http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15349662/joy-in-affliction-validates-election
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How Can I Cast My Cares on God?
Audio Transcript
I cast my cares on God, and those cares keep finding their way back to me. So how do I get rid of those cares for good? We get that question a lot. Today it comes in the form of an email from a listener to the podcast named Claire. Claire writes, “Hello, Pastor John and Tony! I’m a Christian college student and I listen to APJ all the time. Pastor John, I was recently rereading your book Battling Unbelief. In the first chapter, you mention 1 Peter 5:7 and that we should be ‘casting our cares on God.’ I have often wondered about this command and how you do it. How do you cast your cares? Do you simply tell God you’re giving up your worries? Additionally, once you do cast them, are we expected to forget those worries? Or can we expect them to come back to us?” Pastor John, what would you say to Claire?
Suppose you lived in a village with about five hundred people and no army, no fortress, and suppose you heard that an enemy army of five thousand armed soldiers was coming against you to take your village and destroy its inhabitants. Now, that would be in your heart a burden. It would be an anxiety, and the kind of thing Peter says in 1 Peter 5:7 should be cast on the Lord, right? “Cast your anxieties onto the Lord.” Or Psalm 55:22: “[Roll] your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved.”
And suppose that there was a king, with an army of fifty thousand soldiers, who had pledged himself to protect you and your village when you call him for help. So you send a messenger to the king and plead with him to come and protect you against the enemy, and he sends a royal messenger back with a message with the official king’s seal on it that says, “I will protect you. The enemy will not overwhelm you.” Signed, “The King.” Now, what would it mean for you at that moment to cast your burden, to cast your anxiety, onto the king?
Surely, the answer is this: to the degree that you trust the king’s promise to protect you, to that degree, your burden will be lifted. If your trust is small, you will still feel burdened, but if your trust is great, your burden will be light. So the key to casting your burdens, your anxieties, onto the king is to trust the word of the king, the word of promise, which, of course, includes trusting that he has the power to do what he says he’ll do, that he has the wisdom to be as strategic as he needs to be, that he has the will, or the desire, or the commitment to do what he says. Trust will involve all those things, but trust is the key to letting your burden go, putting your burden on the king.
What Kind of God?
When it comes to casting our anxieties onto God, the most fundamental thing is for God to tell us what kind of king he is. Is he the kind of God, the kind of king, that wants to load his people down with burdens like slave labor — as the Israelites in Egypt were loaded down with making bricks without straw, because that’s the kind of king Pharaoh was? Or is he the kind of God that loves to lift burdens off of his people? What kind of God is God?
“God will never surrender the glory of being the all-sufficient provider and deliverer.”
That has to be settled, and God has to tell us and show us what kind of God he is. Oh, how liberating, how thrilling it was — I can remember it — for me when I first saw the texts that I’m going to read right now. I had never quite articulated for myself that God really is this way. This is the kind of God who created the universe, who sent Christ into the world, who governs things by the providence of his wisdom. He really is this kind of God. So here they are.
Giver
Acts 17:25: “[God is not] served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” In other words, God has no needs at all. He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need my slave labor. On the contrary, he shows his divine fullness, wisdom, power, love by giving, not getting.
Deliverer
Here’s Psalm 50:12, 15. God says, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. . . . call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” What an amazing two verses. In other words, never think that you can glorify God by sacrificially providing for him, providing your labor for him, as though he depended on you for anything. God is not glorified by being your beneficiary. He’s glorified by being your benefactor. “Call on me,” he says, “in the day of trouble; I will deliver you” — not the other way around. “I’ll deliver you, and you will glorify me for my delivering you.” He’ll never surrender the glory of being the all-sufficient provider and deliverer.
Worker
Isaiah 64:4 — oh my goodness, this is glorious. I remember the first time I saw this and had it pointed out to me what kind of uniqueness God claims for himself. “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you.” Okay, now what’s the uniqueness here that nobody has seen? “. . . who works for those who wait for him.” In other words, what makes God unique among all the pagan gods of the nations is that he doesn’t look for help; he provides help. He works for those who wait for him. Baal and Nebo, those Babylonian gods, they’re like idols sitting on carts that you’ve got to drag around with yokes over your shoulder, whereas our God carries us. We don’t carry him.
Supporter
And maybe the text that amazed me the most of this cluster that I’m reading was 2 Chronicles 16:9: “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.” What that really says is that God is prowling around; he’s on the lookout for people who let him work for them, for people whose hearts will turn to him and trust him to be strong on their behalf. God is looking for ways, so to speak, to show off his power for us, not against us — for the sake of those who humble themselves under his mighty hand and trust him to work for them. Amazing.
Servant
One more text to illustrate the point, and it goes right to the heart of the matter because it has to do with the incarnation and what God was up to when he sent Jesus. Here’s Mark 10:45: “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” In other words, at the very peak of the revelation of who God is — namely, in the incarnation of his own Son — the point he makes again is this: “I’m not coming to recruit help. I’m not coming to be served. I’m coming to serve. I’m the Savior here. I’m the helper here. I’m the rescuer here. I’m the provider here. I’m the all-wise guide here. I’m the treasure here. Don’t switch roles with me. Be needy, be satisfied, be trustful.”
Trust the All-Sufficient God
So, the answer to our most fundamental question — What kind of God are we dealing with when it comes to burden bearing? — is that we are dealing with a God who is so full he does not need our help to be more full, to be better, to be more effective, to be more satisfied, to be more glorious. All of his fullness — all of his excellence, his effectiveness, his glory — is shown for his people by his working for them, not them working for him. He lifts burdens. We don’t lift his. So with this glorious, massive reality of the kind of God that we are dealing with, what it means to cast your burden or your anxiety on the Lord is that you listen to his promises concerning your situation, and you trust him that he is the kind of God who is strong enough, wise enough, good enough to take onto his strong shoulders your concern and fulfill his promise to you.
“God is the kind of God who is strong enough, wise enough, good enough to take onto his strong shoulders your concern.”
Now, notice that the command in 1 Peter 5:7 to cast your anxieties on the Lord is preceded by the statement that God is mighty and followed by the statement that God cares. It goes like this: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, . . . casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6–7). Therefore, the casting of our anxieties means trusting his might and trusting his care to fulfill specific promises that he makes to his children in their various situations of life.
So as I’m facing a situation of anxiety, I admit that I cannot provide God’s needs. That’s not my job. He doesn’t want me to take that role. I’m helpless. God is all-sufficient, so I call to mind a promise like Isaiah 41:10, my go-to precious promise, where God says to me personally (I can hear him saying my name almost), “John, I will help you. I will strengthen you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” — a wonderful promise. And I trust that promise at that moment, and that trusting is the casting of my anxiety onto him. If, by grace, I am able to rest in the promise, the burden is lifted, and I can walk into the scary situation without fear.
So, never cease to be amazed that God is not a man that he should be served, but he is God, and he delights to show his power and his care not by burdening us, but by lifting our burdens. Trust him for this.
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Should We Seek to Suffer?
Audio Transcript
Happy Friday, and welcome back to the podcast. I hope your Thanksgiving was full. We end this holiday week on the podcast with an email from a young man named Payton. Payton writes this: “Pastor John, hello! Thank you for your Look at the Book video series. I used them to prepare a recent lesson I taught on 1 Peter 3:8–22. Later on I found your exegesis of 1 Peter 4:15 very helpful to understand the role of suffering in the Christian life.
“One of your four conclusions was this: ‘Don’t prioritize the value of suffering above the value of doing good.’ I think that’s a relevant word in this age, when getting hated or deleted online is a badge of accomplishment. You draw out a powerful application from this text as for why. But I’m failing to connect this point of application to the text itself. Can you elaborate on what you mean by this conclusion and how Peter is conveying this message to his readers? Also, how might we apply this in our daily walk as we battle unjust suffering? Thank you!”
Okay. Let’s get everybody up to speed. Here’s the context of 1 Peter 4:13–16:
Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. (1 Peter 4:13–16)
Not All Suffering Is Equal
What arrested my attention in that text that Payton is referring to is how obvious it is that we ought not to suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or a meddler. In fact, it seems so obvious that you wonder, “Why did Peter feel the need to write, ‘Let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler’?” He certainly did not mean, “It’s okay if you murder and steal and do evil and meddle — just don’t get caught and suffer for it.” That’s not what he meant.
So why did Peter say that? Why didn’t he just say, “Don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t do evil, don’t meddle,” instead of saying, “Don’t suffer for it”? Well, evidently — because of Peter’s teaching on the necessity and value of suffering in this book, especially in 1 Peter 1, where suffering functions like fire, to burn away the dross out of the gold of our faith (1 Peter 1:6–7) — some people were saying that any suffering is good, even if it’s suffering for doing bad things. It’s good for you.
Now, there are two other texts in 1 Peter that make me think that. They confirm I’m on the right track when I guess that might be what’s going on here. For example, in 1 Peter 2:19–20, he says, “This is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure?” Now, why would Peter have to say that? “What credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure?” It sounds like somebody is saying there’s some credit in that. There’s some credit in suffering, even if you got beaten because you sinned. And Peter’s saying, “What? There’s no credit in that.”
Or here’s another text pointing in the same direction. First Peter 3:17 says, “It is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil” (1 Peter 3:17). Well, how obvious is that? Maybe not so obvious if somebody hears Peter saying, “It’s better to be on the receiving end of injustice than to be on the giving end of injustice,” which is in fact what he’s saying. That might be a little hard for people to swallow.
Four Lessons on Suffering
So I circled back to 1 Peter 4:15 when I was working on that Look at the Book session — where it says, “Let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler” — and I drew out four lessons that Payton is zeroing in on here.
1. It is not a matter of indifference whether you suffer for doing good or suffer for doing evil. Anyone who says that suffering for evil does as much good for you as suffering for good is not paying attention to the apostle’s teaching. That was my first lesson.
2. There’s no credit, no honor, that comes from suffering for sin.
3. Injustice against you is better than your doing the injustice.
4. Don’t prioritize the value of suffering above the value of doing good.
“There’s no credit, no honor, that comes from suffering for sin.”
This last one is what Payton is asking about when he says, “Can you elaborate on what you mean by this conclusion and how Peter is conveying this message to his readers?” Well, the way Peter is conveying the thought — “Don’t prioritize the value of suffering above the value of doing good” — is by the imperatives that run right through this entire letter: “Do good,” “Love,” “Be holy” (1 Peter 1:15, 1:22, 2:15, 3:6, 3:11, etc.). That’s what we are to pursue: do good; love; be holy — not suffering. Suffering is not to be sought. Doing good is to be sought. Suffering will come, but it’s not the goal; love is the goal. Suffering is the price of love, but it’s not the aim of love. So don’t go looking for trouble. Don’t seek to suffer. Don’t seek to be persecuted; seek to love at any cost, including persecution or suffering.
Do as Much Good as You Can
And then Payton’s last question is, “How might we apply this in our daily walk as we battle unjust suffering?” Well, the way it applies to battling against unjust suffering — indeed, against natural suffering like disease or calamity — is that it directs our attention outward to others, not inward to ourselves. If we said, “Seek suffering for righteousness’ sake”, the focus would be on the pain we experience, not the blessing others experience. The focus would be on our heroic ability to endure suffering, not the lowly path of serving others. There’s a huge difference between the crusade to attract criticism and the crusade to do as much good as you can and leave the persecution to God — leave it to be what he makes of it.
“Do good, and hope for a good reception for your good, but if suffering comes, you’re blessed.”
Peter says, “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:10). So, do good; pursue peace. And then he follows that with these words. “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled” (1 Peter 3:13–14).
In other words, do good, and hope for a good reception for your good, but if suffering comes, you’re blessed. There’s a great difference between this approach to life than if you were to say that suffering is the main thing, and so let’s seek it. No. Love is the main thing, so let’s do it.
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Risen to Love His Own: The Surprising Mercies of Easter
Our tired, sinful world has never seen a surprise so momentous as the one that spread from the tomb on Easter Sunday. “The dead stayed dead in the first century with the same monotonous regularity as they do [today],” Donald Macleod writes (The Person of Christ, 111). No one, in any age, has been accustomed to resurrection.
To the disciples, it mattered little that their Lord had already given away the ending (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34). The resurrection of Jesus Christ — heart beating, lungs pumping, brain firing, legs walking — could be nothing less than a surprise. The greatest surprise our world has ever seen.
Pay attention to the resurrection narratives, however, and you may find yourself surprised at how Jesus surprises his people. He does not run from the tomb shouting, “I’m risen!” (as we may have expected). In three separate stories, in fact — with Mary, with Peter, and with the two disciples on the Emmaus road — he does not reveal himself immediately. He waits. He lingers. He hides, even. And then, in profoundly personal ways, he surprises.
Some of us woke up this Easter in desperate need of this same Jesus to offer a similar surprise. We declare today that he is risen, that he is risen indeed. But for one reason or another, we may find ourselves stuck in the shadows of Saturday. Perhaps some sorrow runs deep. Or some old guilt gnaws. Or some confusion has invaded the soul. Perhaps our Lord, though risen, seems hidden.
Sit for a moment in these three stories, and consider how the Lord of the empty tomb still loves to surprise his people. As on the first Easter, he still delights to trade our sorrow for joy, our guilt for forgiveness, our confusion for clarity.
Sorrow Surprised by Joy
Maybe, this Sunday, some long sadness seems unmoved by the empty tomb. Maybe the Easter sun seems to have stopped just below the horizon of some darkened part of life — some love lost, some long and aching wait. Maybe you remember Jesus’s words, “Your sorrow will turn into joy” (John 16:20), but you still feel the sorrow, still look for the joy.
Stand at the tomb with Mary Magdalene. Others have come and gone, but she waits, weeping (John 20:11). She has seen the stone rolled away, the absent grave, and the angelic entourage of her risen Lord — and now, Jesus himself stands near her. But though she sees him, she doesn’t see him. “She did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). She mourns before the Lord of holy joy, not knowing how soon her sorrow will flee. And for a few moments more, Jesus waits.
He draws her out with a question: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” (John 20:15). She offers her reply, supposing she speaks to a gardener. And then, in a moment, with a word, the mask comes off. Shadows break, sun rises, sorrow makes its sudden happy turn. How? “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary’” (John 20:16). One word, one name, and this Gardener blooms flowers from her fallen tears. “Rabboni!” she cries — and cries no more (John 20:16).
Unlike Mary, you know your Lord is risen. Even still, for now, you may feel bent and broken. Seeing Jesus, but not seeing him. Knowing he lives, but not knowing where he is. Maybe even hearing his voice, but supposing you hear another’s. Dear saint, the risen Christ does not stand idly by while his loved ones grieve. He may linger for the moment, but he lingers near enough to see your tears and hear your cries — near enough to speak your name and surprise your sorrow with joy.
Keep waiting, and he will speak — sooner or later, here or in heaven. And until then, he is not far. Even if hidden, he is risen, and the deepest sorrow waits to hear his word.
Guilt Surprised by Forgiveness
Or maybe, for you, sorrow is only a note in a different, darker song. You have sinned — and not in a small way. The words of your mouth have shocked you; the work of your hands has undone you. You feel as if you had carried the soldiers’ nails. And now it seems that not even Easter can heal you.
Sit in the boat with Peter. He knows his Lord is risen — and indeed, he has even heard hope from Jesus himself. “Peace be with you,” the Master had told his disciples (John 20:19). But that “you” was plural. Peter needed something more, something personal, to wash away Good Friday’s stains.
“Jesus still delights to trade our sorrow for joy, our guilt for forgiveness, our confusion for clarity.”
And so Jesus stands on the shore — risen, hidden, and again with a question: “Children, do you have any fish?” (John 21:5). These are words to awaken memory (Luke 5:1–4), “yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus” (John 21:4). No, not yet. He will allow Peter to feel the night’s empty nets a few moments longer, and then the surprise will come. And so he reveals himself, this time not with a name but with fish — many fish, actually (John 21:6). Then, after feeding his men, he leads Peter in personal repentance and, as if all is forgotten, calls him afresh: “Follow me” (John 21:19).
That Jesus should turn our sorrow into joy is one of Easter’s greatest wonders. But perhaps greater still is that he should turn our guilt into innocence — that he should address our most sinful, shameful moments so personally, that he should wash our souls as humbly and tenderly as he washed his disciples’ feet. Yet so he does.
The process can take some time, however. We may not feel his forgiveness immediately, and he does not always mean us to. He sometimes hides for some moments or some days. Yet as he does, he prepares the scene for a surprise so good we too may feel like leaping into the sea (John 21:7). Our Lord is here, bringing grace and mercy; we must go to him.
Confusion Surprised by Clarity
Or maybe you find neither sorrow nor sin afflicting you this Easter, but rather another kind of thorn, a pain that can pierce deep enough to drive you mad: confusion. Life doesn’t make sense. Logic fails. God’s ways seem not just mysterious but labyrinth-like. Who can untangle these knots or find a way through this maze?
Walk with the two disciples toward Emmaus. “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel,” you hear them say (Luke 24:21). Yes, had hoped. No more. Three nails and a spear stole the breath from that dream. Now all that’s left is confusion, a body and blood and a burial of all that seemed good and right and true. If not Jesus, then who? Then how? We had thought he was the one.
But then “the one” himself “drew near and went with them” (Luke 24:15). Again he asks a question: “What is this conversation that you are holding?” (Luke 24:17). And again he conceals himself: “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (Luke 24:16). So they walk; so they talk; so they spill their confusion all along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Yes, they have heard his body was gone, have heard even a report of his rising (Luke 24:23–24). But still, they just can’t make sense of it all.
But oh, how Jesus can. So, with a swift and tender rebuke, a lesson in the Scriptures, and a face revealed over broken bread, he picks up their shattered thoughts and arranges them in a vision of startling, stunning clarity. Then “he vanished” (Luke 24:31), taking all their confusion with him. “Did not our hearts burn within us?” they ask each other (Luke 24:32). Christ had risen, and the clarity they could not imagine had walked with them, talked with them, and loved them into the light.
Our hearts today may brim with questions, some that seem unanswerable. But the resurrected Jesus knows no unanswerable questions. He can solve every riddle in every corner of every human heart — even if, for the moment, he walks beside us incognito.
Our Final Surprise
We live today in an in-between land. Jesus is risen, but we don’t yet see him. Jesus lives, but we haven’t yet touched the mark of the nails in his hands. If we are his, however, then one day we will. And these stories give us reason to expect on that day a final, climactic surprise.
If hearing Jesus’s word by faith can lift the heaviest heart, what sorrow can withstand his audible voice and the new name he will give to us (Revelation 2:17)? If even now we taste the relief of sins forgiven and condemnation gone, what will happen when he puts a white robe around our shoulders and renders sin impossible? And if we have moments here of bright clarity, then what will come when the mists lift altogether, when Truth himself stands before us, and when all deception disappears like a bad dream?
Then we will see what a risen Christ can do. His dealings with Mary, with Peter, with the Emmaus disciples — these are but the fringes of his power, the outskirts of his ways. So keep waiting, dear Christian. At the right time, he will speak your name. He will appear on the shoreline of your long-repeated prayers. He will walk with you on the road of confusion and loss until you reach a better table, and in the breaking of the bread you will see his face.