Steven Furtick - When Anxiety Attacks (06/22/2017)
In 1 Peter 5:5-11, Peter instructs believers to humble themselves under God's mighty hand so He can lift them up in due time, cast all anxiety on Him because He cares, and resist the devil who prowls like a roaring lion. The preacher emphasizes that anxiety attacks stem from pride at the center ("I" in anxiety), but humbling ourselves under God's protective, providing, planning hand brings restoration after brief suffering, declaring victory over the enemy's attacks.
Peter's Warning – The Roaring Lion
Now, I know this message is for somebody because the Devil was fighting me to be able to deliver it, so let's go forward together now into the Word of God.
Peter has an instruction here. He says, in the same way you who are younger submit yourselves to your elders. Everybody over 50 say amen. All the parents say amen. This is your verse. Peter's a little older now. He's got that senior citizen discount swag going on in this letter he's writing. He's got that AARP swag. Amen.
All of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud, but he shows favor to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy, the Devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. But resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that you're not the only one going through something. The family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
Touch somebody, say, you're not alone. You're not alone. You're not the only one. You're not the only one. You're not crazy. It's a battle we all must fight. Some fears we all must face. Some things we all must go through. And we're in this together. Amen.
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you, make you strong, firm, and steadfast to him, be the power forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever. And let the church say amen. Amen.
The Subject – When Anxiety Attacks
I want to speak to you for a few moments today on the subject, When Anxiety Attacks. What are you going to do when anxiety attacks? Amen. You may be seated in the presence of God.
Thank you, worship team. Didn't they do good following my random little… Come on. Didn't they do good following that little… We have the best musicians on the planet at Elevation Church, the best volunteers on the planet who do the technical stuff. The best cameramen on the planet. Watch these cameramen. Switch back and forth real quick. Go from the… Yeah. Just go back and forth a bunch of times. Just watch. Just watch this. Isn't that crazy? Isn't that cool they do all this stuff that you don't even know about behind the scenes to bless you so you can hear the Word of God.
I appreciate all our volunteers back in the E-Kids, the parking lot, all of our ushers, ushering with excellence for the glory of God. Amen. I just feel grateful today for everybody.
Aunt Jackie's Warning – The Devil Targets Believers
Hey, my mom and I were texting this morning. We were talking about my memory and how I remember weird little things from my childhood. She says I remember some of them incorrectly, but one thing I know I remember was around age 16 at Monks Corner United Methodist Church when Aunt Jackie. She wasn't really my aunt, but I called her Aunt Jackie because when I was a little boy, I used to go over to her house all the time, and she let me watch Dukes of Hazzard.
She pulled me aside because I had made a commitment to Jesus Christ as a 16-year-old boy, and she could see the passion and enthusiasm from my eyes. She had changed my diapers, and she was at that age where you can say whatever you want to say, kind of like Peter was when he was telling the church there the people of God who were under persecution and under attack at the hands of the Emperor Nero.
Aunt Jackie pulled me aside, and she was telling me some words of wisdom. She said that she believed that God had a plan for me and that God was going to use me and do something special for me. She said… I even told our committee… She was on the committee. The Methodist Church has a lot of committees. They have committees on committees. For God so loved the world that he did not send a committee, but Aunt Jackie was on all the committees and the flower committee and the chair committee.
She said, I told the committee that you wouldn't be here much longer, that this was the church that you were raised in, but that God was going to use you for other things, and we need to let you go when God calls you because he's going to use you and you're going to speak. She was saying all these things to me, Again, I had been only a Christian for a short time, so I was encouraged by it.
Then she shifted gears and she went into this real serious mode and she was like, but the devil, the devil doesn't like you and he wants to use you as target practice and bring you down as God is raising you up. So she told me, don't... This is the southern way to say 1 Peter 5, 6, which says, humble yourself under God's mighty hand. She said, don't get too big for your... It's a Charlotte thing, you know.
We're a regional, national church now, so I have to tell them, don't get too big for your britches and keep yourself low so God can raise you up high. And she told me that because she said, the devil is after you. He does not like the passion that you have for God and he's after you.
And I'm glad she told me that second part, because I don't know if a lot of Christians get told that second part. And so I thought I would join in with Peter, who said, your enemy, the devil, roars like a lion, looking for someone he can eat alive, looking for a family he can tear apart, looking for a future he can ruin before it even has a chance to get started, looking for a church he can divide, looking for a nation he can divide, looking for an addiction he can plant in the heart of a 14-year-old so that they'll never live a normal adult life.
The devil is busy. The devil is active, she told me. And the interesting thing about it is she was saying that to me, I think, because she thought God was calling me to preach. But you don't have to be a preacher to have a bullseye on your back.
The Birthmark of a Believer – A Bullseye
In fact, I want you to write something down for me if you care anything at all about your future, your family, or your faith. Write this down. The birthmark of a believer is a bullseye.
Peter is here to teach us that we are born again into a living hope. But as you are born into a living hope, you are also born into an eternal struggle and a very real battle. So, the day that you become one with Christ, the enemy… Now, I want to be careful here, because this is what we do sometimes. We get way too carried away about all the stuff that the devil does.
You know, someone will say, Well, I've just been under…. Let me get my white girl voice on. I've just been under attack lately. So, like, lately I can feel like the devil's been attacking me and so much. And it's just, like, so bad. It's like my mom and my dad and everybody, like my teachers and everything. And, like, my iPhone… I was charging it the other day, and I've charged it. I know I charged it overnight, but then I woke up, and it was dead, and it's just the devil. It's in my eyes. No. It was your charger. It wasn't the devil.
People on my job, they just hate me because I'm a Christian. I'm just under attack. My boss doesn't like me. I'm just under attack right now. No. You're not under attack. You're underperforming. Your boss doesn't like you because you're not doing a very good job commensurate with the paycheck that they have entrusted to you.
But yet there are those times and there are those seasons where you just get a sense that, I feel like I'm under attack. And it's something only Christians say. It's not something you would say if you didn't believe in God because you wouldn't believe in the devil, so you would just say everything's falling apart or whatever.
The Attack Manifests as Anxiety
Do you remember when President Bush was reading to the elementary school class? And there's a famous picture of his chief of staff having to go up to him while he's reading a book and say to the president, the second plane hit the second tower on 9-11 and he said, America is under attack. And he told the president that according to his account and his record after the fact. He said, America is under attack.
Now, Peter is walking up to a church under attack and speaking to them on a personal level. I want you to know that you're under attack, not just the preacher. Because people will come up to me all the time and say, I'm praying for you, preacher. I know the devil wants to take you out. Well, I'd look right back at him and say, well, I'm going to pray for you too. Write your name down. Because he'll take whoever he can get. He's after construction workers and sophomores in high school and stay-at-home moms and attorneys.
Prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. And I wonder, is it you? I wonder, is it you he's been after with thoughts that repeat themselves over and over again in your mind, thoughts of worthlessness or thoughts of anxiety?
This seems to be Peter's primary focus is that the attack of the enemy often manifests itself in an overwhelming sense of anxiety. I know this is the manifestation of the attack. For if it were not the manifestation of the attack, Peter would not singularly lift it in verse 7 as the focal point of his admonition to the church under attack.
I feel like teaching today. Are you ready to learn? Give me about 30 minutes because you're under attack and there are some things you need to know about this attack. The good news is it is not an ambush. Peter says that the devil is like a roaring lion. That means he gives you a warning before the warfare begins.
And so sometimes we act really surprised by things that we go through and ways that we struggle and we come into situations that are harder than we expected them to be. And we ask God to do great things in our lives, but the battle begins and we act like we weren't warned. No, Peter said this lion, the devil, is not silent. He's a roar. Come on. Give me your best roar. I've never done this before. I've done a lot of touch your neighbors, but somebody roar at your neighbor. Say roar. Devil's all up in your face. He'll let you know it's coming.
Resist – Don't Run
And what you need to know if you are under attack, and I will not have you raise your hand, because perhaps the very people who need this message the most would be the most reluctant to admit that this is for me. But he said, when you find yourself in a season of attack, that roaring lion is in your face.
Now, I'm thinking right here Peter is going to say, run, because to me that's the only reasonable advice when you're faced with the roaring lion. Hello, I don't even like dogs very much. Holly's scared of rats. Can you imagine if she saw a lion? But he doesn't say run. Instead, he challenges us to resist.
And it's a certain type of resistance, because he says, to those who are under attack, you need to come under the mighty hand of God. I want you to see that phrase, because it touched me so deeply in my study. I was hoping to explain it to you for a moment today, the three things that the hand of God represents.
This is verse 6. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, an image that would have been familiar for a Jewish audience, for it was with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm that God brought his people out of Egyptian slavery. And Peter wants them to know that same hand of God that has been actively fulfilling his purpose throughout human history is still reigning over your life. Humble yourself under that mighty hand.
The Mighty Hand of God – Plan, Provision, Protection
The hand of God represents his plan. I don't know about you, but I'm thankful that God's plan for my life has prevailed, even against my own plan that I thought was better sometimes. How many are grateful for the hand of God? If you're grateful for the hand of God, just wave your hand at me.
God's hand is not like your hand. It's an invisible hand. You can't see it, but you definitely know the effects of it when it moves, because after you've lived a little while, Peter said, I saw what happens in the hand of God, the plan of God. I saw what happened.
See, Peter is not writing this as advice unsolicited, and he's not writing this as advice uninformed. Peter is a grown man now, a grown Christian man now, getting a little bolder about relaying his advice from his experiences. And who better to tell us about the hand of God than a man who walked with Jesus Christ in the flesh? Who better to describe to us the function of the hand of God than the one who saw his face? Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Peter didn't just trace the hand of God. He saw the face of God.
And now he says to those who were under attack, up under depression, up under disappointment, dealing with failure, hit rock bottom, don't know what's next, freaking out, crying yourself to sleep at night, feeling all alone. He says to every believer, you've got the upper hand. The hand of God is mighty. The hand of God is strong. The hand of God is over your life and will prevail as purpose will come to pass.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. He plans to prosper you, not to harm you. He plans to give you hope in a future. And if you find yourself under attack today, you need to know that the hand of God is guiding you, leading you. That same hand that split the sea open so his people could walk right through it. The hand of God will make a way where there is no way. The hand of God will bring water out of a rock in a dry place. The hand of God is over your life. And he has a plan. The plan of God.
The hand of God represents the provision of God. These all start with the letter P, because that's what I do. The provision of God. And who better to remind a church that is under attack or a believer who is under attack that the hand of God is the place where bread multiplies than the one who saw 5,000 fed with just a few loaves and a few fish.
Any time you've seen a kid's snack pack from Captain D's multiplied into a buffet, you know something about the provision in the hand of God. And Peter was right there, and he saw what happened when they put the bread in Jesus' hand. And so he knew that at times where you feel like you're in a place of lack, that your provision is never dependent upon your own ability to provide for yourself or your own ability to create resource for yourself.
But anything you put in the hand of God will multiply. Anything you put in the hand of God will multiply. Anything you put in the hand of God, it just keeps coming. It just keeps coming. Do I have any witnesses? You've been through some hard times in your life, but hope kept coming. You've been in some tight places. You felt like you were running out. You didn't feel like you could make it to the next day. But somehow, strength kept coming. Joy kept coming. Tomorrow kept coming in spite of your past, because the hand of God is a hand of provision.
And it's a hand of protection. God has me in his grip. Who better to help me see that the hand of God will protect me than the one who tried to walk on water? Do y'all know the Bible? Go study this story in Matthew chapter 14 where Peter got out there. He's trying to make his way to Jesus. He's coming toward him. And about the time he gets there, because sometimes it's right when you're on the verge that you start to sink.
I never saw it before. Can I take a moment? Okay, I'm going to take a moment. You said I could. In Matthew chapter 14, because I was just going to mention it, but you act like you came to here preaching today. I don't know what's happening at University City, but there are some hungry people for the bread of life at Ballantyne.
It says that Peter in the storm got out of the boat, and when he walked out on the water, he did pretty good. Watch this. He came toward Jesus. Y'all got that scripture in Matthew 14? He came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, cried out, Lord, save me.
So he cries out before he goes completely under. So he's sinking, but he's not sunk. He's going down, but he's not out. The lion is prowling, but he has not prevailed. You follow me? Watch this. This is what I never saw. Verse 31 says that immediately Jesus reached out his hand. Immediately Jesus reached out his hand.
Notice the construct of the narrative. Jesus is not walking toward Peter. Peter is walking toward Jesus. When Jesus sees Peter falling and hears him crying, he reaches out his hand, and Peter is close enough for Jesus to reach. The problem with some of us isn't that we're sinking. It's that we won't stay close enough for God to get us in his grip.
But I came to announce to that lion today, that liar, the devil, that I'm in his grip even when I'm going down. Even though the winds and the waves are roaring and raging in my life, I'm in his grip. Somebody shout, I'm in his grip. I'm in his grip. God's got me in his grip. He's got me in his grip. He's got me in the hand of his protection. He might let me suffer a little while, but he won't let me stay there. He is my God, and I'm in his hand.
Humble Yourself Under His Hand
Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. It doesn't matter how well you can walk on water. It matters how close you are to his hand. It doesn't matter about your intelligence. It matters about your surrender. It doesn't matter about your ability. It matters about your surrender. Humble yourself.
I'm preaching to somebody. I'm preaching to somebody so straight you can't even nod. You're trying to hold back tears, but God sent a preacher with a message. You might as well go ahead and cry out, Lord, save me. I can't do this on my own. I am not enough by myself. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.
He'll lift you up in due time. He'll get you up. He'll lift you up in due time. He'll let you go down low enough to know that you need him and bring you up high enough to let the world know that he's with you. Come on. Come on. Come on.
Casting Anxiety – The Result of Humility
Verse 7 is what I've been trying to practice. That I can be under attack and not anxious. Cast all your anxiety on him. He cares for you. I'm trying to do that because I felt like after Code Orange Revival, I felt like I went under an emotional attack. I don't even know that I'm still out of it yet.
Part of it is probably because of adrenaline and physiological factors that have to do with getting up 10 nights in a row and all of the hosting of trying to put up with guests for 10 nights to make them feel special. Part of it, though, had to be spiritual. It was like for 10 nights, if you weren't here in our church, you basically missed out on life by not coming to Code Orange Revival.
Not only did our city go through a shaking after the revival, I went through a shaking, and I don't want to get up here and use you for a counseling appointment because I don't want to have to pay your hourly fee or anything like that. And I don't want you to worry about me because I promise you I'm good, and I love my wife and my kids, and we're good and everything like that.
Don't send me these emails. We're praying for you, Pastor. That's not the reason I'm telling you this. It'll make me feel like you missed the point if you send me an email. I don't want no card or anything like that. Flowers, cookies, trying to get me fat on carbohydrates because you think I'm struggling. I don't want any of that. I don't need any of that.
I just want to tell you something. While we were in here talking about 10 nights, 10 years, celebrating 10 years, I felt overwhelmed about, do I have what it takes for the next 10? And it's like once you've gone real high with God, as a leader, I think you feel a pressure to go higher. But then it's kind of hard because you feel like maybe you've gone as high as you can go.
But then it's kind of hard because you feel like maybe you've gone as high as you can go. And maybe you feel that way as a parent, not as a preacher. Maybe you feel that way in your business. And I don't know who I'm preaching to, but I'm going to open myself up here a little bit for you today, if it'll be helpful, because anxiety attacked me and it hit me kind of hard and I wasn't staying in the bed or anything like that, but I didn't go get addicted to something, some kind of pills or anything like that.
But it was a thing in my mind. You don't have what it takes. I don't have what it takes. I can't do, you know, I, as far as I can take them. And I don't know if I'm the one to do it. And all this stuff that was going through my mind, that's how I got over to first Peter chapter five.
Because I know that scripture. I love that scripture. That scripture has helped me before. And sometimes when you are up against the fight, you got to go back to a weapon that, you know, I can't fight Goliath in this armor. I got to get a slingshot. So, so it was kind of like a, just a well-known verse. And I went back in there and considered the context of Peter who fell asleep in the garden of Gethsemane while he was supposed to be watching Jesus back.
Jesus came over to him, gave him two wake up calls. He hit the snooze button three times. Are you still sleeping? And I looked at how Peter was telling the church to be alert, which is translated elsewhere in the New Testament. Be prayerful. The enemy eats Christians who sleep in times of battle. Be alert to what's going on. Realize that the birthmark of a believer is a bullseye. The devil doesn't like it one bit, that you're moving forward in your relationship with God.
Casting All Anxiety – Tied to Humility
I started taking the verse apart because the word of God really is what I live by, not just what I make my living off of. So I went into verse seven real hard, like I needed an answer. When anxiety attacks, it'll drive you to seek God, to seek his hand. And I was looking for him because he said, cast all your anxiety.
While I was reading it, since I knew Peter wrote it and he's a fisherman, I wondered, was he picturing like casting the nets from one side of the boat to the other, just because Jesus told him to. Sometimes anxiety in our life is a result of our unwillingness to be obedient. And when he cast the net to the other side, maybe that's a word for somebody.
He said, cast all your anxiety on him. Do it his way now. We fished all night and caught nothing, Peter said. But because you say so, I'm going to cast my net on the other side. I've been trying to do this my way. I've been trying to handle it on my own, but I'm going to cast my net on the other side.
However, it was in verse five and six that I found my answer. For in verse five, he says, in the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you clothe, Greek word, tie on, tie on. That's not the Greek. That's the translation of the Greek word. Tie it on like a towel, like Jesus did when he took on the role of a servant. And he got a towel, a servant's towel, and he put it around his waist.
And when Peter saw him tying on that towel, he said, no, you don't tie on the towel, Jesus. You sit on the throne. But Jesus tied on the towel. And I wonder, as Peter is telling them to clothe themselves in humility, is he having a flashback of the Savior who laid his riches and glory aside and made himself nothing, found in the appearance of sinful man and became a servant, humbling himself even to death on a cross as he tied on the towel and washed Peter's feet.
Peter's response, no, Lord, you can't wash my feet. Peter said, Jesus said, Peter, shut up. That's not the exact conversation, but it's the essence of it. And he did what he came to do. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.
But maybe my biggest problem was the fact that I always thought that verse 7, put it on the screen, please, was the instruction where he said, cast all your cares on him because he cares for you. Your anxieties on him because he cares for you. You know, you go to the Word of God sometimes and you try to pluck up these little promises and try to do stuff and just, but I like that verse, that verse.
But back up and catch the essence of the text. Verse 6, humble yourself, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time, cast all your anxiety on him. He cares for you. To really understand the essence and profundity of the connection, you need to see a more literal translation of verses 6 and 7.
Because Peter is writing this letter in Koine Greek. In the Greek language, as Peter is writing this letter, as you will see demonstrated in verses 6 and 7, these are not two separate sentences. It reads like this. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you. Watch this, comma. What happens next is predicated on whether or not what happens in verse 6 is applied.
In Greek, it is one sentence. Humble yourself, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may exalt you in due time. Watch this, casting all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. See, I've been trying to cast my anxieties and keep my pride. But the thing about it is, you need to know that the pride and the anxiety come in the same package.
So, if you insist on doing it your way, then expect to feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders, because it is. You can't just do verse 7 because you decide to. God, take it off me. God, take it off me. I'm so worried, God. Make me not worried anymore. Don't you care if we perish? That's what Peter said one time in the boat. Don't you care that we're drowning? Don't you care? God, you said, cast all my anxieties on you. I'm casting them. I'm casting them. This doesn't work.
Pride at the Center of Anxiety
See, look at the word anxiety, because I'm telling the Lord in my prayers, I don't know if I can do it, and I don't know if I can do it, and I just need you to give me a sign that I can take the church for the next 10 years, and I just need to da-da-da-da-da. Take this anxiety. I'm casting it on you, Lord. I am casting it on you, all of my anxiety.
And after I prayed this way for a little while, the Lord spoke to me in my heart. Now, this is not an outlawed conversation. I don't want you to think I'm really, really crazy, but this is the impression that I got. The Lord said, are you done now? Shut up, Peter. You done now?
Look at the word anxiety. Look at how it's spelled in English. Look at what is in the center of the word. Do you see it? Show them on the screen. At the center of your anxiety, if you really trace it… I'm not talking about a medical condition. I'm not a pharmacist. I don't know about all that. I am not a neurologist. I'm saying, spiritually speaking, that the Lord told me, at the center of your anxiety is your pride.
The reason you're so anxious is because you've got you at the center, and you can't sustain it because it's not your throne. I mean, even listen to your language, the Lord said, I don't know if I have what it takes. I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can make it. You can't spell anxiety without I. It's right in the middle.
And you know what other word I is in the middle of? Pride. And maybe the reason that you've been carrying anxiety that you can't get rid of is because you've been bearing weight that you weren't meant to bear. You better humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, because if you stay weighed down with pride, you're going to be weighed down with anxiety, and God can't lift you up.
I don't know if I have what it takes to make it through the next 10 years. God said to me, did you have what it took to get through the first 10, boy? You better cast your net on the other side. You better call out to me in the time of the storm and humble yourself, casting all your anxiety on him.
See, it's not a command to cast your anxiety on him. It's a result. The command is to humble yourself under his mighty hand, and when you do, the anxiety goes with the pride. Why? If you would get yourself out of the center and get God on the throne and lift your hands to him and say, I need you, Lord. I'm a sinful man. I can't step without you, can't breathe without you, can't eat without you, can't pray without you, can't parent without you, can't preach without you, can't work without you, can't live without you, no peace without you, no joy without you.
God said, now I'm ready to lift you up above the wind, above the waves, above your pride. My mom lost 80 pounds over the course of two years. 80 pounds. That's like an Elijah and one-fourth of an Abbey. 80 pounds. 80 pounds. That's about how much you curl with one arm. 80 pounds.
But you know what was weird? She didn't just lose weight. See, my mom had bad knees and a bad back. In fact, I wanted to give my mom the house that we lived in when we moved into another house, but she couldn't take it because it had stairs. She said, I would love to live in that house, but the bedroom is upstairs, and I can't climb the stairs.
You know what's a weird thing, though? Because she would go to the doctor about her knees and the doctor about her back and my back and my knees. I got bad knees and got a bad back. When the weight came off, the pain went with it. I wish you could see her today. She is like an Olympic rower. You remember the social network, the Winklevoss? How much does she roll? 15,000 meters a day. I don't know. I'm making this up. But she rolls a lot, and she can climb the stairs, and she can dance, and she's lively. It wasn't her knees. It was the weight.
It's the reason you're so anxious because of your pride. Maybe the anxiety is the fruit, and the pride is the root. If you would pluck it up by the root, the fruit couldn't grow. Get yourself out the center. Get yourself out the center. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.
Well, what if I look stupid? Some of you are about to try something right now that you never tried before. What if I look stupid? I got good news for you. Everybody else is thinking about themselves, not you, so they won't even notice. What if I, I, I, I, I...
Peter's Example – Humility After Failure
Who better to teach us about humility than Peter? Huh? He was sitting around a table having dinner with Jesus one time. Jesus said, All of you are going to fall away. Look what Peter said. What's that other verse I gave you? Mark 14? I think I gave that to them this morning. Yeah, because the Lord was speaking to me. I preached this message one time before, but the Lord was speaking to me about it for this particular group.
And he reminded me what Peter said when Jesus said, You know, you're all going to hit rock bottom, because sometimes the only way for you to find your foundation is to hit rock bottom. Sometimes that's the best place to build from. Sometimes that's the best place to lead from. Sometimes that's the best place to be a better husband from is the place of, Lord, save me. Not call me to come and I'll come, but Lord, save me. And then the hand of God gets involved.
But Peter didn't know this. And so he, sitting around the table, he says, Even if all fall away, I will not. I will not. I will not, Jesus said before the rooster even gets his second crow out of his mouth. You're going to be telling people you don't even know me. And that's exactly what happened.
And Jesus warned Peter of the attack. And sometimes we don't listen and we don't hear it, so we're surprised when it comes and we act like it's an ambush when it's really normal. It's normal to be attacked. It's normal. Jesus told Peter, Satan has asked for all of you. And specifically, he's asked for you to sift you as wheat, to sort out what's real from what's not real. But I prayed for you, Peter. I prayed for you, Peter.
You're going to fail, Peter, but I'm not. You are shaky at best, Peter, but I am a solid rock at the bottom of your failure. I prayed for you, Peter. And now Peter writes, decades later, to a church under attack. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.
For your enemy, the devil, what's he like? He's like a roaring lion. He's looking for somebody to devour. He's looking for somebody who he can shred to pieces with doubt and fear and selfishness. He's looking for somebody that he can get to walk away. And as a pastor, I'm just sick of having to make phone calls and visits with people every week who are being devoured by the enemy.
So Peter says, this is a time for resistance. This is not a time for you to run. This is a time for you to resist. Yeah, but he's a lion. Okay. He is a lion and he might be licking his lips and his fangs might be sharp and he might have you in his sight and you might have failed and you might have done it and you might be going down.
But you need to know one thing about this lion, Peter says, is that after you have suffered a little while, God himself will step in and restore you and make you strong. He's a lion, but the lion is on a leash. He can only go so far. He can only do so much. He can't keep you down forever. Humble yourself under the hand of God. And in due time, come on, this is somebody's due time. This is it.
Anxiety stops here. Depression stops here. Fear stops here. Fear stops here. In due time, he will lift you up. Feel the hand of God reaching down for somebody today. You've been going down. If it's you, lift your hand. If this message was straight to you, stand up on your feet. Lift both your hands in the air.
If this message was straight to you, straight to you, straight to your heart, Straight to what you've been dealing with. Straight to the battle you've been fighting. Lift your hands. God, we thank you for your hand of favor, your hand of provision, your hand of protection, your hand of power, your hand of purpose. We humble ourselves under your hand today.
We know that the lion is loud, but we know that the suffering won't last long. It is not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed to us. So we look it in the face today and we declare the name of Jesus is greater. The name of Jesus is higher. You have all power in your hand. All authority on heaven and on earth has been given to you.
Now lift your people, God. Lift your people. Lift your people. As we lift you up in this place, lift their heads, God. Lift their heads. Dry their tears. Calm their hearts. Speak to us. Speak to the storm and the storm will cease. We declare in the name of Jesus. This is our due time. Trouble won't last always. And the enemies that we're afraid of today will be our testimonies and our tomorrow.
I'm going to say that again. The enemies that you fear today will be your testimony of triumph in your tomorrow. God said, It's just a little while. The God who has called you into his eternal glory, what lasts forever after you've suffered a little while. He himself will restore you.
Peter said, I know about it because I've been there. I've had me at the center. I failed so bad. I didn't know if I could ever bounce back. I went back to my fishing business because I figured God didn't have any more use for me. But when I was going down, that's where I found his hand. When I was going down, that's when he reached out to me. Just when it looked like the lion had me in his sights, that's when the God of all grace, the God of all provision, the God of all power, do I have a witness that immediately he'll reach down and pick you up.
Come on, let's call on his name today. Let's call on his name, Savior of the world. Call on his name, Jesus. Lift your hands. Jesus, Jesus, I'm my church.