He Cares – Minister’s Letter Dec 24

Dear all at IPC,

Over the last few weeks, I have been involved in a couple of situations with people who have needed care. There comes a certain point in a person’s life where they need care, and there can be a real concern and anxiety about the future. It is easy to be anxious when you are reliant on others and there is uncertainty; you are no longer in control. On the flip side, there is an enormous privilege in being a carer that is often not talked about in our culture, and certainly not valued as it should be. I think Scripture speaks powerfully to those who are being cared for and those doing the caring with great encouragement.

As I preached on humility from 1 Peter 5 last month, I was struck that the humble person casts all their cares on the Lord because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:8). God is the great carer. The word “care” that Peter uses is a present tense word – he continually cares. He never stops caring. There are no days off; no days when he is uncaring. It speaks of paying attention to, taking action towards, showing concern and taking the trouble. That is how God is concerned with his people.

Psalm 8 brings this out powerfully “What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”. When I was growing up there was a Children’s song we sang in Sunday School:

God, who made the earth, the air, the sky, the sea, who gave the light its birth: He cares for me.

This theme of care and caring goes right through the bible. There is this constant refrain to God’s people. “Be careful”, and “take care”, with regard to God’s commands. Jesus tells us to take care of how we hear God’s word. He warns that the cares of this world can choke out God’s word (Mark 4:19). As believers, we are to care for one another (1 Cor 12:25). The elders in Christ’s church are charged with caring for Christ’s sheep (Acts 20:28).

All of these commands are in the context of a God who cares for his children. The fact that he is the great carer should be a source of enormous comfort to us. In Deut 11:12 the children of Israel are told of their inheritance – “a land that the Lord cares for, the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.” In Moses’ handover sermon to Joshua at the end of the book, he tells God’s people that they were like one “He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye” (Deut 32:10).

It is easy for carers to feel the burden of responsibility, to be weighed down by the relentless nature of it, and to know that God understands that, is an enormous comfort – the Psalmist tells us that “when the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul” (Psalm 94:19).

For those who are being cared for, there is a sentiment that is often expressed – “I don’t want to be a burden”. John Stott helpfully in his book The Radical Disciple says this:

“I sometimes hear old people, including Christian people who should know better, say, ‘I don’t want to be a burden to anyone else. I’m happy to carry on living so long as I can look after myself, but as soon as I become a burden I would rather die! But this is wrong. We are all designed to be a burden to others. You are designed to be a burden to me, and I am designed to be a burden to you. And the life of the family, including the life of the local church family, should be one of ‘mutual burdensomeness.”

In Mark 4, the disciples find themselves in a sudden and violent storm. Jesus is asleep and his disciples cannot comprehend that – they wake him up with the question – “do you not care that we are perishing?” It is one of the most surprising questions in all of the bible. The very reason why Jesus entered into creation, that he was in that boat at all, was because he cared. He cared so much that he exchanged the glory of heaven – where he was adored by angels and enjoyed eternal blessedness – to become a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and who would bear our sins and iniquities to the cross of Calvary. To ask him “Do you not care?” shows a complete misunderstanding of who he was and what he’d come to do.

Martha asks the same question in Luke 10. Feeling exasperated with her sister Mary because she is working hard in the kitchen while Mary sits and listens to Jesus, asks, “Do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone, tell her to come and help me?”. Her questions betray that she has not grasped what Jesus has come to do and his priorities. He could not possibly care any more than he does.

I think that this truth of God’s care is one that we need to work hard to appropriate to ourselves. You are not a burden to God; he cares for you. Allowing this to sink into the very depths of our being will transform us. Our natural tendency since the Garden of Eden is to think God doesn’t care.

Jesus warns us that the cares of this world choke out God’s word (Mark 4:19). He understands us perfectly and penetratingly tells us that the cares of this world can weigh down our hearts (Luke 21:34). Scripture warns us in numerous places that we are not to care about others’ opinions. And so the answer to that is to hear his Word and believe it.

We care for those things and people that are precious to us, and God cares for us because we are precious to him in his Son. So cast your cares and your worries on him, because he cares for you.

God, who sent His Son to die on Calvary,
He, if I lean on Him, will care for me.

Your Minister and your friend,

Paul