Hands are amazing wonderful gifts of God.
Have you ever noticed each one has 27 bones, 29 joints, at least 123 ligaments, 34 muscles that move the fingers and thumb (about half of those are in your forearm though), an enormous number of nerve endings that allow us to feel and sense different temperatures and textures—we can feel even the fineness of a single hair. The skin on our hands is specially designed so we can grip and handle a variety of things. Our hands can have such a powerful grip that some people can hold their weight with a single finger, or manipulate small objects with great precision, like fishing line and sewing thread. Our hands can gently wipe a tear from someone’s face, or land squarely on their jaw with incredible force. We can play musical instruments and write and type and paint, we can catch and throw things with great precision. Our hands can hold multiple things at once in our fingers. Our hands can make so many different symbols and gestures that sign language has developed and you can communicate about anything with your hands.
Well, Scripture speaks of God having hands. Of course I think it’s accommodative and metaphorical language. God is a spirit, says Jesus, in John 4. He doesn’t have a physical body like us. But the hand of God is a metaphor for God’s vast capabilities. And Scripture says a lot about…
God’s metaphorical hands
- Scripture tells us His hands are unfathomably powerful and skillful. Psalm 8:3, “When I consider the heavens the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained.” Isaiah 48:13 God says, “My hand founded the earth, and My right hand spread out the heavens…”
- Scripture speaks of the size of his hands. Psalm 95:4-5, “In His hand are the depths of the earth, The peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it, and His hands formed the dry land.” Isaiah 40:12, “He has measured the waters of the sea in the hollow of His hand“
- Scripture says nothing is out of reach for His hands. Amos 9:2, “Though they dig into Sheol, From there will My hand take them; And though they ascend to heaven, From there will I bring them down.” Psalm 139:9-10, “If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.“
- His hands are mighty to punish and to save. Deuteronomy 26:6-10, Moses to the Israelites said, “And the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us. 7 ‘Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction and our toil and our oppression; 8 and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror and with signs and wonders; 9 and He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”
- His hands are skillfully orchestrating the world’s affairs for His great purposes. Proverbs 21:1, “The king’s heart [Donald Trump’s heart, Kim Jong-Un’s heart, Valdimir Putin’s heart… The king’s heart] is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes.” Jeremiah 18:6, “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.” Job 12:10, “In His hand is the life of every living thing, And the breath of all mankind.” Daniel 5:23 to Belshazzar of Babylon on the night he saw the writing on the wall, Daniel said to him, “The God in whose hand are your life-breath and all your ways, you have not glorified.” Psalm 31:15, “My times are in Your hand“.
His great big powerful hands do not just handle big things like whole nations and globally significant matters. God’s hands manipulate even the smallest things with perfect precision. Psalm 139:13, “You wove me in my mother’s womb.” His great big hands put everything together and wove together the DNA in our bodies.
I love the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther because they are much about the unseen skillful workings of God’s hand in the lives of people.
Both Ezra and Nehemiah found favor with king Artaxerxes and he gave them everything they asked for, it says, because the good hand of God was upon them (Ezra 7:6; Nehemiah 2:8). Ezra led a large company on foot nearly 1,000 miles from Babylon to Jerusalem through dangerous territory. Ezra 7:9 says they made it there safely in just four months because the good hand of God was on them. As they rebuilt the city walls their enemies did not attack them because the good hand of God was upon them (Nehemiah 6:16).
The hand of God so worked that king Xerxes found the young Jewish girl Esther to be the fairest of them all and took her as his wife; so she could be in a position to save her people when the need would arise. The hand of God so worked to give the king insomnia the very night before the evil Haman would come in the morning, to ask permission to hang Mordecai the Jew on the gallows in his back yard. And the hand of God so worked that the restless king asked for the royal records to be read to him and the section they happened to open up to was about how Mordecai the Jew, several years before, had saved the king’s life and nothing had yet been done to repay Him. So in the morning, Mordecai was greatly honored instead of hanged.
I was telling that story of Esther to my 8 year old boy this week. And I told him there’s actually no reference to God in the book of Esther. Instead there are many hints and suggestions that God’s hand was controlling all the events without actually mentioning God. The book makes the point that even when you don’t see or hear God, and don’t see any spectacular, supernatural, undeniable display of His power, He’s still there and He’s still very much at work. He works in secretive, hidden, behind the scenes, kind of ways. And my boy said, “So He’s like a Ninja.” Yeah, sort of like a ninja. You don’t see Him or hear Him, but He’s here and active.
Paul says that invisible hand is capable of, “far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). It is not far off or inactive toward us, but right here in our midst and dealing with us and our future, according to decisions we make in our hearts.
And we still have yet to see the mightiest workings of God’s hand in the final judgment and deliverance and new creation.
True wisdom in life has at it’s very core, recognizing the capabilities and presence of God’s hand, and responding to it in certain ways. Our text in I Peter 5:6-7 gives us two ways in which we should respond to the mighty hand of God. This is what we’ll talk about for the rest of the lesson. I Peter 5:6-7, “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time [that’s #1, here’s #2], casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”
The mighty hand of God should cause us, first of all, to humble ourselves before Him.
To humble yourself is literally to lower yourself. Lower yourself in attitude and word and deed to where you belong in relation to God.
It ought to be the strongest desire of our hearts to do so, not only because God is so worthy as our maker and who paid for us with His own blood, but because, as Peter points out, it is the only way to be exalted permanently. It is the only way to attain riches and honor, power and pleasure that lasts. The mighty hand of God will soon strip away every bit of wealth and status and everything desirable from those who held it in pride. Isaiah 2:12, “the Lord of hosts will have a day of reckoning Against everyone who is proud and lofty And against everyone who is lifted up, That he may be abased.” And His mighty hand will give it all and much more to those who are humble before Him. This is our hope. This is success at life. This is true wisdom – to be humble before God.
So let me give you fours ways of humbling oneself.
- Express remorse for your sin.
King Ahab of Israel was a rotten fella. He’s the guy that so wanted Naboth’s vineyard next to his palace that he allowed his evil wife Jezebel to go put poor innocent Naboth to death just so he could take his vineyard. Well, the prophet Elijah came to Ahab and rebuked him for what he had done and said God was going to turn his entire household, into dog and bird food. But let me show you some very powerful verses about the power of humbling yourself in remorse for your sin. I Kings 21:25ff, “Surely there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do evil in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife incited him. 26 He acted very abominably in following idols, according to all that the Amorites had done, whom the Lord cast out before the sons of Israel.” This guy Ahab was terrible. But in verse 27, “It came about when Ahab heard these words [that is the words of Elijah the prophet], that he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and fasted, and he lay in sackcloth and went about despondently. 28 Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, 29 ‘Do you see how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but I will bring the evil upon his house in his son’s days.‘” Can you believe that? God had mercy on this terrible individual, because he humbled himself in acknowledging his sin and God’s power over Him, and in expressing remorse over sinning against God. Folks, if a guy like Ahab could find mercy from God through humbling Himself like that, we will too. So if you know you’ve been sinning and that the judgment of God rightly comes on those who do such things, go to your knees, confess, beg his mercy, perhaps as Ahab, don’t eat for a while, and you’ll find amazing grace.
- Express gratitude for your blessings.
King Hezekiah of Judah was a pretty good king. But at 39 years old, he got some kind of boil or ulcer that became infected and was making him very sick. Isaiah the prophet came to him and said, “Hezekiah, thus says the LORD, set your house in order for you’re about to die.” And then Isaiah left. Hezekiah wept bitterly and he prayed earnestly to God to save his life. Isaiah had just left his house when the voice of the LORD told him to go back, now with a different message for Hezekiah. Isaiah came back and said to Hezekiah, “Thus says the LORD, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you. I’ll give you 15 more years of life.” And then God granted his request in the way I think God often grants requests of His people for healing. It wasn’t that Hezekiah immediately hopped out of bed feeling 100% again. But Isaiah told some people standing by to treat Hezekiah’s boil medicinally with a cake of figs, and gradually Hezekiah got better and after 3 days, he felt well enough to leave his house. And I think God answers prayers like that today. We pray for healing, but we still receive the treatments of medicine and the mighty hand of God makes the medicine in our bodies effective to heal if he grants our request, or not if He knows that it’s better that we go. Yet for Hezekiah, II Chronicles 32:25 says, “But Hezekiah gave no return for the benefit he received, because his heart was proud; therefore wrath came on him and on Judah and Jerusalem.“
To not express gratitude for the good things you enjoy, especially for answered prayers, is an act of pride. It is acting as though you are entitled, or deserving of what God has done for you. So humbling yourself before God involves saying, from the depths of your heart, “God, thank you for my health. Thank you for my home and my food and my family and how you have blessed me so beyond what I deserve.” And you use what He’s given you in ways that honor Him, not just for self-indulgence.
- Third, obey the Lord in every area.
King Uzziah of Judah was also a pretty good king. It says he did right in the sight of the Lord and the Lord prospered him. He went to war with the Philistines, Arabians, and others and always came out victorious. His fame spread to all the surrounding nations. He built up the land with fortified towers, and built up a massive army equipped with the greatest weaponry of the day. And the economy in Judah was flourishing. But unfortunately, what so often happens when God blesses someone with success and fame and fortune, Uzziah became prideful. He began to think very highly of himself and act accordingly. And II Chronicles 26:16ff says, “But when he became strong, his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly, and he was unfaithful to the Lord his God, for he entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. 17 Then Azariah the priest entered after him and with him eighty priests of the Lord, valiant men. 18 They opposed Uzziah the king and said to him, ‘It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron who are consecrated to burn incense. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful and will have no honor from the Lord God.’ 19 But Uzziah, with a censer in his hand for burning incense, was enraged;” You know, Uzziah did not think he was being unfaithful to the Lord. Uzziah thought he was worshiping the Lord by burning that incense in the temple. But Uzziah had come to think so highly of himself, he thought he knew best even if it disagreed with God’s word. He didn’t see why he being the king and so close to God, that he should not be able to offer incense in the temple like the priests, even though God’s Law said it was only for the priests. He felt he could reinterpret or disregard parts of God’s word that didn’t make sense to him. But then the text says, “and while he was enraged with the priests, the leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord, beside the altar of incense. 20 Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was leprous on his forehead; and they hurried him out of there, and he himself also hastened to get out because the Lord had smitten him. 21 King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death; and he lived in a separate house, being a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the Lord. And Jotham his son was over the king’s house judging the people of the land.“
Maybe what God’s word says about homosexuality or premarital sex or drunkenness doesn’t seem best to you. Maybe you don’t see why baptism or the Lord’s Supper or other commands of God are important. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you to love your enemies or to try and work it out with your spouse that you don’t really like anymore. But being humble before God is not thinking we know better than God. It is acknowledging that God’s ways, all of them, are right and best, even when they do not yet make sense to me. And it involves submission and obedience to God in all areas where we have a command from Him.
4. A fourth way of humbling ourselves before God is the second point of our text in I Peter…
Cast all your anxiety on God, because He cares for you.
Asking God’s help is a humble act. It expresses that you know you’re dependent on Him.
You know, worry is a debilitating condition of the mind God does not want us to have. The word in Greek here, translated to anxiety is a compound of two words; the word for tear (or divide) and the word for mind. So the etymology of the word is literally to tear or divide the mind. Isn’t that an accurate description of what worry does? It takes your mind in two different directions. It distracts you.
It was probably in Martha’s mind that it would be good to sit at Jesus’ feet and hear the things He was teaching. But the dining room wasn’t immaculate yet and she hadn’t folded the napkins or even started on the appetizer or dessert, and she was so worried about what everybody thought about her and the evening going just perfect, she stayed in the kitchen and even tried to pull her sister Mary out of Bible class with Jesus to come help her. Worry keeps us preoccupied with earthly momentary matters instead of the things that are lastingly important. Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
Jesus likened worry to a thorny weed that chokes a plant and prevents it from growing to maturity and bearing fruit (Luke 8:14). It hinders us from becoming and doing all that God wants us to be and do.
He also spoke of the worries of life as something that weighs us down (Luke 21:34). God doesn’t want us weighed down, choked, and distracted by worry.
And God has given us the means to be free of worry and it’s twofold.
It’s first of all the revelation we have in Scripture of who God is, how mighty and in control is His hand and how great is His care for those who are humble before Him. If we’ll trust what we read about God in Scripture it enables us not to worry.
Said the robin to the sparrow,
“I should really like to know,
Why these anxious human beings
Rush about and worry so.”
Said the sparrow to the robin,
“Friend I think that it must be,
That they have no Heavenly Father,
Such as cares for you and me.”
– Elizabeth Cheney
You see, when we rush about worrying, it’s like we’re saying we’re an orphan in this world and we don’t have anybody to care for us but ourselves, and we have to sort everything out alone. But Jesus said, “Don’t you know you’re worth much more than the birds of the air?” The living mighty hand of our Father who cares for us more than we know is right here with us. The only trials that will come our way, come at His permission. The darkest valley He brings you into, He will bring you up the other side. The only temptations you’ll ever face… the only obstacles you’ll encounter are ones you can handle with His help.
The second means we have to relieve ourselves of the burden of our anxiety is the avenue of prayer.
Our Father invites us to give Him every puzzle we can’t figure out, every problem we can’t solve, every need we can’t meet, every burden we can’t lift into His mighty capable hands, through prayer. And He assures us He’ll take care of it. Not necessarily in the way we, from our very limited vantage point, think it should be handled. But He will handle it in the way that is best from His far higher vantage point.
Now, notice the little word “all” in the text…
“casting all your anxiety on Him”
It doesn’t say cast some or most, but all of it.
Do you ever think, “This is just a little issue I don’t need to bother God with. God is so busy being God. He’s got the problems of the Middle East to handle. He has people starving to death and the prayers of important people to respond to. Here I have just this little tiny issue. He’d probably just roll His eyes if I were to come to Him with things like this.”
I love the response I read of the famous preacher G. Campbell Morgan (in London) when a widowed lady asked him, “Dr. Morgan should we pray about the little things in our lives or just the big things?” Mr. Morgan said, “Madam, can you think of anything in your life that is big to God?” Isaiah 40:15, “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, And are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales…” I don’t think anybody ever prays for something to which God goes, “Oh My goodness, this is a big one!”
I’ve found these “little issues” that we worry about are like little stones in a backpack we’re carrying. One little stone is no big deal. But when we have a bunch of different “little issues”, it’s a bunch of little stones in the pack weighing us down. So cast all your anxiety in Him. Open the backpack and start taking out stones. If it’s big enough to cause worry, I think it’s big enough to pray about; “God I’ve done all I can with this, and I don’t know how to solve it.” And if you cast something, you have to let go of it, you have to give it to Him and trust Him to take care of it in the best way. Philippians 4:6, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
Conclusion
God’s hand is mighty and it’s not far off, it’s here. And so, very simply, let’s humble ourselves before God; let’s express remorse for our sin and thankfulness for our blessings and be obedient in all ways, and whatever we’re worried about, let’s cast it in Him.
I’d like to close here with some words of David, who was aware of the mighty and skillful and “so in control of everything” hands of God. 1 Chronicles 29:10-13, “David blessed the Lord in the sight of all the assembly; and David said, “Blessed are You, O Lord God of Israel our father, forever and ever. 11 Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. 12 Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone. 13 Now therefore, our God, we thank You, and praise Your glorious name.”
-James Williams