Did You Thank the Lord?
Notes
Transcript
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Introduction
Introduction
In June (6) of 2017, Greater Good Magazine carried an article entitled “How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain.”
The article discussed a study that had been completed the previous year by two psychologists who teach at Indiana University.
The study involved nearly 300 adults, mostly college students who were seeking mental health counseling at a university. They recruited these participants just before they began their first session of counseling, and, on average, they reported clinically low levels of mental health. The majority of people seeking counseling services generally struggled with issues related to depression and anxiety.
What they did: They randomly assigned the study participants into three groups. All three groups received counseling services, but the first group was also instructed to write one letter of gratitude to another person each week for three weeks. The second group was asked to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about negative experiences. And the third group did not do any writing activity.
What they found: Compared with the participants who wrote about negative experiences or only received counseling, those who wrote gratitude letters reported significantly better mental health four weeks and 12 weeks after their writing exercise ended. This suggests that gratitude writing can be beneficial not just for healthy, well-adjusted individuals, but also for those who struggle with mental health concerns.
Four take-aways from the study:
1. Gratitude unshackles us from toxic emotions - when we focus our thoughts on thankfulness, there’s less room to focus on negative thoughts, like anger, revenge, discouragement, etc.
2. Gratitude helps even if you don’t share it - the study did not mandate to send the letter of thanks
3. Gratitude’s benefits take time - effects weren’t seen until about 4 weeks
4. Gratitude has lasting effects on the brain - fMRI scanner was used to scan the brains of those who wrote gratitude letters and they found that there was “greater neural sensitivity in the medial prefrontal cortex, a brain area associated with learning and decision making. This suggests that people who are more grateful are also more attentive to how they express gratitude.”
[https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_changes_you_and_your_brain; accessed 26 Nov 2025]
Giving thanks can solve a lot of our psychological, emotional, and physical issues.
BUT: there is something better than these results from being thankful
Scripture promises us that if we are thankful to God, we can experience the peace of Christ which surpasses all understanding.
1. Are You Anxious? (4:6)
1. Are You Anxious? (4:6)
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Anxiety Disorder vs. Worry
Anxiety Disorder vs. Worry
GAD - it is not necessarily excessive worry or even about being anxious for something per se. It is a psychological disorder brought about by stress, trauma, genetics, environment, etc which makes a part of the brain overstimulated.
By the way: it is a real disorder of the brain and body; and we often need help to overcome it by meds and counseling
The Christian subculture needs to get rid of the stigma that surrounds this issue/disorder. We cannot “pray” it away or “just have more faith.”
“Biblical Counseling Model” => illustration of a parent’s teenager who attempted to pray it away and just have more faith. When he finally became suicidal and never left his room, they put him on medication and got him some good Christian counseling and he improved immensely.
Anxiety disorder is not what we are talking about here in this text. GAD is a disorder of the brain and perhaps other factors of the body. It is something you cannot directly control by your will.
Worry, however, is something we can control. If it were not something we could control, there would be no command for us to not do it!
Matthew 6:25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”
Matthew 6:34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
The worry that Scripture has in mind here is related to our faith. Do we believe, trust, and have confidence in the Lord to provide for us? Or do we consistently worry whether God is faithful or not?
What is the solution to having worries about this life?
2. Pray! (4:6)
2. Pray! (4:6)
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
“In everything” = lit “all things” => When shall we pray? At all times. For everything.
1 Thessalonians 5:17 “Pray without ceasing.”
The point of praying in all things/all the time is to put our trust and confidence in Jesus, not ourselves.
Grant Osborne:
Philippians: Verse by Verse The Means—Prayer Replacing Worry (4:6)
An active prayer life bathes every situation in God’s empowering presence and enables us to “wait on the Lord” (
We pray in all things to wait upon the sovereign Lord, not on ourselves.
“Supplication” = petition/entreaty = requests, desires that we have
Sometimes it’s easy to think that we are being selfish when we bring a list of desires before the Lord. Certainly, God is not a genie in a bottle or Santa Clause, but Scripture does tell us to bring our wants before him. It is not wrong to do so.
James 5:13 “Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises.”
James 5:14 “Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.”
Ephesians 1:18 “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”
Philippians 1:9 “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment.”
3 John 2 “Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.”
Point: We are to pray and bring ALL our requests to God.
Bring it All!
Bring it All!
Seen by the three different words: prayer, supplication, requests (see Osborne)
1 Peter 5:6–7 “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”
Does not mean: That God will always fulfill our requests exactly how WE want them fulfilled.
The Promise is this: Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
3. Give Thanks! (4:6)
3. Give Thanks! (4:6)
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
It is one thing to pray and bring our petitions to God; it is quite another to give thanksgiving. We can often forget to give thanks.
But it is esp difficult to give thanks in everything. Did you catch what Paul says here? => “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving”
The phrase “with thanksgiving” is directly tied to the phrase “in everything.”
1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
How can we give thanks in everything? Does this include even during times of trouble, hardship, and suffering? Yes. But we need to note what this does not mean. It does not mean that we are to be thankful for the suffering itself. No one desires to suffer, and God does not desire for us to suffer. But we can give thanks to God even in the midst of suffering. It may not be easy, but we are to do so.
What makes this possible?
Knowing that God cares for You!
Knowing that God cares for You!
Grant Osborne:
Philippians: Verse by Verse The Means—Prayer Replacing Worry (4:6)
Our thanksgiving stems from God’s vigilant watch over us. The presence of God the Father and of his Spirit makes the difference. . . . Every crisis is an opportunity to watch the Spirit work! This is precisely where faith comes in. We are thankful that the Triune Godhead will take over, turning things around and giving us a way out (
The next time you find yourself between a rock and hard place, in a pinch, suffering, facing evil in the face—whatever it is—know that God is there right beside you. He cares for you. He is omniscient and omnipotent, and he is doing what is best for you.
CS Lewis:
"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
When we pray, brining out petitions to God, with thanksgiving, what will be the result?
4. Result (4:7)
4. Result (4:7)
And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
The Peace of God
The Peace of God
If we truly give our cares and requests to the Lord with thanksgiving, even in the midst of suffering, the Lord will fill us with his peace.
The kind of peace God gives is something the world cannot grasp or understand. This is what Paul says, isn’t it? It “surpasses all comprehension.”
“Comprehension” = lit “mind” => all human reasoning or rationality; the peace of God
“Surpasses” = lit “rise above” = Thus, Paul is saying that the peace of God rises above—goes above and beyond—all human reasoning.
What is this peace of God doing? => “guard[ing] our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
Psalm 28:7 “The Lord is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him.”
Conclusion
Conclusion
It’s easy to be thankful when everything is going your way, or you receive exactly what you want when you pray. But it is not so easy when life constantly throws you curve balls and suffering upon suffering keeps intruding your life.
Are trials and troubles fun? No. Is suffering enjoyable? No. But we, as Christians, have a promise. If we pray to the Lord with thankfulness in everything, then he will give us a peace that is incomprehensible.
Quadriplegic Joni Eareckson Tada. In her forward to Choosing Gratitude by Nancy De Moss, Joni writes:
“... many decades in a wheelchair have taught me to not segregate my Savior from the suffering he allows, as though a broken neck or in your case, a broken ankle, heart, or home merely ‘happens’ and then God shows up after the fact to wrestle something good out of it. No, the God of the Bible is bigger than that. Much bigger.
And so is the capacity of your soul. Maybe this wheelchair felt like a horrible tragedy in the beginning, but I give God thanks in my wheelchair…I’m grateful for my quadriplegia. It’s a bruising of a blessing. A gift wrapped in black. It’s the shadowy companion that walks with me daily, pulling and pushing me into the arms of my Savior. And that’s where the joy is…
Your ‘wheelchair,’ whatever it is, falls well within the overarching decrees of God. Your hardship and heartache come from His wise and kind hand and for that, you can be grateful. In it and for it.”
Question: Did you thank the Lord for everything this year?
