The following summary is my notes from a sermon I heard this week by Dr. Jeremy Pierre, a professor at Southern Seminary, author, and biblical counselor. I’ll include a link to the actual sermon at the bottom –please give it a listen, it will be worth your time for sure!
Fear and worrying are still daily battles of surrender for me. But praise God, anxiety hasn’t ever been to the extreme that I know so many wrestle with. But please don’t hear me say I don’t struggle with it. Especially in light of the pandemic, I’ve had to battle with it more than ever and the surrender is a constant thing.
This sermon was both encouraging and challenging as I thought through my anxiousness over the last several weeks yet I was encouraged again by the promises of our faithful God.
Anxiety, Humility, and Glory – Dr. Jeremy Pierre
1 Peter 5:6-11
Humility undermines anxiety because it recognizes God’s superior ability to care for us, to protect us, and to lead us to the highest place of Glory. Humbling yourself means casting your cares on God. - vs 6-7. The main command is not to cast cares, it’s to humble yourselves. To humble yourself means to see yourself in a different way — you are small; God is big. You are as able to handle your own anxieties as Israel was to command the plaques to cease. Only God can do such things.
God is teaching us that we must see ourselves as small and Him as big. Only when we get that straight, will we be able to take our burdens off of our small narrow shoulders and put them on shoulders that are infinitely broader.
Casting our cares is one of the hardest things we are called to do —because we have to hand over to him our deepest desires.
Health, vocation, and relationship. All can be good desires but in a fallen world, they are under legitimate threat! God determines how best to utilize you and provide for you in the future - not you.
Relationships - a desire for belonging and approval.
Entrusting to him your preference for what relationships you think you need.
You are not your own but belong body and soul in life and death to Faithful Savior. When you believe that, you trust His heart and you can give Him your deepest longings and desires.
Care for someone - identify with their good as if it were you own. God does not dismiss your concerns regarding your desires, but what He chooses to bring in your life is better than what you prefer. It requires humility and faith.
Humbling yourself also means resisting the devil. When you give in to the devil you turn against God’s purposes in your life so you mistrust God.
Satan has another tactic than a whispering serpent - roaring lion is intimidating and means to scare you to death. Threaten you, makes you think life is nothing but fear and threat. Exaggerates the danger of God’s people.
The enemy is cruel crafty and hungry trying to add fire to your anxiety. He covers your mind with a darkness that makes it harder to see the light of God’s face. Roars threats in your ears so you can’t hear the calming voice of your Shepherd.
The evil one is provoking you to forget promises of God, anxiety is most effective too.
God always reverses Satan’s tools he uses…God can change purpose to evidence that you need God to protect and provide for you!
It provokes you to seek God for that protection.
Resisting devil means in humility trusting God. No special ceremony or methods of spiritual warfare. The way you resist the devil is to be humble, instead of fighting a lion on your own, run to the bigger Lion of Judah.
Humbling yourself means that God Himself will glorify you - vs 10-11
Time has to do with perspective - thinking of God’s higher purposes of eternal glory He is setting aside for you.
60 seconds in a hot shower after waking up freezing cold - short
60 seconds of a doctor trying to find a vein with a needle in your arm - extremely long.
Helps you see that your suffering is not permanent no matter what suffering, Satan or your fears tell you. Responding in faith to suffering is what God called early church believers to do.
The same God is now calling you to everlasting and eternal glory in heavenly places - permanent calling.
God himself will restore you —take something that has been harmed and worn out to restore it fully to what it was designed to be. God himself is going to do that. God is going to use his personal capacities to individually carry believers through their own suffering and then restore them to such a degree that not even a hint of harm remains. God did everything necessary to solve your worst problem. None of your concerns are greater than the concern of a sinner before a holy God being destroyed and rejected. Christ came and solved that concern, carried the burden on his own shoulders to the cross. He rose again, proving people can be resurrected to live safely with a holy God- Ascended to sit next to God praying for you.
Heather Leman
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