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I want to welcome you back to our look at 1st Peter chapter 5, day 4 of our look
through this chapter. We've been talking about what Peter teaches us about
leadership in this chapter. And in verse 7, one of the most familiar verses of
the Bible, we see a daily habit that every strong leader must have.

1 Peter 5, 7 says, "Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. "
This verse applies to so many areas of our lives. That's why it's such a
familiar verse, because we have anxieties in so many areas of our lives.

Today, I want to apply it to your leadership. Peter has just talked about
humility, and now immediately he talks about worry. And the truth is the two are
connected.

Worry will always keep you from humility, because worry causes you to trust
yourself, your feelings, your actions, instead of trusting God. Sometimes it can
be pure pride that causes us to exalt ourselves, but this verse lets us in on
the truth that it's often our anxiety that causes us to trust ourselves. There
is such a thing as anxious pride.

We exalt ourselves because we're worried we're going to miss out or be passed
over or something's not going to work out. And so our anxious hearts push us to
push ourselves and our agendas. Yesterday, we talked about the truth that God
will lift you up in due time.

The problem is we don't like God's timing. And so we fretfully exalt ourselves
in order to push God's schedule ahead. One of the great evidences in your life
of true humility is the ability to accept God's timing instead of your timing.

When you do that, you're recognizing that God's wisdom is greater. Now, it's
also pretty wise, because in the end, you're going to have to accept God's
timing instead of your timing, because His timing is going to be Lord. His
timing is going to prevail.

Of course, you and I, we have a certain degree of wisdom in ourselves. We look
at circumstances and we think this is when it should happen, but God's wisdom is
infinitely greater. And of course, in every circumstance of life, we could
depend on a measure of our own strength to maybe make it through, but God's
amazing strength is available to those who are humble enough to admit their
need.

Remember, humility is not putting yourself or your ideas down or your strength
down. It's lifting God's wisdom and strength up. So my question is, where do you
need to trust God's timing right now?

The first part of this verse invites you and I to do what every leader must do
every day. Cast your anxiety on Him, because even as I talk about trusting God's
timing for some of you right now, you're feeling some anxiety. I don't know if I
can trust God's timing.

I've got to push it ahead. It has to be done. What if His timing isn't my
timing?

Cast your anxiety on Him. If you don't cast your anxiety on Him, your worry
starts to pile up and your anxiety starts to lead the way rather than your faith
leading the way. Because if you've got a pile of worries in your life that you
haven't dealt with, I guarantee you they're going to lead the way.

You can't get them out of your mind. So you've got to get rid of them. You've
got to do something with them.

What do you do with them? You cast them on Him. In fact, do this right now.

Cast your anxieties on Him. Now, this word "cast," there's two kinds of meaning
of the word "cast. " One is like a fishing lure or a fishing line.

You cast it out. But the problem with the fishing lure is it does have that line
attached to it. So you cast it out, but then what do you do?

You reel it back in and then you cast it out. And that's how a lot of us deal
with our anxieties. Here it is, God.

Deal with it. Okay, you've had your five minutes and we reel it back in and we
deal with it ourselves. There's another meaning behind the word "cast," and
that's as if to cast a stone.

And when you do that, it's not to pick it up again, it's you let it go. You let
it drop. Cast your anxieties, not on the ground here, like you drop a stone.

Notice what it says? Cast your anxieties on Him. Take the worries that you have
right now.

There's one going through your mind maybe right now. And drop it into God's
powerful hands. Let God be God.

Resign as general manager of the universe. And you're going to be a lot happier
in life. You're going to be a much better leader.

The world does not depend upon you or me. God is God and you're not. And as long
as you try to be God, try to handle it all yourself instead of casting it into
His hands, you're going to be filled with fear.

And those fears, those worries are going to lead the way in your life. You can't
handle it all yourself because you're not meant to handle it all yourself. And
worry is always a warning light.

It's a warning light that says a couple of things. One, it says that that thing
that you're worrying about has likely become too important to you. So you're
worrying about it.

It's more important than it should be. It's taking first place in your life. And
second, it usually says that you're trying to solve that problem on your own.

You're trying to play God. You're trying to control the issue. So what do you
do?

You cast it on Him. You actively take those anxieties and you put them in His
hands. I know a lot of people, when it comes to worrying, they try to just stop
worrying without taking this action of putting it in God's hands.

It does no good to try to stop worrying. You just end up worrying that you're
worrying when you try to stop worrying. So instead of trying to not feel a
certain way, take an action with those anxieties that you have.

You have the anxiety because you want to do something about that circumstance.
So what do you do with it? You do the most important, powerful thing you could
possibly do with it.

You trust it into God's hands. This verse invites us to take advantage of God's
gift exchange program. When you look at casting your anxieties on Him because He
cares for you, this verse tells us first you exchange your control for God's
control.

You put it in His hands. One of the reasons we don't want to do that is because
that means we're recognizing it's in His control. Well, it is anyway, but we
have a hard time recognizing that sometimes.

You give it to God. Why do we worry? We worry because we try to do what only God
can do.

We try to control the uncontrollable. We try to explain the unexplainable. We
try to get the un-gettable.

We try to stop the unstoppable. We try to do the undoable. We try to bear the
unbearable.

We try to fix the unfixable, and so we worry. These kinds of circumstances, did
you know God allows some of these into your life so that you'll trust Him rather
than trusting yourself? If you could handle every circumstance of life, you'd
never need to trust God, but life is not built that way.

There are plenty of circumstances where I need to trust Him. So when you find
yourself anxious because you can't make it work, you can't make it happen, you
can't make it change, you can't make it better, cast your anxiety on Him. Drop
it into the powerful hands of God.

This gift exchange program, exchange your control for God's control. And then
second, you're exchanging your anxieties for God's care. You know what it's like
to live in that place of worry and anxiety.

I hope you also know what it's like to live in that place of recognizing the
power and the strength of God's care for you, that in a sense envelops you,
strengthens you. That's where God wants you to live, in that place. Not in the
place of worry, but in the place of worship.

Not in the place of your worries, but in the place of God's care. Listen, God
cares about your worries. Even if they're silly, even if they seem small, even
if no one else knows about those worries, God cares about those worries.

And so because God cares about your worries, you give those worries to God and
you recognize how much God cares for you. And you live in that place of God's
care. The only way to lead others is by developing this daily habit of casting
your anxieties on Him.

Cast them on Him, recognize He cares, and then you'll have the strength to lead
your family. Then you'll have the power to lead the people in your church or in
your office or at your school. Cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares
for you.

As we pray, Lord, that's what we do right now. These worries that are going
through the back of our minds, we bring them to the front and we say instead of
us trying to be in control, we recognize you're in control. Instead of living in
the place of worry and anxiety, we want to live in the place of worship, of
recognizing your care.

And so we almost visualize ourselves taking this worry, bringing it to your
powerful hands and letting it go into your powerful hands. You feel confident in
doing this, Lord, because you care about us. You care about us even more than we
care about ourselves.

You love us more than we can imagine. So we give this to you knowing that you
love us and asking that that care, that love that you have for us, would make
its way into our hearts right now. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

Tomorrow we're going to end our study of 1 Peter together with Peter encouraging
us with how to stand fast in grace.