According to the Scriptures

Guest (Male): Happy New Year. Glad you've joined us today as we bring you our special message from Damian Kyle here on According to the Scriptures. You can be sure that 2026 will include some difficulties, burdens, and challenges, and it can easily leave you feeling anxious or worried. So today we're going to learn what to do when these cares come at us full force. 1st Peter 5:7 is our reference point and that's where we join Pastor Damian for today's message called Casting Your Burdens.

Damian Kyle: The single verse this morning from verse 7: "Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you." Sometimes I can tend to have a rather cynical view of New Year's Day, that it's just kind of a holiday that we've made much of or shoehorned in in order to allow our culture right after the heels of Christmas—and the attempt for the most part to make Christmas meaningful apart from the real reason of Christmas and that is Christ—and in order to help alleviate the fall or the disappointment of attempting to navigate that holiday in that way, we quickly have something that's right on the horizon on our schedule to distract us and move us on to the next thing that is put before us in the culture.

But I also do, I'm not entirely a cynic. I do think it's valuable, the New Year is, in that it provides people with and us with a needed reference point in life. Each New Year we're confronted with two truths at once: that we are leaving one thing behind, permanently behind, and that is an old year, and that we are at the beginning of something brand new, a new year. And so annually it gives us this natural place or this natural time for reflection, for serious reflection, which isn't a bad thing at all.

To stop and consider the kind of person that I was and the kind of person that I want to be, the kind of Christian I want to be, and then making the decisions in my life that will be required for any gap between those two to be bridged and for those desires to become a part of my life, those changes. And in order that time, and I think one of the great benefits of a reference point like this, is in order that time, and I think specifically of years, that they don't pass one right after the other, all blending into one another across a lifetime, without at least an annual time to stop and reflect and assess our lives.

At the start of a new year, it's a new beginning of sorts and it makes it easier for people to commit to making changes within our lives to improve our lives. I think the longevity of this almost fruitless, statistically fruitless, tradition known as New Year's resolutions speaks to the hope that despite all of the past disappointments, that this year will be something different. And there's that recognition that maybe it can be. If there's any day in the year that holds the promise of a major change being determined in my life, this would be the day out of the year.

This morning to start this new year, I believe God wants to turn our attention to 1st Peter chapter 5, verse 7 as we prepare to enter into this new year and to speak to us about casting our cares upon Him. And that without God drawing our attention to them, if we didn't take a time like this to do this, for God to draw our attention to these cares that we carry within our lives, then I think there's a whole world of things—and I think this is the concern of His heart—the whole world of things that we will unwittingly take into the new year.

He doesn't want that for us. And so a time just in order that He might identify them in our lives so that we will then cast them entirely upon Him and enter into the new year unburdened by these cares, which is exactly what God desires for each of our lives this morning. Generally speaking, the enjoyment of any trip that you would take in life, the enjoyment of that trip is directly proportional to the amount of luggage you take.

So the more luggage, typically the less enjoyable the trip is, and the less luggage, the more enjoyable. Why is that? It's because luggage represents a burden. And every burden on a trip requires not just the physical strength that's required in order to carry it, but then the mental effort that's required to keep track of it, and the emotional investment that's involved as well. In other words, will the luggage get lost? And if it does, how many days will it be before I see it again? And how many days will I be forced to wear these clothes that I flew in?

Then there's a greater catastrophe than even that for some people, and that is the concern about if I get separated from my luggage, when will I see my makeup and my shampoo again? Which is in some minds more important than fresh clothes. And what is true of a trip or a journey is also true of life, which for the Christian the Bible likens the life that we live as a journey, likens it to a pilgrimage. We are in one place presently and we are making our way to another place. We are in this world, but we are on a journey and on a trip that is taking us one day into the glory of heaven.

Every burden on this journey, it represents a physical, it represents an emotional, it represents a mental drain in life. And without a means of offloading these burdens in life, then life can become an unbearable burden itself. And God knows that to be true. And so He writes this verse that He has. Just as we look at verse 7 here for a moment before we get to the application of the passage, I'm going to use the word "cares" as Peter uses it here in verse 7 and the word "burden" interchangeably in the message because the Holy Spirit does and because what Peter is quoting here is a passage from Psalm 55, verse 22 where the psalmist declares, "Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you. He shall never permit the righteous to be moved."

So they are interchangeable. First we notice that having cares and burdens in life, that is a reality for everyone. And it is a reality for every Christian. And so this verse communicates the Apostle Peter's and the Holy Spirit's very candid recognition that even as Christians we have burdens in life. We have cares in life. Peter does not say if you were a Christian that was worthy of the name Christian, you wouldn't have a single care in your life, or say if you were truly a spiritual person you would never have any cares in life.

He doesn't say anything like that. We can impose that kind of an expectation upon ourselves, but God doesn't do that. He knows that we have cares. He knows that we have burdens. The Greek word that's used for care here, it refers to anxieties, worries, anything that brings a disruption to our hearts and minds. So we all have cares and burdens in life. That is the truth that Peter operates from. Otherwise the verse is meaningless. And so the big question becomes what in the world do we do with them?

Peter tells us secondly that we are to cast our cares and our burdens in life upon God. That word "cast" that is used there, that Peter uses, it is a very, very strong word in the Greek. It means to throw something. It means to cast something off. And it means more than that. It means to cast something off and make it the responsibility of another. And so that is to cast our cares upon God so completely that we now view them as His responsibility to carry and to resolve for us. Well, that's an amazing "wow" verse or truth related to our lives.

Now does God invite us to cast our cares upon Him so that He can now worry about them instead of us worrying about them? Or does He call on us to cast our cares upon Him because He knows He has broader shoulders than we have and so He'll bear up under them better than we can? No, that's not the idea that He gives here. We are to cast our cares on God with the confidence that as we put these things on His lap or on His shoulders, so to speak, that He will not only carry them, but that He will then proceed to make them His responsibility.

He will proceed to actively involve Himself in the cares and in the burdens that we cast upon Him in order to work them together for our good. Now the decision to cast our cares and our burdens upon God, it lies entirely with us. So nobody else can do that for us. And if we fail to do that as a Christian, I certainly can't blame anybody else for failing to do that. And I certainly can't blame God for doing that. But the point is that nobody can obey this verse for another person.

Nobody can offload our cares and burdens in life except for us. And offloading them onto God except for us individually. We are the single great and in fact the single lone obstacle to our cares being cast upon God. Third, it's also important to understand that to cast my cares and my burdens upon God is not to do nothing with them. To cast my cares or my burdens upon God is to do so as an expression of my faith. As an expression of my confidence in God to carry and to do in this situation and this burden what I know I could never do.

It is an expression of faith. And so this word "casting" in this verse, you notice it is a verb. It is to do something about my cares and my burdens and it is to do the single great thing that we can do with our cares and our burdens, and that is to cast them upon God. So when we cast our cares upon God, Peter isn't calling us to play a mind game with ourselves. It is to actually do something. It is to actively entrust that care to God. And so it is to do something meaningful with our burdens.

It's not to live a negative—I keep casting the worry or the burden or the care or the condemnation out of my mind and I'm casting it off into some empty void. What somebody's calling us to do here, it is to realize in doing this that it's as an act of faith I am entrusting these things to God and I am putting them in His great hands to then go to work on. And then you notice the degree to which we're to do this. And you notice that word "all."

Gail Irwin made famous in my mind at least the question, "How much is all?" And this tells us that there isn't a single care or burden in our life that is so small—the big ones we'll offload those pretty quick—and then we'll take care of the small ones until we make them big ones, and then we'll offload them to Him. But this tells us that there is nothing so small in our life if it constitutes a care in our life, then God wants us to cast it upon Him.

If it's a concern to us, then He's saying it's a concern to Me and to cast that care upon Him. And so nobody should ever stop and think, "Oh, that's such a small thing, I don't want to bother God with it." It's never a bother to Him. And Peter tells us why with the words, "He cares for you." And He really, really does. Now Peter could have written the verse and the Holy Spirit could have given it to him and it could have just read simply, "Cast all your cares upon Him."

But Peter didn't do that because the Holy Spirit wants us to know that this command is born out of God's love and His care for us. No Christian should have the slightest hesitation in casting a care or burden upon God and thinking that God will not accept it or that He will reject taking that burden off of our lives. And here's the assurance that God will receive our burdens and our cares. He'll do it wholeheartedly and without any hesitation at all.

It's knowing that this is His heart toward us that allows us to freely, boldly, confidently cast our cares upon Him and then to confidently leave them with Him. We are not being irresponsible when we do so. We're not being a spiritual slacker when we cast our cares upon God. And then comes the hard part, the really, really hard part of the passage. And it's not because the passage is hard, but because we're difficult to work with and we make things difficult for ourselves, at least if you're anything like me.

So the hard part is that having cast our cares upon Him, we are then to leave those cares and burdens with Him. In other words, then as we cast our cares upon Him, then when we're tempted to take those cares back upon ourselves again, to remind ourselves by praying, "Lord, at Your invitation I distinctly remember casting that care, that burden on You and entrusting it to You. I choose to continue to leave that in Your very loving, capable hands."

Now you may need to do that 60 times an hour upon casting a care upon Him if it's big enough initially. But if you keep reminding yourself in prayer to the Lord, then pretty soon it'll just be 10 times an hour, and then five times an hour, then one time an hour, then one time a day. And then pretty soon you'll have figured out by the Holy Spirit there'll be that discipline that will occur in our life where we realize, "No, this is in the Lord's hands and I leave it there."

It becomes this kind of a fixed consciousness in our life. No, we stop ourselves immediately. I have entrusted that into far greater hands than my own, into God's hands. But it is important to establish a reference point at which we cast our cares upon God for us to then operate from that moment in time, that entrusting of these cares.

Guest (Male): You're listening to According to the Scriptures and part of a message from Pastor Damian Kyle called Casting Your Burdens. You can hear it again at accordingtothescriptures.com. Don't go away; Pastor Damian has a bit more of today's program. Well, for resource requests like today's message on CD, reach out to us by phone. The number is 209-545-5530. That's 209-545-5530.

And we also have a church app where you can listen to Damian as well. Search for Calvary Chapel Modesto in the App Store or Google Play. If you would like to partner with us financially with a financial gift, you can do that through our website at accordingtothescriptures.com. And thank you very much. Let me also give you our mailing address: According to the Scriptures, 4300 American Avenue, Modesto, California, the zip code is 95356.

All right, let's get back into our study now out of 1st Peter chapter 5 and verse 7.

Damian Kyle: Now let's consider some of those cares and burdens that God wants to unburden us of in life and this morning as we enter into the new year. I'm not going to be exhaustive, but just to prime the pump a little bit. He certainly wants to unburden our life of the guilt and the condemnation that we feel over past sin in our lives, sin which God has forgiven us of long ago. And He wants that cast entirely upon Him.

1st John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." And the importance of believing that in our lives related to our past sins that have been forgiven. Psalm 103, verse 12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far He has removed our transgressions from us." Paul wrote if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things are passed away; behold all things have become new.

So just ask in the privacy of our hearts as is needed, will you cast that burden off onto God this morning? And then let Him take that off of your plate and the weight of that off of your shoulders. God certainly wants to unburden us of any unforgiveness that we feel and we experience concerning others. Unforgiveness is a crushing burden in life, a crushing care in life. And it is a sure way to become a slave to another person.

There's something that I read long ago and I think it's helpful in this regard, and it was a little blurb on how to be a slave. How to be a slave: hate someone. The moment that you start hating a man you become his slave. He controls your thoughts, invades your dreams, absorbs your creativity and determines your appetite. He affects your digestion, robs you of your peace of mind, takes away the pleasure of your work. You cannot get away from the man you hate.

He is with you awake or asleep. He invades your privacy when you eat. He influences the tone of your voice when you speak to your wife or child or boss. He requires you to take medicine for indigestion, headaches, and loss of memory. He steals time and dissipates energy. Do you want to be a slave? Find someone and hate him. And to forgive another person is never to minimize the greatness of the sin that's been committed against us.

It does not mean that I ever have to trust that person again. Forgiveness and trust are two entirely different things biblically and even on a secular understanding of things. It is to forgive the other person in obedience to Jesus's command to do so, conscious of how lavish God has been with us related to the forgiveness that He has extended to us. And then third, in order to live a life like Christ.

No Christian can live a life of unforgiveness toward other people and represent Jesus in this world. And so when we choose to forgive another person as God commands us to do that, then we have the final say in the situation. We have taken the upper hand in the situation. And it takes a moment to realize that God's ways are different ways from the world. You'll never take the upper hand with vengeance or something like that. You take the upper hand on the high road by extending forgiveness as unto the Lord.

Guest (Male): Once again, Happy New Year from all of us at Calvary Chapel Modesto and According to the Scriptures. Remember, friend, when you're weighed down or burdened, cast those cares upon the Lord. He does care for you.