Okay, well good evening. Good to see each of you tonight. Hope that you had a good afternoon and let's go ahead and we'll get started with a word of prayer and then get into our service this evening. Let's bow for prayer. Father, thank you so much for the way that you work in our lives. Your tender care is something that we are so grateful for, and your compassion, and the strength that you give us. I pray that tonight you would really use this service to speak to our hearts, and I pray that every aspect of the service would bring glory to you, and we ask it in Christ's name, amen. All right, well, thanks for joining us this evening as we gather for worship. By the way, if you hear the sirens and such, it's not an emergency. It's an annual tradition. The fire department does a little parade thing. So that's what's going on there. Anyway, let's sing. Let's out-sing the sirens. Let's go to hymn number 202, Good Christian Men Rejoice. Please stand with me as we sing number 202. We'll sing all three verses. Here we go. Good Christian men rejoice. With heart and soul and all our hearts Give ye heed to what we say News, news, Jesus Christ is born today Christ was born for this. Good Christian men rejoice With arms and soul and voice Now ye need not fear the grave Peace, peace, Jesus Christ was born to save Cause you one and cause you all To gain His everlasting all Christ was born to save Please be seated as we turn over to hymn 209, O Little Town of Bethlehem. Now, this one is a different variation, a different arrangement than you're familiar with, so I'll have the pianist play through it one time, just so you can get familiar with the tune. You'd know it, I'm pretty sure. Play through it one sec, please, please. Here we go, all four verses. ♪ The silent stars go by ♪ ♪ Yet in the dark streets shine ♪ ♪ The everlasting light ♪ ♪ The hopes and fears of all the years ♪ ♪ Are met in thee tonight ♪ ♪ For Christ is born in Bethlehem ♪ ♪ God's own one in all ♪ ♪ O come, O come, all ye faithful ♪ ♪ Joyful and triumphant ♪ ♪ O come, O come, all ye faithful ♪ O Holy Child of Bethlehem, listen to my prayer. Great singing. Raise a hand, who's heard that arrangement before? Okay, I mostly hear it on like the Christmas toys or the ornaments, that's usually when I hear it. Anyway, we'll sing 212, go tell it on the mountain. Chorus first and then we'll sing all three verses. He came to die for sinners, to take away our sin. Let me hear your salvation, and be complete in Him. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain. All right, finally got it right last time. I learned it very different than in here. Okay, it was really fun to play that. I love playing Christmas music on the trumpet. That's just, If you don't play a brass instrument, you just can't appreciate it. Those songs were made for brass instruments. Anyway, on Sunday nights, we like to take an opportunity to share testimonies of how God's been working. ♪ With arms unfold ♪ ♪ Peace on the earth and men to reign ♪ ♪ From the hills of Phoenix shall spring ♪ ♪ The world in solemn stillness lay ♪ ♪ To hear the angels sing ♪ All right, 113 in the blue book. 113 in the blue book. Behold the King. I think I know this one. Can we play it through one time? Let's sing it through. Here we go. That's a good one. Thank you. I like that one. 228 in the red book. 228 in the red book. What child is this? And 220 in the Red Book. 220. I know, right? We three kings of Orient are. We three kings of Orient As we traverse afar, million worlds and more are built and falling from the sky. Great, we have time for a couple more. Let's see. Shawn. Red book? Kylie. 222 in the red book. Let's see. Ah, Cheater, Hansel. Strobe lights. 23 in the blue book. Clever, clever. 213 in the red book. The first Noel. Oh, the last verse. We're going to sing the last verse. Then let us all with one accord. Let us all, with one accord, sing praises to our heav'nly Lord, the path, the path, the path of God, and praise 222 in the red book. Love this one. In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind had blown. so hard as iron, water like a stone. Snow had fallen, snow on snow, fallen, snow on snow. In the big, big snow, And our last song, 123 in the blue book. Nothing is impossible. Let's all stand. We'll sing this one through twice. Here we go. Nothing is impossible when you put your trust in God. Nothing is impossible when you're trusting in his word. Hark unto the voice from God today. Nothing is impossible when you put your trust in God. Nothing is impossible when you're trusting in His Word. Great singing. Please be seated. you you That is amazing. We're going to do another Christmas song just before the message. And it kind of tells the whole, not the whole, it's part of the story of Christmas from some different eyes. Wind, shepherd boy, mighty king. Said the night wind to the little lamb. Do you see what I see, what I see? Oh, way up in the sky, little lamb. Do you see what I see, what I see? A star, a star, dancing in the night with a tail as big as a kite, with a tail as big as a kite. Wahoo, said the little lamb to the shepherd boy. Do you hear what I hear, what I hear? Oh, ringing through the sky, shepherd boy. Do you hear what I hear, what I hear? A song, a song, high above the trees, with a voice as big as the sea. With a voice as big as the sea. said the shepherd boy to the mighty king do you know what i know what i know oh in your palace warm mighty king Do you know what I know, what I know? A child, a child, shivers in the cold. Let us bring him silver and gold. Let us bring him silver and gold. Wah-ooh, ooh, wah-ooh, said the king to the people everywhere. Listen to what I say, what I say. Oh, pray for peace, people everywhere. Listen to what I say, what I say. The child, the child sleeping in the night. He will bring us goodness and light. He will bring us goodness and light. Goodness and light. Alright, thank you guys, and please take your Bibles tonight and turn to the book of 1 Peter. As you do that, let me just say thank you again. I know you've been thanked quite a bit this last few hours, but it was an amazing day yesterday. I was a youth pastor, I still am a youth pastor the last 30 years, and to see young people coming to a youth rally that are interested in what is being said, these are not just young people coming, these are cream of the crop young people. And that is why we love coming to the Lit Conference. Thank you so much, Pastor and Pastor Chris, for all the work that you all did. And we want to thank the Moors for the great accommodations. And we just sure enjoy coming each year. And there will be fruit because of that. And don't forget that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. What a blessing that is. 1 Peter chapter 5. And some familiar verses we want to just take another look at this evening. Starting with verse six, the Bible says, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time. Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Be sober. Be vigilant. Because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. Let's pray. Dear Father, we ask your blessing on these few minutes that we have this evening. Lord, we ask that your word would be powerful in our hearts. May we let the Holy Spirit do your work. And Lord, I pray that you would encourage hearts this evening. For we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. When I was a kid, my dad used to teach a class in our Christian high school. I was in about fourth grade, and I remember my dad taught an amateur radio class. Any of you ham radio operators out there? No? Okay, good. All right, KA9FNY. That's my call sign. And so he taught a class. Now, I was a novice class license, which means I could send code. And that was great, but my dad said, hey Pete, how would you like to get your next license, which was the technician class, and then the class after that was the general class license. Now, let me tell you about the general class license. If you got the general class license, you could communicate on a short-wave radio, not with the Morse code, but with the microphone. And get this, you could talk to people all over the world on the microphone. You could even hit repeater towers and call someone on the phone. I thought that would be the coolest thing. Now this was before cell phones, guys, okay. This was awesome. I said, yeah, fourth grader, uh-huh. So dad gave me a book. And he said, just learn this book and you'll be able to pass the test. Well, it was a really tough book for a fourth grader. And it was all about bandwidths and frequencies and stuff like that. And I muddled through it as best I could. The day came, dad took his class, there was about eight of them, in a class up from La Crosse, Wisconsin up to Minneapolis, St. Paul. Two hours away, he pulled me out of school to accompany the big guys all the way up there. So we got there, and we didn't take them on computers, guys. We took the test on paper. All right, so the first test I took was the 20-word-a-minute code test, and I passed. I was so excited. It was great. And then all I had to do was pass the written test, and I'd get to talk on a microphone. This would be awesome. So I went up to the window. The lady gave me the test. I sat down. And it was tough. Man, I did the best that I could, filling out the dots, doing all that stuff. I finally got done. I took it up to the window. I gave it to the lady. She graded it right there in front of me. And she looked up at me with a smile and said, you only missed it by one. Thank you, thank you for that. And I heard that, and she thought that was really cool that a kid would do this, and I was just dejected. I turned around, I went back, my dad's like, so how'd you do? I said, I only missed it by one. And he tried to encourage me, but I could tell he was disappointed too. The whole ride back was miserable. It was raining, it was cold. And I remember getting home that night, going to bed, closing my eyes, and thinking about, you only missed it by one, over and over. And that really bothered me. I could not go to sleep. That's all I could think about. And for the first time that I remember, I hurt on the inside. I let my dad down. I can't talk on the microphone. It was bad. And for the next several days, that actually hurt. And I thought to myself, I don't like this. How do I get rid of this hurt? Do you ever feel like that? Do you ever have something in your life that makes you hurt and you can't stop thinking about it? And everything you do, every time you close your eyes, every time you get in the car, that's what you think about? What do you do for that? Is there a formula that we can just do to get rid of that? Well, a lot of people have opinions on that. Some people say, well, what you do is you just talk it out. Go to somebody and talk about it. You know, I've tried that. It doesn't always work. You know, I can talk about it all I want. It still hurts. Some people say, well, you gotta find someone to blame. Psychologists many times, psychiatrists will say, just blame your parents. and find someone to blame and you'll feel good. That doesn't work. Some people say run away, get away, just get away from the problem. But still, there's the hurt on the inside. So this evening, I wanna take a couple minutes and just talk about how to deal biblically with burdens. Those, as the passage says, those cares of this world. What do we do with that? First of all, number one, the plainness of burdens. What does the word cares mean in verse seven? The word care is the word for worry, for burden, or annoyance. It actually has the idea of distracting the mind, because he says right after that, be sober, be vigilant, be focused, in other words. And so there are times when things happen in our lives that we can't think about anything else. And we are distracted from thinking biblically. You ever have these? Maybe it's physical. Maybe it's your health. And you're always thinking about that and worrying about it. Maybe it's finances. Perhaps it's emotional. What if, what if? Maybe it's spiritual. My weakness is and it burdens my heart. We all have these, don't we? Whether you're saved or unsaved, whatever, everyone has burdens. The plainness of burdens. Secondly, the prerequisite. There's something we need to establish before we get into how to deal biblically with burdens, and that is this, humility is a must. If you and I want God to help us, we must be humble. The Bible says that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And so, before we even talk about anything else, we've got to talk about that. Take a look at the verses before this in 1 Peter, chapter five. And let's look at verse, let's see verse four. Verse three, neither as being lords over God's inheritance, but being examples to the flock. Verse five, likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you, be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Before you go any further, You and I need to stop and say, is there any pride in my heart in this situation? And you know, there are times when perhaps we even get wronged, and somebody lashes out at us, but sometimes we lash back, don't we? And even though we're in the right, perhaps, we still say things or do things, perhaps in pride, that must be dealt with before you can ask for God's assistance in dealing with burdens. So we must be humble. This is the prerequisite to dealing with burdens. Maybe there is a situation that you have in your mind right now. Ask yourself, did I say any words of harshness? Did I do anything out of spite? Is there pride in the situation? And even though you may think you're right, you may need to go and humble yourself before that person, before God will give you the grace to handle the situation. We must begin with pride, the prerequisite of humility. Thirdly, let's look at the prescription for handling burdens. And I want to follow Ran's model from this morning and just talk through verse 7. The first word is casting. Casting, a one-time act of abandonment to God. Now what do you think of when you hear the word casting? Yes, fishing, all right. I am not a fisherman. I don't like fishing, okay. But don't turn me off, okay. Biggest fish I've ever caught is probably smaller than my hand. I just, it's not my thing. But let me tell you my idea of casting. You get your tackle box and you go to the pond and you put the worm on the end of the hook and then you put the bobber up there. Shows you what kind of fishing I've done. And then you take it and you go zzzz plop. And then you sit there. And you wait. And you wait. And you wait. Nothing happens. You look for the bobber. You kind of move it around a little bit. Nothing. Then what do you do? Click. And you reel it back in. That is not the word. Because the idea of casting here is not throw it out there with a string on it so that you can reel it back in and maul it all over again. The idea is you throw the stone out there, plop, and it stays there. That's the idea of casting. Psalm 55, 22. Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee. So what we do, first of all, is cast. We give it to God and we leave it there. Now that sounds good, right? Just give it to Jesus, leave it with him. But how do you do that? I'm glad you asked. Turn over to Philippians with me. Philippians. Chapter four, again, very common, well-known verses of Scripture. But I think we miss something sometimes when we think, well, just give it to God. There is still a responsibility, okay? We cast it, we give it to the Lord, but then there is something else we must follow up with. Philippians chapter four. Verse six, be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. There it is, give it to God. And then we have the result, and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. And many times, what we do is we give it to God, and then we say, okay, and we think about it over and over and over. Look at the very next verse. He says, finally brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things. So the idea here is that we give our burden to the Lord, we leave it there, and then we leave it alone in our minds. Now I realize there's times we have to still take care of situations, but we don't mull things over in our mind over and over. Isn't that easy to do? Isn't that what we do? Man, you have that confrontation with the coworker, and you just, you get home and you think it through over and over, and you think, well, what happened here? Oh, look at that, and what was, and we do it over and over. That's not right. That is not how to cast. What we do is we bring our burden to God, we leave it with him, and then we control our thinking. Now, that's hard to do, isn't it? I mean, let's all take a minute and not think about chocolate cake, okay? Let's not think about that icing that's so smooth and the cake that's, don't think about how it goes down and it just feels so good, it's a good, don't think, how do you do that? It's hard to do, right? Not to think about something. But it is possible. It is possible. God wants us to control our thinking. Several years ago, I was bringing our youth group home from a missions trip, and I was just outside of Covington, Indiana, on Route 136, about 11 o'clock at night, on a two-lane highway. And as we were traveling, a drunk driver crossed the line and hit us head on. And thankfully everybody was okay. But our van was totaled. Her car, she almost died. She had over 200 stitches in her face. And we were all taken away in ambulances to the hospital. And we finally got home. We had two little girls at that time. We all got home about four o'clock in the morning. And I went to bed. And as soon as I closed my eyes, there were the headlights. Every time I closed my eyes, they were the headlights. And I thought, how am I going to go to sleep when all I see is headlights? And I had been challenged with this portion of scripture about controlling my thinking. And so, I determined when I would see the headlights, I would replace it with a different scene. And I hesitate to tell you this stays with us here, okay? But I had little girls, we watched a lot of Disney. And so, I replaced it with the wall scene from Cinderella. Very peaceful. Headlights, no, no, wall scene. Prince, princess. And it didn't happen all at once, but every time I saw those lights, I replaced it with something else. And you know what? I was able to go to sleep. And I realized, though it's difficult and though it takes some work, you and I can control what we think about. Replacing it. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. So why not replace it with something good or with scripture, God's word, a cleansing agent as well. So if we want to cast, if we want to plop and leave it with God, we bring it to him, first of all we're humble, and then we bring it to God, we leave it there, and then we control our thinking. Again, this is hard to do. My wife and I, we talk to each other about, hey, you're doing it again. You're thinking, you're hashing it over and over. Don't do that. That's not good and lovely and helpful, as Philippians tells us. Casting. The second word in this verse seven is all. Now this tells us that we don't pick and choose what cares we give to God. and say, okay, God, you take the big ones, those are yours, and I'll take these. Doesn't work that way. We don't say, well, okay, I'll just worry about a few things. These aren't the big things, but I'm gonna worry about this, this, this, and this. Uh-uh. God says it's all. Casting all. There is nothing that we should hold back from giving to God. The third word is your. Casting, plop, all. Now, this is personal. This means that God is interested in you personally. And may I challenge us to be careful about taking up other people's cares. Now, we do need to be encouraging to one another and pray for one another, but be careful about saying, well God, how come you're not helping that person more? How come that that person is going through that? I remember thinking this a couple years ago. I heard about a missionary that was gunned down in, I think it was in Cameroon, and his wife and children came home. I thought, oh, how horrible. And then I found out that she had cancer. And I remember thinking, God, that is not fair. I mean, look at what she's been through. But you know what? God doesn't give me the grace to handle her situation. We need to remember that God offers the grace to you when you go through it, not necessarily to other people. So be careful about questioning God about other people's trials. God is offering them grace he doesn't give to you as a bystander. Casting, plop, all your care. And the next words are upon him, to God. We need to go to God. But you know what my habit has been in my life sometimes? I get the phone call and I put the phone down and I go to my office. Can you believe what's going on? I just got a phone call and I want to tell everybody else about it. Our habit should be going to God right away. First and foremost. Now that doesn't mean we should not ever tell anyone else. We should bear one another's burdens. But the first place we go should be to God. So do we have to wait until Sunday to come into the sanctuary and to give that to the Lord? No. We can come boldly before the throne of grace any time. So when it happens, go directly to God in prayer. God, you know what has just happened. We share our burden with Him right away. And may I challenge us not to be a burden carrying Christian who walks around with their chin on the ground saying, woe is me about everything. What kind of a testimony is that? Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't tell other people from time to time. Prayer requests is a great thing. But, first and foremost, go to God and don't be a poor testimony to the world around us because God can handle it. And we need to remember to go to God. Cast it upon Him. Then the next words. Casting. Plop. All your care upon him, this is great, for he careth. That's a different word. The word careth here is a word that is active. It's a verb that is active. He careth for you. In other words, God is not just sitting back and going, ah, that's too bad. He is on it. He is engaged in working out the solution for the best. And we need to remember Romans 8.28, but we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. And so we can take heart when we have cast our care upon the Lord, that he knows about it and he's on it, he's taking care of it. We may not understand how, And we may not understand why this is happening the way it is, but we can be assured that God is taking care of the situation. What a blessing that is. Casting, plop, all your care upon him, for he careth for you. I wanna close with the last point, and that is the product of burdens, if left unattended. the product of burdens if left unintended. You may be sitting here tonight and say, yeah, that's good for you people that need a crutch, but I'm okay, I'm good, I can take care of this, I can handle on my own. May I just politely say to you, there are some consequences for not giving your burden to God. Let me give you a couple. First of all, number one, you learn to distrust God. You learn to trust God. We will get in the habit of thinking that God can't handle it. And you know, this is something we probably all struggle with from time to time, even pastors. You know what? God may be doing some stuff, but there's this one case. Yeah, that'll never happen. That's a little too much. Where does that come from? We sometimes get in the habit of learning to distrust God when we don't give everything to him and believe that he can take care of it. Oh, that brother-in-law of mine, he's a lost case. Uh-uh. Am I learning to distrust God? If I don't give every burden to God and live a life of burden giving to Him, then I learn to distrust God. My God will not be powerful, because I'll be like, well, He can't handle this stuff. We learn to just trust God. Listen to Job 13, 15. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. This guy says, I may be guilty of a lot of things, but I am gonna trust God even if it kills me. That's the kind of trust we need in the Lord, even when we don't understand it. Isaiah 26.4, trust ye in the Lord forever. We learn to distrust God. I want to give you one more consequence. Turn in closing with me to Luke chapter 21. Luke chapter 21, Jesus is talking here. He's talking about his kingdom coming. And in verse 34 of Luke chapter 21, I see another consequence of not giving our burdens to the Lord. Chapter 21 verse 34, Bible says, and take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness. Those are kind of words for partying, okay? That may not be a problem for a lot of people here, but look at the next words. and cares of this life. Same word, cares. Do you realize that Jesus Christ is coming back? Yeah, we know that. But if we are distracted, if we are worrying about all the things going on in life and we're not giving it to the Lord, you know what happens? We are distracted from looking for Christ's return. Because he says here, And so that day come upon you unawares. What happens if we don't give our burdens to the Lord? We forget that Jesus is coming back, and that's what's supposed to be our focus. We're supposed to be reminded of that, but when we're just wallowing in, oh, this is bad, and this is bad, and we're dredging through these things like that, we forget that Jesus is coming. Maranatha, Jesus is coming back. And so, we need to give our burdens to the Lord, or we will get distracted. from looking for his return. And we will learn to distrust God. So how about you tonight? Do you have cares in your heart and your life? May I remind you the prerequisite to dealing with them is humility. Humble ourselves before the Lord. And then cast, plop, all your care upon him for he careth for you. If we don't do that, we learn to distrust God and we will be distracted from his return. Let's pray. Dear Father, thank you for your word that reminds us of so many things. We are forgetful people. Lord, thank you that you did not leave us alone in this life, but you've given us your word, you've given us your Holy Spirit, so that we can live our lives. Not without problem, we all have problems. But God, we can live our lives in your power and in your strength when we bring these to you and follow your will for our lives. And Lord, I pray if there's anyone here tonight that you've spoken to their heart. God, I pray that they would have the courage to take that burden that they're carrying and give it to you biblically. Lord, help us not to distrust you. And Lord, may we be looking for your return. For we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for that. That was such a practical thing that we all need to hear so often. And I think about what scriptures say. It says that there's no temptation that's taken us, but such as is common to man. And God is faithful, and he'll not allow us to be tempted above what we're able, but he will, with that temptation, make a way of escape, so that we'll be able to bear it. And sometimes, the way that we find a way of escape is we quit putting wood on that fire. and we let God handle the burden. And so, such a practical message. Thank you so much. It's been a good day to be gathered as a body. It's been good fellowship. It's been good to sit under the ministry of the word. Let's go ahead and pull out our hymn books for one final song, and the song is Hymn 223, Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne. Let's stand together, and we'll sing the first, third, and fourth verses, please. Give me a second, let me. Here we go. Oh, come to my heart, Lord Jesus. There is room in my heart for thee. On the third. Thou who camest, O Lord, with the living Word, when Thou shouldst set Thy people free. But with mocking scorn and with crown of thorn, they bore Thee to Calvary. Oh, come to my heart, Lord Jesus. There is room in my heart for thee. On the last. When the heavens shall ring and the angels sing, proclaiming thy royal decree. Let thy voice call me, O Savior. There is room, there is room. I'd like to ask you, Brother Eric and Nikki, you can close us in prayer. And I know that the Maranatha guys have to get out pretty quick because they have to catch a flight. So greet them quickly on your way out. But they are, don't take it personally that they got to get on the road pretty quick. But let's just fellowship together. and it's been good to be together this evening. Go ahead, Eric. We've had in your house, and just what we've heard from your word tonight, Lord, I pray that you would help us to genuinely apply it, Lord, help us to cast our cares on you, and to trust you more, Lord, and I just pray that you give us grace to do it, and bless our evening as we leave tonight, in Christ's name, amen.