Thursday, October 28, 2021 Some material taken from Living Worthy of the Gospel Part 3
God’s Prescription For Anxiousness
In verses 6-9 of Philippians Chapter 4, Paul pretty much gives us a bullet list of how we can live out our faith in the middle of stress, chaos, a pandemic, or like him, prison. Pastor Sam told us Sunday that Paul gives us three steps in his prescription for peace:
Step one - pray and watch God’s peace surpass your understanding and guard your heart and mind.
Do not be anxious about anything: Paul starts off with what is likely the first thing we feel when our world gets crazy – anxiousness. Many struggle with anxiousness on a daily basis. It can really rob us of joy in life. Here Paul is telling us – this is not our business. God alone is the one who can handle all things and the things that most often make us anxious are the things we cannont control. This is God’s place, not ours.
But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God: What can we pray about? Everything. There is nothing that is off limits or of no concern to God. He cares about everything that we care about. Paul uses both prayer and supplication here because supplication is asking God to do something. Paul tells that God wants us to tell Him what we want – let your requests be made known to God. Don’t forget the with thanksgiving part. If we can be totally at peace in trusting God with all we bring befofe Him, we have nothing to be anxious about. God invites us to ask Him anything, but with a heart of thanksgiving for whatever the outcome is. He asks us to trust Him and His soverignty. He asks us to lay it down and let it go.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus: This peace we get from God – it is more than we can fathom and beyond our understanding. This peace becomes a guard over our hearts and minds. This peace which surpasses all understanding is a protective shield around our hearts and minds that keeps them at peace – the peace of God – no matter what is going on around us.
Step two, think about whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, or anything worthy of praise.
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things: This is how we keep God’s peace, we meditate on Him and the things that are glorifying to Him. If we fill our minds with the things of this world we no doubt will be consumed with anxiousness. Just spending too much time on social media scrolling, even if we don’t listen to the news, will have a negative affect on us. If we aren’t fearful because of what we read, we feel like a failure because our lives don’t look like what everyone else is posting. If we aren’t anxious about what we see that may or may not be true about the world, we fall into the comparison trap which also makes us anxious – about ourselves, our homes, our children, our marriage, even our pets.
Step three: practice all that you have heard and exemplified by Paul, and the God of peace will be with you.
What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you: No matter how crazy the world is or how terrible our circumstances are at times, if we bring everything before Him in prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, we can have this peace that passes any earthly understanding. We have this promise of this protection around our hearts and minds. When we make these steps a part of our lives every day, we truly can be anxious for nothing.
