Transcript
We're working our way through five directives from 1 Peter, beginning with verse 6, that capture what it means to live right here, right now, between the "already" and the "not yet" in light of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. First directive was know your place. There's a king and He is not you.
The Second Directive: Rest in God's Care
The second directive is rest in His care. Rest in God's care. Cast all your cares on Him because He cares for you. The Bible never entertains the question, "Does God care?" The Bible declares that God cares. It assumes that God cares. The whole sweep of the story of scripture is this God of awesome care for the world that He made, care that would drive Him with such zeal that He would not relent until all things that sin has broken would be made new again.
The issue is not really does God care. The issue is will we recognize His care when it comes. There's an amazing moment in the life of Jesus and the disciples where Jesus sends the disciples out across the Sea of Galilee. They're facing an impossible headwind. They're facing angry seas. They're rowing hard and going nowhere. If you look at time clues in the passage, they've been out there for eight hours.
Jesus is on the shore. He sees that they're in trouble, and He gets up and He begins to walk across the angry sea, walk into that impossible headwind. Now, the minute He takes the walk, you know what He has in mind because if all He wanted to do was relieve the difficulty, He wouldn't have had to take the walk. He walks into that storm because He's not after the difficulty, He's after the boys who are in the middle of the difficulty.
Jesus in the Boat
Now He's standing next to the boat, the boat's still bobbling up and down, the waves are still crashing, the wind is still blowing. Nothing has changed except Jesus has injected Himself in the scene. He's now in the storm with His disciples and He speaks these beautiful words. "Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid."
Now, the question of the story is when did Jesus start caring for His disciples? When He was standing next to the boat? When He spoke those words? When He walked across the water? Well, the answer is Jesus began to care for His disciples when He sent them into the storm because sometimes, you need the storm in order to see the glory.
That storm is manufactured so that those disciples would see the awesome glory of their Savior and never be the same again. You see, the question is not does God care, but will we recognize His care when it comes because it often comes to us in unusual, uncomfortable forms. Rest in God's care.
