Prayer That Bring Peace

Introduction

-{Philippians 4}

-In my family I come from a long line of worriers—something handed down to the generations. My grandma was a worrier, my mom was a worrier, I am a worrier, and I won’t point out which of my kids got the worry gene, but they know who they are.

~I come by it naturally—my mom would worry about things that had nothing to do with her. I’ll give you an example:

My dad was a member of the Lions Club (and this is back in Wisconsin where I’m from) and they had this thing where Lions Club members would help transport donated organs from the local hospital to the big hospital in Milwaukee. My dad gets a call in the middle of the night to make this transport, and mom doesn’t want him to go alone, so they go do this thing.

~Well, while they’re in Milwaukee in the middle of the night mom sees this drunk guy walking down the street (which, unfortunately, in Wisconsin isn’t that strange of a sight). So, mom sees him and she gets all worried about his safety. She’s like: How’s he going to get home? What if he stumbles in front of a car and gets hit? What if this…what if that?

~She doesn’t even know the guy and she starts worrying about him. With that kind of worrying mentality, I never stood a chance.

-I jokingly say that the worry gene is passed down to me, but I do that as an excuse just like a lot of people make excuses about worrying. Instead of seeing worry for what it is, we excuse it, get defensive about it, instead of dealing with it.

-Worry has become acceptable in our world and our culture and now it has even become acceptable in our churches. But you know what, the same God that said DO NOT KILL also said DO NOT WORRY.

~That means we have to look at worry as the Bible looks at worry, and the Bible says that worry is a sin because it violates God’s commands.

~Now, after I said that, there’s some of you out there that got all offended and uptight about it, but am I wrong? I make that statement and there is an immediate response of resistance. Again, for some reason it’s become an acceptable sin, so we justify and excuse our worry, but whatever we’re saying to justify and excuse is nothing but lies. Because let’s get right down to it—when we worry, we’re saying God is untrustworthy.

~So, instead of getting offended and uptight and making excuses and justification, let’s listen to the Word of God, because I’m right there with you.

-So, what’s the cure for worry—prayer is the cure for worry because only prayer will lead us to peace rather than worry and anxiety and fear. We are told in Scripture to bring our concerns to God in prayer and then we receive peace. Not the peace that is a warm fuzzy feeling, but peace from God that surpasses all that.

-We’ve been doing a series on prayer, and I guess you could say we have a theme verse:

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16 ESV)

-And today in our passage we see that Paul wrote to the Philippians to not be anxious over life’s circumstances, but to bring all their concerns to God in prayer to receive His peace. And you have to understand their circumstances: Paul is writing this while in prison and the Philippian church is hearing this while they are being heavily persecuted for the faith. Both parties were in awful circumstances, and Paul says don’t worry, but pray.

~So, for us, instead of fretting and worrying, we Christians are told to bring our concerns to the throne of grace, and we will receive supernatural peace.

READ Philippians 4:4-7

Philippians 4:4–7 ESV

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

~So, how do we approach God in prayer to receive His peace?

1) Begin with right heart attitudes

-Paul begins this section again by saying REJOICE. And if you didn’t hear him the first time he repeats it.

~Again, you have to remember their circumstances: Paul is in prison and the Philippian Christians are persecuted. And yet he proclaims REJOICE

-He’s telling them and us that this is the attitude we take approaching the throne of grace in spite of the circumstances. In spite of the worry and fear and anxiety we REJOICE—in the midst of the hardship and suffering and whatever it is that you are all worried about, REJOICE

-You see, our joy is not based on what is going on in life, our joy is based on having a God who loved us enough to send His Son as a Savior for us, and that is nothing that will ever change. We rejoice knowing that since God took care of our biggest problem (which is sin), He is more than capable of taking care of our current problems and trials.

~You know what, life might stink and be tough, but I rejoice because I have Jesus. I have my problems, but I’m approaching the throne of grace and rejoicing that I even have the privilege of coming into His presence with my problems. Things are rough, but I also know that I am approaching a trustworthy God.

-But another part of our attitude in approaching God for peace in our worries is that of gentleness (ESV: reasonableness). The word means a humble, patient steadfastness that is able to submit to injustice, disgrace and even mistreatment without hatred and malice—trusting God in spite of it all.

~For the Philippians it meant their attitude toward their persecutors. When coming to the throne of God they didn’t come with anger or malice, and the attitude they showed people in life was not of bitterness and anger. They were gentle even toward those who hated them.

-Your worry or trouble might be caused by a person, but you aren’t coming to the throne of grace with a desire of retaliation. You know that the Lord is near to you and you have the light and power of Christ in your life, so in spite of even experiencing persecution, you are going to maintain a gentle, kind, courteous, even tolerant spirit toward that person so that you have the right heart attitude approaching God.

-Yes, we might be worried and fearful, but without this attitude of rejoicing and gentleness we will not experience God’s peace because our hearts are not ready to receive it. We come to God with joy and gentleness, attitudes that say: I am trusting the God who will take care of me in spite of my circumstances or these people...

2) Bring specific needs for intervention

-Paul says DON’T BE ANXIOUS, DON’T WORRY—but what are we to do instead. We are to approach the throne of grace and gives prayers and supplications, making our requests known to God. We are to have open lines of communication with God about what it is that is bothering us.

-It sounds strange to make known to God something that He already knows because He’s omniscient—He knows everything. But here’s the thing, God wants to hear from us, and God wants us to give Him the details about what it is that is causing us this worry and anxiety. He already knows it, but He wants us to communicate it to Him—this demonstrates that we do actually trust Him enough even with our biggest problems.

~In a sense, it is a release. I am telling God my problems, and I am turning them over to Him so that He can deal with them. If we choose not to tell God what worries us, we are in essence wanting to hold onto them and we’re saying that we choose to deal with them ourselves—and that never turns out good, does it?

-And so, we pray and give supplication—we verbalize either in thought or mouth what our requests are—we entreat God for His intervention, giving specific prayers in concrete situations.

-We see this demonstrated for us in the Psalms {whenever someone is going through something, I tell them to go to the Psalms because it puts to words what it is they’re feeling}—and what we find in the psalms is that David and the others say that in their trouble and because of their enemies and whatnot, they are going to call out to God and tell God all about it.

~David says in Psalm 30:8 TO YOU, O LORD, I CRY, AND TO THE LORD I PLEAD FOR MERCY…Psalm 142:1-2 WITH MY VOICE I CRY OUT TO THE LORD; WITH MY VOICE I PLEAD FOR MERCY TO THE LORD. I POUR OUT MY COMPLAINT BEFORE HIM; I TELL MY TROUBLE BEFORE HIM

-Do you hear David? He is pouring out his problems to the Lord, telling God all about it.

~Yes, sometimes there will be times when you just can’t seem to form the words. Sometimes, all you can do is cry out for help. Sometimes, as Paul talks about in Romans 8:26, our groanings are about all we can get out and we rely on the Spirit to intercede for us.

-But we are approaching God and telling Him our problems in prayers and supplications, making known our requests to God—pouring our worries at the foot of His throne.

-And Paul mentions something that I think is a key part of coming to the throne of grace and receiving God’s peace:

3) God’s past faithfulness is our basis for current trust

-Paul tells us not to be anxious, but by prayers and supplications WITH THANKSGIVING make our requests to God.

~Before we even receive the peace of God, before we even receive any sort of answer to our prayers and supplications, we are having a time of thanksgiving.

-That might sound a little bizarre—first he tells us to rejoice and now he tells us to have thanksgiving. That goes against our natural tendencies. I’m having these problems, I’m having these issues—what in the world do I have to rejoice about or be thankful for?

~Well if you actually pause to think about it, you have a lot to be thankful for. Paul is saying that as you approach the throne of grace, you recount everything God has done for you in your life and you give Him thanks for it, and it will remind you what God is capable of.

-Whatever is going on in our lives at the current moment that causes us worry and anxiety is all that we concentrate on, and it consumes us and we completely forget what God has done for us in the past. And if we forget what God has done for us in the past, we begin to think that He is incapable of helping us in the present.

-When we sprinkle in thanksgiving with our prayers and supplications, we are remembering how good God has been to us, and then our prayers take on a more hopeful and faith-filled flavor to them. When we give thanksgiving with our prayers our faith will grow.

~It’s a reminder to us that God was faithful and trustworthy before, He is more than capable and willing to take care of this issue, this circumstance, this problem. He’s proven Himself before, and He’ll prove Himself again.

~Sprinkle thanksgiving in with your prayers, and then with right heart attitude and giving our needs to God for intervention, we can:

4) Accept God’s supernatural peace

-You have the right heart attitudes, you approach the throne of grace to tell Him what you’re worried about (sprinkled with thanksgiving) and Paul says that the peace of God will come to you

~Now, this is not a promise that the peace you will receive is because of a change of circumstances. Paul is not saying that all your circumstances will just change in the blink of an eye and all will be well. I mean, it might because everything is possible with God, but there is no such guarantee about that.

-The peace from God is an overall well-being because of the relationship that you have with God through Jesus Christ and you being in a state of salvation. It is a peace knowing that now, after having borne your soul to God, as the cliché puts it the ball is in God’s court now. He has been given the burden, it’s His to deal with.

-Some things to know about this peace. First, it is a divine peace—a characteristic of God that He is willing to share with His children. That means that it is supernatural. It’s not peace like the world gives. The peace of the world goes with the ebb and flow of circumstances—if things go sideways, you lose your peace.

~Jesus told His disciples in John 14:27, and He promises us this, saying:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

~God gives this supernatural peace, and it takes away the trouble and worry of heart; not because circumstances change, but because we now are of the perspective that the supernatural God has it in His hands

-Second, it is a peace that surpasses understanding. This peace is not something that can be measured in a lab, cannot be read about in a book, or learned in a school. It excels over knowledge—it isn’t something we can necessarily understand and it isn’t something that we can even necessarily explain.

~Someone might ask for an explanation on how it happens and what it feels like and all these questions, and all we can say is that we don’t know—you go to God with your burden, and you come out with the peace.

~We are children of the enlightenment and we want everything written down in order with a detailed description and with footnotes and everything, and sometimes the things of God just don’t work that way. God inspired Paul to tell us that we let our requests known to God, and He gives supernatural peace. No other explanation is necessary because we wouldn’t understand it anyways.

-And then Paul tells us that this peace guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. That word for “guard” is a military word that speaks of soldiers on guard duty around the perimeter of a city keeping control of who goes in and out.

-God’s peace surrounds our hearts and protects us. One way it protects us is that it prevents Satan from shooting his flaming arrows at us. Satan wants to accuse us and to accuse God while we are vulnerable tempting us to believe that God is untrustworthy or tempting us to believe that God will not listen to us. He’s trying to keep us in our worries and anxieties. He’ll tempt us not to pray saying God won’t listen to the likes of us. But God’s peace will protect us with the truth.

~God’s peace also protects our hearts and minds from going where they ought not to go. When we have the peace of God we won’t start wandering into thinking about the WHAT IFS or settling in on the WHAT COULD BE’S. Instead, our mind is focused on God in Christ Jesus.

-And this peace is a byproduct or a fruit from our prayer—we walk away from the throne of grace different than when we entered—but it’s a God thing, it is not something that we just kind of conjured up in the flesh. And that is what we need when we have something giving us worry or fear or anxiety—but it only comes with prayer

Conclusion

-Author David Mackenzie came up with an interesting idea about turning our worries over to God in prayer. He wrote, saying:

To act out the principle of turning prayers over to God, we took a paper bag, wrote "God" on it, and taped it up high on the back of our kitchen door. As I prayed about matters such as my career, my role as a father, my abilities to be a good husband, I would write down each concern on a piece of paper. Then those pieces of paper would go in the bag. The rule was that if you start worrying about a matter of prayer that you've turned over to God, you have to climb up on a chair and fish it out of the bag. I don't want to admit how much time I spent sifting through those scraps of paper.

-How many times would we be fishing through that bag. When we have a worry, we turn it over to God in prayer and when we turn it over we receive peace. If you keep going back to get that concern, you haven’t turned it over, and you won’t have peace.

~Christian, maybe come to the altar today and give to the Lord in prayer whatever your burden is, and leave it there and receive His peace…

-But maybe you’re worried about your soul…