Philippians 4:6-7

How many of you men are married? Now, even in the best marriages, there are sometimes differences of opinion. Sometimes those differences become serious debates or even vigorous discussions. Every now and then they may become a passionate exchange or even a hearty argument. Hopefully, it is rare that those become contentious quarrels. But, men, when those quarrels happen, have you ever tried to just simply say, “Honey, calm down!”? Have you ever tried to just end the ridiculous argument where you know you are right and she is wrong by saying, “Hey, you need to calm down!”? If you have and you are now out of the hospital, I would like to congratulate you for the effort. And I bet you never try that again, right? Because never in the history of calm down has a woman ever calmed down because her husband told her to calm down. It just doesn’t work that way. Now, guys, don’t say “amen” to that because, I’m not sure why but there is a real possibility that could lead to one of those “passionate exchanges” when you get home. Just look at her right now like you don’t know what I’m talking about. That’s good.

Well, just like saying “Calm down” doesn’t work when somebody is upset, saying, “Don’t worry” also doesn’t work when somebody feels like they have something to worry about. Worry is a feeling that just comes naturally. You don’t have to learn it in school. Your parents never had to sit you down and explain how to worry. There is no Master Class on how to be the best worrier you can be. If there were, some of you could teach that class, couldn’t you? I looked up the definition of worry and anxiety this week and found something interesting. I was trying to find out the difference between worry, anxiety and care. We know that God is not worried about anything but He does care about us so what’s the difference? And I didn’t find any really good answers. The basic definition of anxiety is if something makes you worry, that’s anxiety. The basic definition of worry is if something makes you anxious, then that’s worry. Well, thanks a lot.

But you know when you are worrying, or at least you do if you will stop and consider it. You know when you wake up at three in the morning and some thought keeps rolling around in your head. You are overly concerned about your health, your finances, your kids, your country and you should be concerned about all of those things but not overly so. And you know when you reach that tipping point and you know that it keeps you awake at night and it is bad for your mental and physical health and we are reminded in Philippians 4 that worrying is a sin. It displeases God when we worry. But some of you also need to be reminded of 1 Corinthians 10:13 that says, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

When it comes to worry, God has provided a way out of that temptation and that way is found specifically in Philippians 4:6-7. Let’s turn there now if you haven’t already. Remember, Paul is writing to his Christian friends in the church of Philippi. He loved these people and had special affection for them and Paul knew that they had reasons to worry. It was a hard time to be a Christian back in those days. Not only did they have reasons to worry about their health, finances and family but they were being persecuted for being followers of Jesus. But Paul, writing from a jail cell, had overflowing joy and wanted his friends to have that joy as well and he knew that when they showed joy instead of worry in the midst of their struggles that non-believers would see them and say, “Hey, I want what they have.”

If you can’t model joy and peace in the difficulties of this life, then what success will you have trying to witness to somebody and convince them that following Jesus is the way to live? You’ll have more success telling your wife to calm down because it just doesn’t work. So, let’s look at Philippians 4:6-7 as we continue through one of my favorite chapters in all of scripture. This is part two of learning how not to worry. We couldn’t get it all in last week and I will warn you / encourage you that there will also be a part three. But let’s read Philippians 4:6-7 now. It says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

When we counsel someone to calm down or don’t worry, it almost always sounds like a cop out, right? So it is with “You should pray about it.” I was talking to a friend just last week and she was having some really worrisome issues going on and I said, “I hate for this to sound like a pastor but you really just need to pray about it.” And that is Paul’s solution to the worry problem as well. Just pray about it. But there is more to it then just, “Hey God, I’m worried about such and such. Fix it for me please.” With any difficult problem, there is a specific solution. There are steps to take. So, let’s look at the steps we need to take to solve the problem of worrying. Paul starts by saying to take every situation to God. Every situation. Big, small, medium, difficult, easy, doesn’t matter. We ought to already be having a running conversation with God. It ought to be second nature for a mature Christian to purposely think about adding God to the thought process of whatever situation we are in. And while I have said before that there is no wrong way to pray, there is a right way.

As believers, we have full and complete access to the throne room of God and there are times in an emergency that we just kick in the door and sprint to His throne and crawl up in His lap and beg for help. Nothing wrong with that when your car is sliding off the road into the canyon. But Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer that there is a method to going to God in prayer. Remember how it starts? In Matthew 6:9-10 Jesus says, “This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  The way to start our serious, mindful prayers is with worship and adoration. That’s what Jesus is saying and the word Paul here is using in Philippians 4 is the word for basic prayer and basic prayer should always start with worship.

I heard the story of a church in Colorado in the 1980’s that was growing and growing and they kept adding rooms and out-buildings but they quickly ran out of room because they were at the base of a mountain. They felt God telling them to make more room but they didn’t know how and so they had a prayer meeting about it. The pastor stood up and started praying by just praising God. He just opened his heart and thanked God for His power and sovereignty and His creativity. He thanked Him for His grace and mercy and forgiveness and the man just truly worshiped God in prayer. Towards the end of the prayer, he added, almost as a second thought, how they needed more room and he asked God to provide. Supposedly this is a true story but I don’t remember if it was the next day or the next week but very soon after that, a construction company called the preacher and said they needed a massive amount of dirt for a construction project they had coming up and they were wondering how much the church would charge them to move a big part of that mountain out of the way. See, God is still in the mountain-moving business. We have all the power of the risen Lord in the power of prayer but the best way to pray is always to begin with worship. Jesus said it and we say we believe it but how often do we start that way? It’s so easy to just run in and vomit all our cares and wants and needs to God and then turn around and walk out. Then we wonder why God doesn’t answer our prayers like we asked. The first step in right praying is showing our adoration of Him.

The second step is petition or supplication. This has the meaning of being earnest and heartfelt but also to be specific. I like the way the Phillips Modern English version interprets it. “Whenever you pray, tell God every detail of your needs in thankful prayer.” I wonder if God ever gets tired of hearing, “Lord, please bless me. And please bless my friend Bobby and bless Karen and…” Bless how? With what? What are you really asking for? Tell God in detail what is worrying you.

I have also found some secrets about telling God my concerns in detail. First, it helps to be somewhere where you can say it out loud. When you say what is bothering you out loud, it often tends to bring it into focus for you and you realize it is probably nothing to worry about to begin with.  For me, it also helps to come in here when I am praying about something that is bothering me. I don’t know how many times I have started praying and before I can get a sentence out good, I see these little rocks in their little cups on the pulpit. For those of you that don’t know, these little pebbles are taken from the church parking lot in Runaway Bay when God provided a way for us to move over here debt-free. It’s a wonderfully long story that most of you have heard so I won’t go all through it again but it is a great reminder for me that God always provides. So, when I come over here and start complaining to God about not knowing what to do and how there’s no way this or that could ever happen and blah, blah, blah…God says, “Really? Because I remember doing a much bigger thing in the life of this church – TWICE – and all you had to do was turn it over to me. Maybe do that again?”

Again, Jesus is our model for this. In Hebrews 5:7 it says, “During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears and was heard because of His worshipful submission. Praying like that is just saying, “God, here are my difficulties. I give them to You and I will do whatever you want me to do including doing nothing.” We start with worship. We pray with fervency and detail in faith that God is in control and He loves us. The next thing Paul tells us to do instead of worrying is to include thanksgiving in our prayers. Tell me right now what you are thankful for. What has God done in your life that you would give Him thanks? I’m thankful for family. Some family is by blood and some by the decision to be part of this church and I am thankful for my family. God has blessed me with a wonderful church family and a job that I love and a place to live that is wonderful and I am very grateful. Thank you, Lord!

Let me tell you what happens when you take your worries to God in fervent prayer with petition and thanksgiving. I’ll tell you by telling you a story. There once was a young man named Daniel. Ol’ Danny was a good boy. He had lived a hard life but as he got older, he made wise decisions and proved himself to be an honest and hard-working man. And his boss really like him and was going to promote him but his co-workers didn’t want him being their boss and so they framed him. Danny’s boss had made a rule that anybody that prayed to any god or man besides him would be thrown into the lion’s den. So, what does ol’ Danny do? He goes home and Daniel 6:10 says that Danny prayed (same word Paul uses in Phil. 4) and gave thanks to God. As soon as he did they hauled him into the boss’s office and the boss had to sentence him to the lion’s den. But, do you know what happened? The boss was sick at what he had done and he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t eat. He was miserably worried. And as soon as it was first light, the boss ran down to the lion’s den and called into it. Daniel 6:20 says, “When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, "Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?" And Danny said, “Huh? What? I’m sound asleep down here. Can you come back in a few minutes? Me and the cats are snuggled up and I don’t want to move.”

Okay, that’s my version of what happened but it’s pretty close. It’s like Daniel had been reading Philippians or something, right? (Even though Daniel lived about 500 years before Paul.) Daniel knew that going to God in worshipful prayer with thanksgiving brings peace. Amazing peace. Peace that you won’t believe and can’t even understand. That’s what Paul says in Philippians 4:7.  The peace of God will guard your hearts and minds. That word “guard” is “phroureo” (phroo-ray’-o) in the original Greek and it means to stand guard like a sentinel. It is a military term used to describe a garrison of men watching and guarding a protected place. When you became a Christian, you went from being an enemy of God to being a friend of God and you were given the right to have peace WITH God. But when you take your worries to God in worshipful, detailed prayer with thanksgiving, you now have the peace OF God and He is not going to let anything worrisome into your mind. He is guarding your mind with His own peace; a peace that I can’t explain and you can’t explain.

We don’t deserve it. God doesn’t have to give it. The world can’t even imagine it. But God gives that kind of peace because He loves you. As a child of the one true King, there are so many wonderful benefits. We can have peace and joy in the midst of great difficulty. He gives us wisdom if we but ask. Not to mention the incredible benefit of spending eternity with Him as a co-heir with Jesus to all the wonderful things God has planned for us in Heaven.

But all of that is ONLY for true believers. It is only for those who have asked God to forgive them of their many sins, repented – turned away – from those sins and that lifestyle and trusted God with every aspect of their lives and allowed God to change their lives. If that describes you then what in the world are you worried about? If that doesn’t describe you, then you have every reason to be worried. In fact, you ought to be scared to death. This life is hard enough without the peace and joy that God gives but the next life will be impossibly horrible as you spend eternity in a real place called Hell, separated from God and everybody else. I love you too much to sugar-coat it. Repent today of your sins and allow God access to every part of you. Do that right now as we pray.