Prayer for Peace

We’re able to get away and go
to the Shepherds Conference. We ended up meeting Steve there. We ended up being on the plane
with the folks from Greeley. And also the, many of you know,
the Saints at Parker, Kirk Youngblood and his wife, Julie, they were
on our plane. And then on the return trip home, We had the
folks from Hill Rose. And so we pondered that if that
plane went down, Christianity was gonna have to jumpstart anew
here in Colorado, that the Lord brought us home safely. And oftentimes
when we come home, we will give you kind of an update. And I
just don’t see that on the horizon today. So perhaps we will put
together something and do that next Lord’s day. I wanted to
address this morning a spiritual problem that often issues forth
in physical difficulties. I had purposed to, all the way
along, knowing that this was Shepherds Conference Week, I
had purposed to preach from the well, and I returned to a passage
that I felt like under the circumstances,
not the least of which are my own circumstances. I felt like
this was an appropriate place to land in a quick break from
the Gospel of John. The problem I want to address,
as I said, a lot of times issues forth in physical difficulties. Sometimes this spiritual problem
wakes us up in the night or even prevents us from sleeping at
all. Sometimes it leads some people to biting the fingernails. Sometimes it ends in a debilitating
anxiety for which medications must be applied and sometimes
are only moderately effective. This spiritual problem can ultimately
lead to ulcers. For some, it even leads to heart
attack or a mental breakdown. I’m talking about the spiritual
problem of worry. And in Paul’s epistle to the
Philippians, he addresses not only the spiritual difficulty
of worry, but the spiritual fallout from worry and the antidote to
it. If you would, please turn to
Philippians chapter 4, versus six and seven. In case you are
personally dubious, I would just have you check yourself from
some of the things about which we as humans are given to worry. Oftentimes we worry about our
health or better yet the lack of it. We worry about our stocks,
our investments, our portfolio, if you will. Some small-minded
people worry about their teams or the players on their teams.
Some worry about the weather. Some worry about the political
climate. Some worry about their upcoming
doctor’s visit. Some are stirred in the night
by worry and care about their finances. Others worry about
where their next meal is going to come from. Sometimes we get
a new ache or a stabbing pain, and we’re worried, thinking that
this certainly is the cancer that will take us and kill us.
Many times hours upon hours are given to worry about our job
or our bosses or our career path. Some worry about fires, fires
in their home, fires in the hills. Some worry about their car, that
it won’t make it even through the end of the month. Some worry
about conflict and avoid it like the plague. Conflict with others
is one of the most difficult areas of human interaction. Some worry about their new boss.
Almost all worry about their children. Some are given to worrying
about their parents. We worry about driving. We worry
about flying. We worry about crime. We worry
about our 401K. We worry about offending others.
We worry about the social climate of our own day. We worry about
what we said. We worry about what we didn’t
say. We worry about floods and war and change and tornadoes. We worry about what we did. We
worry about what we didn’t do. We even worry about our gardens.
What bugs, what disease is attacking our precious plants? We worry
about our hair. We worry about our clothing.
We worry about climate change and car accidents. We worry about
gluten. We worry about our future. We
worry about natural disasters. We worry about our past. We worry
about medication and the effects that they have on us. We worry
about our neighbors. We worry about our leaders. We
worry about recycling. We worry about our climate. We
worry about insurance. We worry about caffeine. We worry
about robbers. We worry about earthquakes. We
worry about our age or our grades. or the uncertainties of life.
You say, pastor, where on earth did you get such a masterful
list? So thorough, so accurate. I’ll just tell you, I didn’t
have to poll the audience. I know my own heart. And Paul knew the heart of his
people. And Paul wanted to address this
international pastime, this human pastime of worry. If you would,
Philippians chapter four, verses six and seven, where Paul admonished,
be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the
peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard
your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” It’s a simple passage. It’s a
short passage. And if you were to back away
and look at just the main points, be anxious for nothing, let your
request be made known to God, and the peace of God shall guard
your hearts.” In its simplicity, that’s what it is assuring. But I wanted to literally work
our way through this passage this morning almost word by word
as we look at how a saint preserves peace in his own heart because
that’s what worry robs. That’s the spiritual detriment
to our worry. Worry will bring about many physical
infirmities. Worry will damage our stomach
or our hearts or our heads. But there’s a spiritual deficit
to worry. It’s the absence of peace. Worry literally drives out peace
from our hearts. So I wanted to look this morning
How a child of God preserves that peace, that God-given peace. Peace that was restored as soon
as we laid hold of Christ in faith. The peace that is so fragile
as we’re so prone to take our eyes off of Christ and off of
a sovereign God in absolute control of everything that ever happens.
We take our eyes off of Him. We put our eyes instead upon
our circumstances. whether it’s our finances or
people or things. How does the child of God cultivate
peace, maintain peace? First of all, there is a resolution. There is a commitment of heart
and mind, a dedication, a devotion, if you will, to peace. And it’s a resolution of faith.
Because Paul, first of all, says, be anxious for nothing. I’ve
looked at this. There are significant translational
difficulties just with that little word, anxiousness. The King James
translated it years ago, be careful for nothing. Well, to our modern
ear, that just sounds uncomfortable, as if we’re supposed to be just
footloose and fancy-free, not worried about anything, not careful
about anything. And in that sense, it’s ambiguous.
To a degree, it’s even off the mark and misleading. Another
popular translation says, take no thought, as if we’re supposed
to just kind of flip off our minds and motivate through life
thinking and caring for nothing and no one. It can’t possibly
be that. One Puritan critiqued that mindset
when he said, literally understood the words appear to enjoin what
is impracticable. He’s commenting on the King James
translation, be careful for nothing. They enjoin what appears to be
impracticable And even if it were practicable, it would breach
Christian duty. If we were to step back and literally
be careful for nothing, not care about anything, that would have
to include our families, it would have to include our wives or
our husbands, it would have to include the church, it would
have to include ministry, it would be a breach of Christian
duty. For the very purpose of Christianity, John Stone says,
is the very opposite of making men thoughtless or careless.
Scripture directly enjoins that we should provide for our own.
That involves much thought and care. Properly understood, Scripture
gives much encouragement to diligence and discretion in every part
of our life. So it cannot possibly mean that
we are to turn off our minds, take no care or concern for anyone
or anything. It doesn’t mean that. It’s a rarely used word by Paul. Only here and once in 1 Corinthians. The word literally means to be
concerned. And it speaks of divisions of
an anxious mind. to be full of cares, said one,
that divide and distract our mind. And I might even check
your heart right now by saying, likely, most of us in this room
are trying to walk down parallel thoughts, thinking of one thing
or two or 10 or 50, all the while attending to this passage. It
is one of the occupational hazards of having a mind. is that we
can at least allegedly multitask. But what ends up happening is
we begin to focus and over focus on particular areas and those
particular areas grow and drive out the care that we should have. One described it as this, he
said it implies a distraction of mind. Let there be no half
and half distraction of your mind between two things. Anxiety
for worldly good shall prevent your complete trust in God. I remember one pastor, as we
studied his book, said that you cannot, if you’re in worship
and you’re thinking about anything else other than God, you cannot
possibly be worshiping. Worship is everything that we
are focused like a laser beam on Almighty God in His worship. So this word ends up taking on
the additional descriptive of fretting over or pondering over
or even brooding over a particular problem or element of our lives. As I said, the verb points to
a distraction of mind, anxiousness that makes us ultimately unproductive,
unfocused, unwise. J.C. Weil, one of my favorite
commentators, said, do not be over-careful. It’s a good way
to look at it. Do not be over-anxious. Because
prudent provision, he says, for the future is right. But there
are many things that we put our mind to that we really have no
control over. Whether we contract a disease,
whether we lose our job, this word is used in a positive
sense many times in Scripture. 1 Corinthians 7, 32 and 34. 2
Corinthians 11, 28, a shorter verse which says, apart from
external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern
for all the churches. Paul said, I’m anxious for all
the churches that we planted. That was a good thing. The word is used in that same
positive sense earlier in this epistle. when Paul said, I hope
in the Lord to send Timothy to you shortly so that I may be
encouraged when I learn of your condition. Paul was apart from
the Philippians. He had been for several years.
He longed to impart a report to them and secure a report from
them. And so for that, he decided to
send Timothy, hopefully. In verse 20, he said, for I have
no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned,
careful for your welfare. All these scriptures point to
the fact that Paul uses this word sometimes in a very positive
thing. It’s not inherently bad to be
concerned. It’s not inherently bad to think
about our finances, to ponder those. It’s not inherently bad
to think about our health or to be careful when we drive or
to be watchful over our family members. Some of those things
are just natural, the natural part of parenting. But over-worry,
over-concern is what Paul begins to get to and the word is also
used negatively in Scripture. It’s the concern that degenerates
really into worry and anxiety. And the concern that he speaks
to here is a failure, a neglect, a refusal even to bring our burdens
to the Lord. And when I say refusal, practically
speaking, and I think Some of us need to check our minds and
our hearts here. Sometimes we think the way that
we conduct ourselves, the way that we carry ourselves in either
praying or not praying, we think that we can manage the situation
better than Almighty God. That’s the truth. One pastor said, to care is a
virtue, but to foster cares is sin. Anxiety is not trusting
God, but trusting in oneself, which comes to inward suffering,
fears, and worry. It is an outgrowth of that spirit
which always looks solicitously forward, in other words, presumptuously,
and forgets today’s blessings and duties in anxieties about
tomorrow’s claims. Fascinating, isn’t it? Fascinating
how quickly we allow ourselves to degenerate into worry. So all that to say, there’s a
right and wrong care, there’s a right and wrong concern. There is that concern that degenerates
into anxiety and worry, and sinfully so. Jesus addressed this multiple
times. Matthew chapter 6, Matthew chapter
13, Verse 22, speaking of the seed that was scattered on the
various soils, the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns,
this is the man who hears the word and the worry, the concern
of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word and
it becomes unfruitful. For those who do not know Christ,
Sometimes all of these concerns, these things about which we spend
so much time worrying, they become so great that the word, the seed
of the gospel cannot even permeate into their heart. One Puritan said, this anxiety
is fitted to draw the mind away from God, distracting the Christian
soul making the earthly doubts and fears effectually oppose
the heavenward longings and rendering the believer for the time almost
a double-minded man. We become so focused on our earthly
situation that we would defer advancing towards heaven. That’s
what he says. Jesus rebuked Martha, remember? Martha, Martha, you are worried
and bothered about so many things. Here your sister is kneeling
at my feet, doing what she ought to do, worshipping me, while
you’re busy in the kitchen? Jesus addressed this issue multiple
times, multiple times. Turn, if you would, to Luke chapter
12. We’ll just briefly read this
passage. that forms such a great outline
and such a great address to what we’re talking about, the issue
of worry. Luke chapter 12, look if you
would at verse 24. Consider the ravens, for they
neither sow nor reap, They have no storeroom nor barn and yet
God feeds them. How much more valuable are you
than birds? And which of you by worrying
can add a single hour to his life span? If then you cannot
do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other
matters? Consider the lilies, how they
grow. They neither toil nor spin. But I tell you, not even Solomon
in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God
so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow
is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you,
you men of little faith? There are three essential parts
to this admonition that Christ gives, that number one, there
is a certainty to God’s care for our life. There is an absolute
certainty, and we prayed before when those are looking for jobs,
we have prayed along these lines, Lord, we know already that you
know this brother’s need. We know that you want him to
be productive. We know that you desire him to
provide for his family. We know all these things because
Jesus told us so. The ravens don’t even have to
look for food. There are berries all winter
long. They’re busying themselves, gathering
up seeds of various things, worms and bugs and grubs and God feeds them. The second portion there in verses
25 and 26 tells us about God’s absolute
sovereign control over all of our lives and that there are
the absurdity of worry. Which of you by worrying can
add a single hour to his life span? Not one, they answer. Not one of us can add a single
moment. The third part there in verses
27 to 28 is we have this assurance, an absolute assurance that God
will provide for our needs. Look at the flowers. Look at
how they’re clothed. Metaphorically. And if grass
is arrayed with flowers like this, so beautiful. You go up
to the mountains, into the high mountains, where people don’t
typically traffic, not in great numbers, and you look out over
the meadows, who planted those flowers? God planted those flowers.
And if God arrays the fields, if God decorates the flowers
with such magnificent color, Don’t you think that He can manage
your clothing? We’re not to be anxious. We’re
not to give ourselves over to anxious thoughts. Back, if you
would, to Philippians. Essentially, especially if we
begin to worry and fret about money, it amounts to greed. We have enough. We have what
the Lord and His sovereign will has decided to give us. Whether
it’s through our jobs, and it doesn’t mean that we can’t yearn
for another job, a higher paying job. It doesn’t mean that we
can’t study for such. It doesn’t mean that we can’t
look for it, pray for it, ask God for it. I love the way a young college
person told me when I was a college pastor, Pastor, they’re not paying
me what I’m worth. Oh, really? As a matter of fact,
they are. As a matter of fact, they’re
paying you exactly what God says you’re worth right now. And that’s
what makes cheating on our taxes, cheating on our insurance claims,
cheating of any way, shape or form to improve our financial
situation. It makes it so foolish. I remember
one guy told me how he was fudging, a Christian man fudging on an
insurance claim and I said, I just challenged him, what if God wants
you poor? What if God in His sovereignty wants you poor? You
think He has the means to do that? So the anxiety that he points
to here is a condition of the mind. Whereas one said we are given
to worry to know more than we are able, to reach something
too far beyond, to set our minds on something that is, for us,
unattainable. We cannot write our own ticket,
regardless of what the world says. One Puritan said it this way,
care, even when exercised upon objects, if carried to excess,
is in essence sin. Anything which is a transgression
of God’s command is sin, such as the command before us. Beside
the very nature and essence of anxious care is the imagining
that we are wiser than God. The thrusting of ourselves into
His place to do for Him that which we dream He either cannot
or is unwilling to do. We fear that He may forget. or
we struggle to take upon ourselves those burdens which he is either
altogether unable or is not willing to carry out. These anxious cares
frequently lead to other sins, like the businessman who is not
able to leave his business with God, tempted to indulge in the
tricks of the trade, he may be prevailed upon to put out an
unholy hand with which to help himself. How common is that? And so we’re first told to guard
our hearts. We’re first told to watch and
to literally be anxious for nothing. This shouldn’t leave any of us
untouched. When you think about the breadth
of possibilities and the list that I produced is only one man’s
heart. When you think about the breadth
and the depth of those things about which the human heart could
worry, this passage touches every one of us. Be anxious for nothing. And if the verse contained that
statement only, I would say that it would almost reach the level
of cruelty. Be anxious for nothing. If there
were no antidote, if there were no motivation provided in this
verse, don’t worry. And how many times have you heard
someone say that? Your mother, your grandmother.
Don’t worry. There’s got to be something to
fill the void. And there is. We can’t just flip the worry
switch to the off position. And if Scripture gave us no insight,
no instruction as to how to move from the sinful anxiousness to
a position of trust, how to cultivate that peace, I would suggest to
you that that would be cruel, but it doesn’t do that. The passage
doesn’t stop there. The passage doesn’t just callously
issue this cold command not to worry. But it goes on to simply
and clearly issue the only cure for an anxious heart. Scripture doesn’t stop there.
In compassion for us, God provides clear instructions on the matter.
First of all, there does need to be a resolve not to worry. We must recognize it for what
it is. Not just thought on the subject,
thought that begins to consume our hearts and our minds. There
must be a resolve to limit our thoughts about particular subjects.
But we have to add to that. We have to replace the tendency
towards anxiousness with something. And we begin by reminding ourselves
of the nature of God, His faithfulness to us, His promises to us. And then we go to Him. We go
to that God and we meet with Him in prayer. One contemporary pastor said,
people become worried and anxious and fearful because they do not
trust in God’s wisdom, power, and goodness. That’s the simple
truth. We just don’t trust. They fear that God is not wise
enough, strong enough, or good enough to prevent disaster. It
may be that this sinful doubt is because their knowledge of
him is faulty or that sin in their lives has crippled their
faith. Thankful prayer brings release
from fear and worry because it affirms God’s sovereign control
over all circumstance. So God doesn’t just say, don’t
worry, don’t fear. And the remedy that is suggested
here is not inactivity. He doesn’t say to us, go sit
on the couch and let me take care of this. Don’t worry. We’re called to action. There
should be effort. We’re not prevented planning
and working and preparation. God doesn’t callously chide us
for our desires. He tells us to come to Him with
anything. But He will shape our prayer in time, won’t He? Instead,
He commands us here to bring these concerns to Him, to tell
Him to pray, to open up and pour out our hearts to our loving
Heavenly Father who knows us and made us and loves us and
saves us and provides for us. Tell Him. no other philosophy, no other
religion offers any other such cure for anxiety. It reminds
us, doesn’t it, of Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the Lord with
all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. Don’t give yourself over to managing
your own cares. In all your ways, acknowledge
Him and He will make your path straight. God will answer your
prayer. God will provide for you. God will take care of that
care. And so, as you begin to step
forward to cultivate this peace, we see that a child of God not
only has to resolve not to worry, but the second part of that We
need to embrace the replacement for worry. Look at verse 6 again. Be anxious for nothing. And as
I said, if that’s all there was, what an almost cold commandment. Be anxious for nothing, but in
everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests
be made known to God. The first thing you have to consider
here is the contrast, the simple contrast here in verse 6. flagged
by that little word, but. You can’t divorce the two things.
You can’t say, don’t worry, go on about your day. Don’t worry,
but pray. Don’t worry, but let your request
be made known to God. Be anxious for nothing, but let
your request be made known. There’s an interesting use of
words here, particularly the preposition For those of you
Greek students, it’s the little preposition pros. It points out
direction or destination. Which way are you headed here
with this? Let your request be made known
toward God, in the direction of God, literally before God’s
face. We saw this earlier in John 1,
1, right? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with,
pros, face to face with God. And the Word was God. The Word, the Lord Jesus Christ,
was literally face to face, pros, toward God. And that’s why I
say it’s an interesting preposition in this particular context. We’re
literally told to bring our desires, our heart desires, face-to-face
with God. God, this is my situation. These
are my finances. This is our particular challenge
of the hour. This is my need. And it’s not
as if when we come we’re informing Him anyway, right? Oh yes, child,
I know. We tell God what we want. That’s
the bottom line of this whole sentence. In fact, this entire
section, it’s all about unburdening our heart to God. as if we were keeping God in
the loop, as if we were letting God in on our situation. And the verb there, it just means
to declare or to make known. We’re to go to God as if we were
informing him, Lord, you know our situation. I know that you
know, but da, da, da, da, da. Here’s our prayer. All of our circumstances, all
of our thoughts, all of our feelings. God loves to be asked. God loves
for us to come to Him. Psalm 139.4, You have, O Lord,
You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down,
when I rise up. You understand my thought from
afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down. You are intimately
acquainted with all my ways, even before there’s a word on
my tongue. Behold, O Lord, You know it all.
When we come to God, we don’t inform Him. But when we come
to Him, it’s as if we can talk about anything because He already
knows it all. It’s exactly as if God needed
the report. And so we come before Him, and
in our faith, we begin to talk about our life situations, those
things that have degenerated, and first we begin in many times
with confession, even as we did this morning. Lord, I confess
getting overworked up about this particular thing. And you say
that, well, that’s all right as a general rule. Okay. All
right. Sermon’s over. We should pray. Okay. I get it.
Amen. But how far do you want to take
that? How much should we pray about? How many things should
we bring up before God? Does God really care about the
little things? The things that seem to vex my
sleep pattern? Does God really care about all
those little worries? What does the passage say? Be
anxious for nothing but in everything It’s all inclusive. And it matches
the nothing that he mentions in the first portion of the verse
with the everything as the passage begins to unfold. It’s an absolute
contrast here. We are to give ourselves in worry
to nothing, not a single thing, not a single facet of our life.
But in everything, in every single facet of our life, we are to
give ourselves to prayer. We are to yield it up to God
and in a sense, let go of it. When he says in everything, it’s
absolutely limitless. There isn’t any part of our life
that he gives license for us to retain for the purpose of
sinful worry. Not a single element. What it points to is certainly
temporal things, persecution, difficulties, hardships, poverty. Those things tend to produce
worry. But that list that we gave at
the outset today, that list that every one of you could provide
and probably even improve upon, The list is infinite, really,
isn’t it? A year from now, there will be something different.
I was thinking about this in my lifetime, the things that
the news has told me I needed to worry about. See, in the 70s,
we were running out of oxygen. Now, we’re depleting the ozone
layer. In the 80s, I think it was, I
had to look up because somehow Skylab was going to fall from
the sky and crush me to death. In 1999, they told us that there
was a computer glitch embedded in all computers that was going
to shut down the system and we were no longer going to, not
only were we not going to have internet, all of life was going
to cease because of The loss of computers, Y2K. I’ve lost
count of all the things that I’m supposed to be worried about
if I listen to the nightly news. God says there isn’t a single
one of those that we should be worried about. Be anxious for
nothing. But in everything, there’s an
antidote, and the antidote is given next. be anxious for nothing
but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.”
Three different words there for the act and process of prayer. The words prayer and supplication
frequently occur together in Paul’s writings, Ephesians 6.18,
1 Timothy 2.1, 1 Timothy 5.5. The two are often blended together,
but there is somewhat of a distinction. Prayer is just generally prayer
towards God. It can be communion with God. It can be just our appreciation
of who He is and all that He’s done. That’s prayer. Supplication
is a little more focused, isn’t it? We know that. Supplication
is going before God and bringing up a particular need and asking
for God to help, asking for God to render assistance, divine
grace, whatever we need. asking for God miraculously to
intervene. That’s supplication. Some of us remember that little
acrostic, ACTS. We’re supposed to come to Him
in adoration. It doesn’t necessarily have to
be first, but it certainly lends itself to prayer, doesn’t it?
To come into God’s presence, you’re immediately aware of all
that He is and all that He’s done, and you worship Him for
it. A, adoration. Well, as soon as
you begin to see who God is, that He’s absolutely sovereign
and that He’s absolutely holy, He is perfect in every one of
His attributes, what that leads to is undoubtedly confession.
Not unlike Isaiah, I’m a man of unclean lips. Here I am to
worship you, but first we’ve got to clear things up. I haven’t
been what I ought to be. I haven’t lived like I ought
to live. I haven’t trusted you like I
ought to trust you. And we confess. There’s a third
element there. Adoration, confession, thanksgiving. Paul mentions that here in this
particular passage, doesn’t he? In everything, we come to God
by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. You see what Thanksgiving
has a tendency to do in our hearts? It tends to remind us of all
the ways that God has worked, all the ways that He has answered
prayer. It’s gasoline for our prayer is what it is. Because
when you begin to recount, and what a beautiful thing a prayer
card or a prayer journal is, when you begin to recount all
the ways that God has already answered prayer, it’s fuel to
your prayer life to ask for even greater things. We ask. We come to God and we ask. The
Puritans referred to this as suing God. We come before God
and we plead our case before Him. We ask. But then when those
requests are answered, we thank Him. We express our gratitude
to God for all that He has done. Like a child’s Prayer. We avoid
those kinds of prayers. Lord bless all the missionaries
in the whole wide world. What kind of prayer is that?
We come to them with specifics. We pour our heart out. We ask
for particulars and then we sit back and we watch and we wait. Matthew 7. Ask and it will be
given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock
and it will be opened to you. Everyone who asks, receives.
He who seeks, find. To him who knocks, it will be
opened. We need to thank Him. We need
to come before Him. We need to adore Him. We need
to express our gratitude to Him. That Thanksgiving is, as I said,
the gasoline to our prayer, it will express all the gratitude. Gratitude just for the ability.
Gratitude, I try, and it isn’t anything that I set out to do,
but I became mindful of it that almost every time I pray, I thank
God for my salvation. Isn’t that where it starts? I wouldn’t even have access to
you if Jesus Christ hadn’t died on the cross for me and called
me to himself and brought me to repentance. Thank you, first
and foremost, for that. And then, because of that, I
have free access to Almighty God any time I want. He commands me to come into His
presence. I’m not just welcome. I’m not
just allowed. I’m commanded to come into His
presence. So we thank God. We adore Him. We confess our sins to Him. We
ask Him. We thank Him. One pastor said here, not only
are there many reasons for thanksgiving to God who has already conferred
on us so much, but thankfulness is also due Him for the very
privilege of making known our request. for the promise He has
given, the confidence He has created in us, that our prayers
are not in vain. And for the hope that He is able
to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think. He is on a throne of grace that
is ever accessible. He is never weary of our asking. His gifts are never exhausted.
Isn’t that comforting? And the blessing that comes from
it, the blessing from making a commitment, a resolution. I’m not going to be given over
to worry about anything, but everything that I even think
to do that with, I’m going to turn and offer up to God by way
of prayer. And then comes the blessing. Look at the passage again. Be
anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God and the
peace of God. That’s what we lacked. That’s
what worry drove out. And the door is open and peace
floods in. And the peace of God which surpasses
all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in
Christ Jesus. See, the Christian who determines
not to worry and instead replaces it with prayer enjoys this bountiful
harvest of peace. And I would tell you, I don’t
believe that this is the peace of reconciling with God, Romans
5.1 kind of peace. That’s already been given. This
is the peace of life. This is the peace that only a
child of God enjoys. This is the peace of inner calm,
the quietness of heart, a serenity of mind. that realizes in daily
life, in all that we do, it realizes the presence of God, walks in
the presence of God. Peace, said one, is the smile
of God reflected in the soul of the believer. Isn’t that beautiful?
It’s the smile of God. I got you. I’m with you. I heard you. I’ll provide for
you. It is the firm conviction, he
says, that He who spared not His own Son freely will give
us all things. 1 Peter said it this way, casting
all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. What’s in focus
here is not the peace with God secured by Christ’s death. That’s
the peace that we have from sin and judgment It’s peace, it’s inner peace,
tranquility of mind. Paul refers to it as peace of
God. It’s God-given peace. We can hardly conceive of God
as a worrisome, fretful being, right? I mean, we can’t even
imagine that. God doesn’t sit, biting his nails,
twiddling his thumbs, fretting about what tomorrow brings. He’s
Almighty God. He is the Sovereign One of the
Universe. A being like that, that would
fret and worry about anything at all, would be no God at all. It’s the peace of God that God
provides. It’s the peace that is characteristic
of God. It’s the peace that Paul speaks
of The peace that God gives is independent
of whether he answers our particular prayer. It’s a peace that trusts
God regardless. It’s a peace that is willing
to walk with him and wait with him regardless. It’s a peace
that embraces uncertainty. One Puritan said, to know that
it is well with me now and shall be so forever. To feel that God
is my guide and protector while his son pleads for me and his
spirit dwells within me as his temple. To feel that I am moving
onward along a path divinely prescribed and guarded to join
the eternal banquet in the company of all I love and live for. The
emotion produced by such strong conviction is peace, the peace
of God. Would you examine your heart
before our Almighty God? Our Heavenly Father, as we come
before you to enjoy the precious institution of the Lord’s table,
to rejoice in the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that
you have provided, Father, first and foremost, we would come before
you with a final moment of confession. Lord, it is the human condition
that we are given to worry. And Lord, my own list, notwithstanding
every saint in the room could reproduce their own list. And
unbelievers, a much more lengthy list. Those who do not know Christ
have much to be concerned about. Lord God, for those of us who
have placed our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no
justification for worry about anything. So Father, we come
before you. We thank you for the privilege
that we have to unburden our hearts before such a glorious
God, Lord, as we bow in the quietness of our hearts, you have brought
to mind. You have convicted us even as
we turned to this passage. You have reminded us of sinful
worry in our own hearts and lives. We confess that to you now.