual life is to realize two things.

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I must have complete, absolute confidence in God and no confidence in myself.

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That would be another great definition of humility. And the opposite of this would be anxiety.

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And I love what Spurgeon said. He says, anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.

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So this is really what the podcast is about, is understanding where our strength comes from. And in that moment, when you finally recognize where our strength is, we have every reason to let go of the wheel, to let go of the reins, to put it down and say,

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I don't have to be in control. I'm gonna humble myself. And it's a picture, it's an anthropomorphism that Peter uses.

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He says, yeah, anthropomorphism is attributing a human aspect to God as a point of illustration.

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Describing God in human terms. That's right, but it's not actually saying he has a hand. Because if we only attributed to God what the

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Bible says God has, that he would have an eye, some wings, and a hand. Now, Jesus, God the

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Son, has a whole body, which is, that's a whole other conversation. Yeah, but I keep going. I'm sorry, we digress.

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We're punchy today, this is good times. It says, under the mighty hand of the Lord, under the mighty hand of God.

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And this has been an illustration that's been used all throughout the Old Testament. I think in the

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Psalms it's used 35 plus times. It's used of the deliverance from Egypt, multiple times in the

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Old Testament. Whether it's protection, provision, at times even inflicting a punishment upon them.

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But the point of it is, is that God's power is what created, guided, and protected the people from the beginning.

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So Peter begins his letter with this very, with encouraging the believer on their position, who they are in Jesus.

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And he says this, by his divine power that everything has been granted to you, your mercy, your grace, and your inheritance. And I love this, it says, and it's being kept in heaven by God's power.

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And then Peter says this, in this you rejoice. It's such a great, he reminds us that our position is the reason for rejoicing.

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Well, this is important, because if you're gonna submit and humble yourself and receive the benefits of it, when it comes to your relationship with God, you have nothing to attribute to it.

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You have nothing to add your strength and power to it, none whatsoever. So you can humble yourself and say, he saves me,

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I do not save myself. We can humble ourselves there. And then the letter, he moves on to the purpose of your life at this moment.

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He says that you are sojourners, you're ambassadors, you're representatives. He says, you are to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus Christ to the world.

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And he goes, now, as you do this, he moves from, okay, here's your position in Christ. Here's your purpose.

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We got three Ps already. This is very Baptist of you, John. He does move into, okay, oh, here's your third

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P. I don't even use this in my sermon, your persecution. But in all seriousness, Peter really is writing about, okay, this is your life going forward.

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You're gonna suffer the consequences of life. This is the curse. Then you're gonna suffer for doing what is right because the world hates what is holy.

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And number three, you're gonna then suffer for preaching the gospel. And he talks about the government, your job, your marriages, all of that.

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And then when he finally gets down to the end of the letter, he's talking about the unity of the body in the beginning of chapter five.

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He's talking about how the elders are there to shepherd you and how we're to humble ourselves, right? And at the very end of the letter, that's when the therefore comes in.

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He finally says, submit yourselves therefore. Because of how hard this is going to be and because how complicated it's going to be, you're gonna need to learn to submit to God's way of life and not your own.

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But I love how he does this. He begins with Christ. He begins with who he is.

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So the humility that we are learning begins first in the gospel. The gospel, I think, is one of the most humbling messages of all time, right?

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Why would you ever step up and try and step in the place of Jesus? Not gonna do that.

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I'm not sufficient to do that. You're also not sufficient to proclaim the gospel on your own.

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You're gonna need Christ's help for that. You're also not sufficient to suffer alone. You're gonna need

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Christ's strength for that. So this is where, when we come to the end of the letter, sometimes when we hear these words, and they kind of sound exacting,

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Justin, like you better submit. And Peter's not writing it this way. He's saying you can give up everything.

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You don't have to hold on to anything. And if you do, you'll have every reason to get rid of your anxiety.

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Because anxiety, I love it. This is Oswald Chamber.

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He said a couple things, right? He says, fretfulness springs from a determination to get my own way, right?

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That's where anxiety comes from. I am afraid that I want it to go this way.

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And I think it's best if it goes this way. And that's where we'll become afraid. Though it's not going to happen. And Peter's like, if you are okay with just giving it over to the

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Lord, then you can cast your anxieties on him. I'm not gonna get to the last part because that's my favorite part.

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We'll save that because he cares for you. But Justin, that's just kind of the conversation that we wanted to have is that we're not just humbling ourselves for the sake of humbling ourselves, but we're humbling ourselves because we understand the position that we find ourselves in.

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Yeah. All right, I have a few thoughts and I'll try to put them together in some kind of cohesive way.

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You're good. Yeah. So, John Calvin at the beginning of Institutes of the

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Christian Religion, which is his kind of magnum opus, as many of the listeners might know, he talks about how we cannot know ourselves rightly until we have beheld

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God. And then coming down, as it were, from beholding the Lord, we then look at us.

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And I think that in this, I mean, talk about humility. If you've seen the

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Lord and we have a right view of him at all, then it gives us a right perspective on ourselves.

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And like you said, my thoughts completely agree that Christians, those of us who understand the gospel and understand something of the

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Lord and his righteousness and his holiness and our sin and then the good news of Jesus, we should be the most humble people on the planet.

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Which is, it's kind of an indictment on many, many of us who profess faith in Christ.

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Like if we assess how we interact with people in our community or, I mean, God forbid we look at how people interact with others on social media.

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It's like, yeah, humility is not the first word that would come to my mind when I look at how we carry ourselves a lot of times.

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And a lot of times unbelievers view us as very condescending and arrogant and angry and frustrated.

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It's like, eh, we probably shouldn't be like that. Like my wife was having a conversation with a coworker very recently, a young guy that she's like a team lead and he works for her on the team, whatever.

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And young guy, she likes him. He's thoughtful, has no exposure to religion really of any kind, institutionally.

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And he found out that my wife is a Christian and is married to a pastor. And he was not bothered by that at all.

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He was actually very curious and asked my wife some questions kind of about my job and what I did. Though I was interested in what she, how she would answer that question.

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We mainly started to talk about, she's like, I'm just trying to be kind and demonstrate that I'm kind of a normal person to him.

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I was like, yeah, exactly. Because you're gonna have a relationship like with this person through your job.

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And the hope then is like, we started to talk about how do you explain Christianity to somebody who has no category?

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And I mean, we start though, so we believe obviously that there is a God and we believe that he's good completely and he's righteous and he's holy.

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But here's the thing that you need to understand that we understand about ourselves. It's not that we think that we're good.

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It's not that we think that we do all these things that would then earn us God's favor and life forever with him.

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It's like, we actually understand that we can't do that. And that there is a standard that God has and we have not come close to meeting it and never could.

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But this is where we talk about Christ. But we believe that Jesus is God the son who became a human and he died for all the sins we've committed and he lived a perfect life that we could never live and fulfilled all righteousness.

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And so Christianity is a message about, you need forgiveness and atonement that you can't achieve and you need a righteousness that you don't have.

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And so then you're looking to Christ for all of that. So then how in the world could we ever boast in anything that we bring to the table?

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We can't. By definition, Christianity, I think should make us the most humble people on the planet. Last thought

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I have is that the mighty hand language that you've already referenced. I am in Exodus right now.

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I'm nearly done with a series through Exodus. And so when I hear mighty hand of God, of course, I'm thinking about,

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I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And so the mighty hand of God, yeah, it's power, it's all of those things, but it's, and God uses it in different ways, as you said, but the emphasis in Exodus in terms of the

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Lord's mighty hand is His hand is mighty to save. His hand is mighty to redeem.

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His hand is mighty to rescue, to deliver, right? And I'm mindful of Isaiah, where the arm of the

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Lord is not short to save, right? And so I think even there, the mighty hand of God, there are times when

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He disciplines and chastises His children, that is true. But the emphasis of the scriptures by and large, the mighty hand of God, like you said it, is to shepherd, to protect, to redeem, to save, to rescue

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His people. And so our humility even toward the Lord is in that vein.

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I love that I am completely insufficient, you are all sufficient. You have done everything for me and everything

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I could never do for myself, you've done it all and you've given it to me. And that's what produces humility, that's what humility looks like.

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So that's a great place to start in this whole conversation and even to think about, all right, that kind of humility being produced in me can actually do something about my anxiety.

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And it can do something about my anxiety and there's something about the way that I would relate to the

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Lord with this kind of humble posture and how I would view Him, how I would know

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Him, how I would understand Him and the way that He relates to me and the way He looks at me that would then encourage me to come to Him when

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I'm afraid and when I'm burdened. Amen. Yeah, I mean, to quote Deuteronomy, because we're talking about sufficiency of power, because we become anxious when we don't think that we, first of all, we're not sure about the results and we don't feel like we're in control, that's where anxiety comes from, right?

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Sure. Deuteronomy 3, 24 says - Yeah, because this is gonna go badly and I can't do anything about it. I can't do anything about it, so I become anxious or I'm not quite sure how it's gonna go and I'm worried about it.

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It could go badly and so I'm anxious, yeah. Deuteronomy 3, 24, oh Lord, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your mighty hand.

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For what God is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as yours?

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The Bible is always comparing God, always, to help the human mind somehow wrap our minds around just how powerful

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He is, right? Who can hold the expanse of the universe, not the world, the expanse of the universe in their hands,

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God. He hung the stars in the heavens like we hang curtains and He knows the stars by name and He's numbered them all.

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He knows every single hair on every single head of every single human that has ever existed and yet He has not forgotten their name.

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No sparrow falls from the sky without God willing it to happen. It's, huh? That's right. What's complicated about this section in Peter, it's not just a general submission under God's hand, but it's a circumstantial, situational, because he's saying you need, in the midst of your suffering, some of your loved ones are dying and you're gonna wanna do something other and man, it's hard to read this, but Peter says, why are you surprised at the fiery trials that you face?

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Yeah, that's chapter four. That's right and that's complicated to hear because we've been sold the bill that successful, obedient Christians don't suffer.

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Or even if we do suffer, you're gonna be so daggum spiritually strong that you just live above it all.

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That's right. But basically, you're not gonna feel it. That's right. You're either not gonna experience it or you're not gonna feel it.

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That's right, that's right. But I love that language of that verse, man. Don't be surprised when fiery trials come upon you as though something strange were happening to you.

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It's really good. This is common to all of your brothers and sisters. That's right. Around the world at all times.

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Peter uses another way of describing this humility in chapter four, it's 419, he says it this way.

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Therefore, what's a therefore, therefore? Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will.

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That's another way of saying under the mighty hand of God. Let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good.

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This is another way of saying, all right, this is not how I would do this.

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This is not how I would go about it, but I'm gonna entrust my soul, not just my body, my soul to the

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God who is fulfilling his will. So this is hard to say because I don't like it at times, but it is

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God's will that we labor and suffer as we advance his kingdom amongst evil, wicked people.

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And Justin, in our country, I think it's gonna become more suffering. And this verse is gonna become more important, more valuable,

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I should say, to us, reminding ourselves that there isn't something wrong.

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There's something that's out of place. I know this goes against a lot of Christian nationalism. I was gonna say,

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John, do you realize that if the church would have been faithful and if we would just be faithful, then we would never have to suffer for doing good?

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Yeah. You realize that, right? Yep. I'm kidding, of course. No, I know, I'm with you.

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But that's what people tell us. I know. This is, yet again, it's like, oh, well, if we would just be faithful, then we would never suffer for doing good because everybody would just celebrate good because everybody would love good.

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Yeah. And I just don't think that's true. All right, that's not the purpose of this podcast. Keep going. No. 1 Peter 3, 14, but even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed.

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Have no fear of them, nor be troubled. Now, that blessedness is our faith, our encouragement, right?

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There is a temporary and a eternal, but our blessedness is reminding ourselves that the favor of God is upon us.

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Like, as we continue to suffer in this, reminding ourselves God's love and favor is upon us.

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But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do with gentleness and respect.

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Justin, the reason why we struggle with that verse is that we're too anxious trying to control our circumstances and control the outcome that we forget why we're suffering.

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We're suffering. God has us in a place of suffering because it's in those moments that we can share the hope that we have with the people who are persecuting us.

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Which is very, very different than how we're hearing, I don't know, modern Christianity in the political atmosphere right now.

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Hey guys, real quick, some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions. So where do you go?

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How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources? We have started something called the

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Theocast Community. We're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like -minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there.

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You can share it and ask questions. You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. You know, thinking about humility before God, I mean, and humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.

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You've acknowledged this already. I have too somewhat. There are things that happen to us that are just bad.

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I mean, they're hard. Now God uses them. That's another conversation for another day as well.

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Kind of a James one paradigm that the Lord sanctifies our suffering and uses it for holy purposes.

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But there are bad things that happen in this world because this world is cursed and fallen. All under the sovereign will of God, yes, but there are things that we do that we have to bear the consequences of that are bad.

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I mean, so there's stuff that does happen in our lives and a lot of times our lives go in directions that we would never choose, that we would never sign up for, sometimes by our own doings, sometimes by things outside of our control, or both.

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And we have to acknowledge all that. But then I think, I'm just thinking about our human experience.

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I'm thinking about the scriptures. I'm thinking about the Psalms. I'm thinking about Ecclesiastes and Job and all these things.

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The Lord is big enough for us to speak honestly with him. Why? Because we're his, because he loves us and because he knows us and he's adopted us.

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We can speak honestly with him. I mean, if you think about the ways that, and I'm getting somewhere with this, the ways that like Job speaks or Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes or Asaph writes in the

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Psalms or various places, the language is pointed, man. I mean, I'm thinking of our friend

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Chad Bird right now about how he talks about for kind of dark seasons, a dark season of his life, he would hurl the

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Psalms at heaven. So it's an interesting thing how we find ourselves in situations when our lives fall apart.

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We're honest with the Lord and we can be, but we're often in a place where we're indignant, we're frustrated, we're mad and we need to be able to express that and we can.

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But then notice what the Lord always does for his people. We don't remain there.

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Like the Lord, again, by his mighty hand, he pulls us out of it. And this is part of the humility piece. Because when we're really angry,

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I mean, we have inspired words, preserved by the Holy Spirit that are angry and not humble.

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I mean, let's be real, right? I mean, like, I always think like Psalm 73, you know, like, surely the

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Lord is good to Israel, but there was a time when I didn't think he was. And I look around, wicked people prosper left and right, and I've pursued righteousness my whole life and I've gotten nothing for it.

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You know, et cetera, et cetera, right? And, or, you know, Job basically is like, you know, I'd rather,

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I would choose strangling rather than living. My life's terrible kind of stuff. Or, you know, Psalm 88, like, these are all the things,

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Lord, you've done to me. And it just begins and ends in darkness, you know? So yeah, we talk like that.

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We need to be able to, we need to be able to express those things to the Lord, even talk like that with other brothers and sisters in the faith, but the Lord does not leave his people there.

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I mean, we might be there for a year or 10, but the Lord will restore. And it's amazing how, like, we come from being angry and not very humble at all to the

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Lord bringing us to a place of repentance and to a place of clarity and of wisdom.

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And we're able to see and we're humble, right? And what does that humility look like?

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Lord, you're good. I didn't, I was really struggling to see that you're good. I don't know that I've, that I felt that you were good.

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My experience told me you weren't good, but you're good and I know you're good. You know, Lord, you're faithful, right?

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I, for a period of my life, I couldn't see it. And I, but I see it and I know it. I'm experiencing it right now.

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You're faithful to me. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna praise you for your faithfulness every moment. You know, one day when we're around the throne, we will know that you were faithful always and we'll praise you for it.

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You know, I could go on, but it's like, you're good, you're faithful. You love me, you know, and you have rescued me.

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You are preserving me. You do have good things in store for me. And so I'm agreeing with you.

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And I am, I'm brought out of this place where I maybe found myself for a season. Because I'm, I'm mindful of people in my own congregation who are suffering.

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I'm mindful of people out there listening who are suffering. And they're just like, well, yeah, brothers, what you're saying is true, but I just,

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I, I'm, I'm not pleased with God right now. I'm, I'm, I'm angry. I, I don't feel humble.

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I, I'm confident that, that I'm right about this or whatever. And it's like, well, the Lord is faithful to you and he'll sustain you and keep you.

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And he'll bring you to this place. That's right. And you'll know, he's the one I can cast my burdens on and my fears on and my anxieties on because he does care for me, which

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I know is where you want to go. Justin, this is kind of piggybacks a little bit on our podcast last week.

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It's really hard to submit yourself under and see the sufficiency of Jesus, our mighty

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King, if he isn't being herald to us from all the scripture we can and we can't. That's true. Yeah, certainly true.

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So, you know, we need a healthy diet of the mighty hand of God who seeks to save and successfully saves, not seeks to saves, but successfully saves those to whom his will has set upon.

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This is, before I read and finish up chapter five here, this is 1 Peter 1 13.

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Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Dear believer, the hope we have of finally resting our bodies is not here.

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This is important. It doesn't matter who you vote for. It doesn't matter what country you live in. There is no rest for our body until Christ returns.

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There's going to be a place of a curse on this world. This is what Romans says, that it's groaning, waiting to be let loose of it.

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And this is why in 1 Peter chapter five, he says, humble yourselves, therefore, into the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time, he may exalt you.

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At that moment when he returns and we have a new heavens and a new earth, he will bring us into this kingdom with him where we sit at his right hands with him and we will rule and reign with him.

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At that proper time, but not now. It is important to remember that we get ahead of ourselves.

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We want the crown now and not the cross, right? It was like, forget the cross, I don't want to suffer, but this is what we've been called to.

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He literally says, you have been called to this. This is part of being a part of the family. Now I love this, okay?

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So if we keep reading, he says, humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God and at the proper time, he will exalt you.

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And then what does he finally do? He finally gets to verse seven and says, casting all your anxieties.

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So the anxiety is what? Everything that I'm worried could go wrong or everything that I think it should go this way, he goes, if you look at what

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I am and what I've done, you can get rid of that. You can release it. And I love that it's a present tense,

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Justin. It's not a one -time event. That every day we're gonna have to wake up and choose to humble ourselves to the

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Lord's will and cast our anxieties on him. But here's the key. It's not with a finger.

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It's not with an angry voice. It's not with a law. He comes to, Peter comes to the church and says, dear, dear believer, you can do this because he actually cares for you.

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He cares for you. This is so wonderful to hear this, that we can relinquish everything that we have, not because we're afraid he might leave us to ourselves.

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It's because he says, no, no, he cares for you. He cares for you. Well, and Peter is writing to saints who are suffering and their circumstances are hard.

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And the circumstances may very well not get better. No, most likely they won't.

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Sure. I mean, that was true for saints in the first century who would have read this letter. It's true for many of the people listening to this podcast.

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You might be going through really difficult things or maybe you've lost someone you love or whatever. And it's like, it ain't gonna get better, maybe, this side of the resurrection.

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And so there's an acknowledgement of that. But Peter is saying a couple of things that I think are profound.

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Your circumstances, dear saint, will not always be this way, right? They might be now.

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They will not always be this way. Because when Jesus returns, you will be exalted.

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And you will finally have the peace and the rest and the joy perpetually that your soul has longed for.

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You will no longer know pain or loss or suffering. You will be exalted. You will be with Jesus and see him as he is and you'll be like him.

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That's going to happen. So that's very encouraging. But then the word that is encouraging to me too is that that's coming.

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And in the meantime, you can cast all of your fear and all of your anxiety on the Lord because, like you said, because he loves you.

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He cares for you. So he has promised to deliver you from this eventually, ultimately.

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So you have that hope and you can look to that. And even now in this kind of already but not yet time where Christ has come, his kingdom has come, but it has not yet been consummated.

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It's not what it will be. Even now, when you're afraid, when you're anxious, you can cast all of that on the

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Lord. You can take it to him. He wants you to because he cares for you. He cares about you.

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And he's your father. And Christ is the one who loved you so much that he died for you.

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And he intercedes for you. And the Holy Spirit is with you and you're groaning. And so you can come to God and he wants you to come to him and you can say it all and you can pour it out.

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And he's faithful. He'll never fail you. He's got you. And so all will be well.

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And even in the midst of suffering, this side of the resurrection, there's nothing better for a

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Christian to know. I love the picture he says casting as if it's in your hands and you're walking over and going, okay,

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I'm gonna put it in God's hands. So I'm like, oh man,

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I don't know if I can do this. And God's like, I know, come on. Just kind of dumping it, man. I'm just throwing it.

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Just let me end with this story from Spurgeon. I think it's great. He says this. I heard of a man who was walking along the high road with a pack on his back.

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He was growing weary and was therefore glad when a gentleman came along in a carriage and asked to take him to give him a seat.

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The gentleman noticed that he kept his pack strapped to his shoulders. And he said, why do you not take off your pack?

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Why sir, said the traveler, I do not venture to impose. It was very kind of you to take me up and I could not expect you to carry my pack as well.

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Why, said the friend, do you not see that whether your pack is on your back or off your back,

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I have to carry it. My hearer, it is with your trouble. Whether you worry or do not worry, it is the

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Lord who must carry for you. This is so, it's so good. If you're gonna carry the worry, you just have to remember that it's not as if you took it off of God's control.

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He's still in control. His mighty hand is still at work. You unfortunately are exhausting yourself with something that God's like,

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I can carry that. I am carrying that. You should just let it go. The Lord's carrying you and he's carrying the weight of the worry and the anxiety anyway.

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Yeah, we may as well just throw it into his arms and throw it into his hands, even as we cast ourselves there.

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Yeah, if he carries the weight of the world, you can let the pack go. He's got it. Anyways, I hope this was encouraging.

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As those who suffer and struggle and we often worry, I know I struggle with anxiety.

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I know you do. I know a lot of our churches do. And it's healthy to be reminded that we aren't just told to just don't worry or just humble ourselves, but we are brought with the gentle, merciful, powerful

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God who says, now look at my power. Now look at you. Now look at my love. Now go ahead and give it to me.

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And amen, and I was just gonna close by reiterating these things to the listener. For those in Christ, man,

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I mean, the Lord loves you. He knows you. He's adopted you. He delights to save you. And so, of course, we can go to him with the things that make us afraid or the things that cause us to be anxious, the things that we're uncertain about, the things that keep us up at night.

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And we can know that, you know, Psalm 56, right? I mean, he sees all of our tossing and our turning and he's kept our tears in his bottle.

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He's written them in his book and one day he'll wipe them all away. That's the kind of God he is. Yeah, amen.

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We are insufficient. We are insufficient. He is all sufficient. Amen, that's a good word there.

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And this has been good for me. Just to think about these things and it's always good to be reminded of how the

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Lord loves and cares for us. And then what that means for how we can talk to him and go to him.

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I hope you've been encouraged out there, dear listener. We're grateful for you. We're thankful that you support us in the ways that you do.

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Your support means more than you probably will ever know. This side of the resurrection. And we look forward to meeting many of you, maybe at the conference next

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April, maybe in other opportunities. And of course we'll be with our Lord forever and that's gonna be pretty epic. So until next time, if the

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Lord has a return, I'm Justin, he's John. Grace and peace. Hey everyone, before you go,

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Justin and I first wanted to say thank you. And if this has been encouraging to you in any way, please feel free to share it.

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But we also need your support. And it's when you give that it really helps us financially reach more people.

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So the next time you consider giving to a ministry, we hope that you would pray about Theocast and partner with us as we share the gospel around the world.